The ideas that serve as the foundation of Kingdom Race Theology are dangerous and destructive. When paired with the challenges evident within the SBC, this work will take Southern Baptists in a dangerously leftward direction. KRT lacks biblical definitions of anthropology. It applies partiality to ethnic hatred—assuming that only whites (the group with power) can express racism. And while Evans distances himself from CRT, his version of Kingdom Race Theology embraces all of CRT’s problematic presuppositions. 

Tony Evans is the senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas. Evans is also an author and an entrepreneur. His radio show, The Alternative with Tony Evans, can be heard on 1,400 stations in 130 countries. Evans has been a faithful gospel minister for more than four decades. His imprint on evangelicalism is commendable.

At 72 years old, Evans, a non-denominational Pastor, has partnered with the Southern Baptist Convention on a new project. During the SBC’s annual meeting, leaders announced the Unify Project, a racial reconciliation program to equip SBC churches to work together for racial unity. The project, led by outgoing SBC President Ed Litton and former President Fred Luter, is in partnership with Evans’s organization, The Urban Initiative.

In light of recent SBC resolutions on critical race theory (CRT) and this new partnership, I thought to examine Evans’s recent work on the subject of “race.” As Evans is offering an alternative to CRT called Kingdom Race Theology (KRT), this article will demonstrate the dangerous definitions that serve as the foundation for KRT.

A Brief Background

Like Evans, I have witnessed the ethnic division fomenting in the culture. Many who read this blog are familiar with the Just Thinking Podcast and the work Darrell Harrison and I have done over the past four years. Our efforts aim to equip church leaders and members to respond biblically to ethnic hatred, Black Lives Matter, and Critical Race Theory.

Evans’s book, Kingdom Race Theology: God’s Answer to Our Racial Crisis, has been promoted as an alternative to Critical Race Theory (CRT). In addition to the book, Evans delivered a series of messages on Kingdom Race Theology (KRT) to his congregation in 2021. As expected, Evans’s talks were engaging, entertaining, and educational.

Racism That Doesn’t Require a Racist

In his address to his congregation, Evans took the time to define key terms: racism, critical race theory, and systemic racism. Examining the definitions selected for these terms is essential to understanding the basis of his philosophical position and direction. In this article, we’ll examine each term.

Evans stated that some of the ideas he’d define, though debated by others, could prove valuable if only these ideas were appreciated and more closely examined.

In his book, Evans makes this point when he writes,

People reject these concepts, ideologies, and viewpoints out of hand rather than pursuing an honest intellectual exchange on what may be valuable.
Kingdom Race Theology, 18.

As Evans addressed his congregation, it was apparent that he believed KRT strikes the right balance between those who oppose him on either side. In making this claim, Evans presents a “third way” of addressing the issues of “race.”

While acknowledging contemporary objections to CRT, Evans views its criticism as primarily the fault of “bad actors” who have misused it for ignoble purposes. As to who the bad actors are? Evans blames the author of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Black Lives Matter founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi for the problems others have with CRT.

The work of loving our neighbor isn’t determined by an ever-changing postmodern definition of oppression, where society is reshaped in order to coddle the most easily offended.

In his book published in 2011, titled Oneness Embraced: A Kingdom Race Theology for Reconciliation, Unity, and Justice, Evans details his understanding of the Marxist origins of CRT. However, much of the information on CRT’s origin is absent in this current work, Kingdom Race Theology. While Evans clarifies that he believes that Marxist theory is antithetical to a biblical worldview, Evans still holds that relevant components of CRT can help identify racist practices.

Bringing the point home, Evans writes,

While an individual today may not be personally racist, they can contribute to the racist structures by supporting the inequitable systems still in place, or by denying that they exist.
Kingdom Race Theology, 36.

Evans continues,

If you are a nonracist yourself but do not actively oppose racism (willing to speak or work against racism and racist systems where they show up), you are failing to fulfill the whole letter of the law of love (Rom 13:8).
Kingdom Race Theology, 36.

Here, Evans misuses Scripture to punctuate a point more fittingly voiced by those promoting the gospel of anti-racism instead of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In his book, How to Be an Antiracist, CRT activist Ibram X. Kendi writes,

The opposite of racist isn’t “not racist.” It is “anti-racist.” What’s the difference? . . . One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.”
Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist.

Kendi’s evangelical call to the work of anti-racism is clear. There’s no middle ground; either you’re a racist, or you’re an anti-racist doing the work necessary, as determined by Kendi.

Evans embraces the same approach; the opposite of racist isn’t “not racist,” but instead, you must do the work of anti-racism against the systems believed to be culpable. For good measure, Evans adds a Scripture verse, as if to say, “in Jesus’s name,” using Romans 13:8 as a reference.

However, Paul is not writing to the Christians in Rome with the admonition to work against racist systems. Furthermore, the work of loving our neighbor is not determined by an ever-changing postmodern definition of oppression, where society is reshaped in order to coddle the most easily offended. Instead, the loving neighbor is defined by the objective standards for love as found in Scripture (1 Cor 13:4–8). In addition, love is motivated by what Christ has accomplished in the heart of the believer, which may or may not include a full court press on every racialized front.

Dangerous Definition: Critical Race Theory

What Evans is offering is the same worldly message delivered by Kendi and those promoting the false religion of CRT. The advancing message is a gospel of works-righteousness which doesn’t atone for sins, is insufficient to save, and its work never ends.

Next, Evans defines critical race theory as

a post-civil rights social construct that seeks to demonstrate how the embedded foundation and filter through which racist attitudes, behavior, policies, and structures have been rooted throughout the fabric of American life and systems even after those laws were changed.
Kingdom Race Theology, 15.

While the language is lengthy and ambiguous, what Evans delivers is but one of CRT’s presuppositions: The foundation of American culture is built upon racism.

However, Evans misses the mark, ignoring what CRT scholars admit are the stated goals of CRT praxis.

Richard Delgado has been involved with CRT since its beginning in 1989. As a pioneer of CRT, some believe him to be its grandfather. Delgado provided the ideological space for its scholars to craft their work. As such, he clearly understands CRT theory and praxis. Delgado, a civil rights lawyer and critical race theorist, is currently a teaching professor of CRT at the University of Alabama.

In his book, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, Richard Delgado writes,

The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars engaged in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, setting, group and self-interest, emotions, and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights discourses, which stress incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of Constitutional law.

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