Most Christians today have heard of the Social Justice movement, or Critical Theory, as its underlying ideology is called. We know about the Black Lives Matter organisation, George Floyd and the riots in Portland and other America cities. We’re aware of ‘cancel culture’ and the fights over statues and street-names in the UK. We’ve seen some of the fruit of what has been called a ‘new religion’. But have we searched back to find its roots? Have we grasped what its aims are?

Towards a deeper understanding

Have we worked out how it aims to steal the clothing of Christianity and make the true faith literally unthinkable? Have we grasped the false gospel it offers and its implications for our kids and grandkids? Do we know how to educate them so they are not swept along? Most tricky of all: can we respond to Critical Theory without ourselves neglecting the urgent challenge of Jesus to look after those he calls ‘the poor’?

I’m writing as a father and grandfather, as a retired pastor, still part of a church leadership team and as someone involved in education all my life. My aim here is to raise the alarm about this new threat to society and Church, but also to point away from just alarmism towards deeper understanding and then practical action.

History of the movement

To find the roots of the Social Justice movement, we need to make the connections back to the Enlightenment, Marxism and Postmodernism. That sounds heavy indeed, but we can get a rough guide pretty quickly:

• The Enlightenment is the title given to Europe’s development of modern science and its move away from the authority of Christianity and towards a secular humanist worldview in the 18th century. We could summarise it as a mixed development: it focused on the rights individuals should be accorded by society. By ‘borrowing’ truths from Christianity, it helped to give us the idea of democratic societies which seek Truth and Progress, but the Enlightenment also undermined respect for biblical truth.

The Enlightenment helped to give us the idea of democratic societies which seek Truth and Progress, but it also undermined respect for biblical truth.

• Then, in the 19th century, Karl Marx claimed that this ‘Progress’ was a sham and predicted that Europe’s workers would reject the social injustices of capitalism and cause violent revolutions to overthrow the oppressors. This never happened in Europe.
• But then the 2 World Wars devastated the ideals of Western Progress, leaving Europe traumatised. Philosophers became deeply sceptical of every ‘Big Picture’ ideology. These were statements which claimed to be universal Truth – capitalism (which had seemed to feed off the wars), nationalism (which had seemed to stoke the fires of conflict), and Christianity (which had blessed the troops heading to the battlefields). Because of this pessimistic scepticism, these so-called ‘post-modern’ philosophers declared that humanity’s search for Truth had come to an end. Reliable, objective knowledge of reality was just not available.

In fact this radical scepticism created a gaping hole at the core of life, saying, in effect that we humans can’t really know anything about Truth because knowledge in our oppressive society is controlled by the dominant elite. The solution, said postmodernists, is to take down all the ‘big picture’ narratives which control society – capitalism, nationalism, Christianity etc. – then just maybe some perspective on Truth and Reality might emerge through the voices of the oppressed.

Critical Theory/ Marxism 2.0

So Critical Theory arose out of the Enlightenment but rejected its vision of Progress which, after 2 World Wars, looked like naïve optimism. In a similar way, it drew on a Marxist analysis of all societies as economically oppressive towards the masses, but rejected it as a Big Picture universal narrative, exploring instead the sorts of oppression it claims occur culturally.

Critical Theory arose out of the Enlightenment but rejected its vision of Progress which, after 2 World Wars, looked like naïve optimism.

So Critical Theory/Marxism 2.0 goes something like this:

Because white Western people, particularly heterosexual men, have gained dominance over much of the world, the social systems they have created are irredeemably racist, sexist and oppressive from top to bottom and will always be so. Even if all white people learned to not be racist in their personal attitudes, the racist cultural systems are so deeply entrenched that only a revolution which silences the privileged, dismantles society and builds again from scratch can fix the problem.

That revolution is now in progress around us. It is well-advanced in the United States, but also fast gaining influence in the UK and in some British churches too.

This is why we are told that white, heterosexual males must be silenced and their statues taken down. This is why society must stop and listen to the voices of the oppressed minorities – and only their voices – as these are the only ‘Truth’ we will ever hear. It’s also why quotas must now determine what proportion of a company’s workforce will be women, people of colour, gay, disabled, transgender etc.

Inherent problems

All this can sound fair, perhaps, because racial prejudice is a reality in the United States in a way that it is not in the UK. (Slavery has never taken place on British soil in the way that it was part and parcel of 19th century America). But this worldview and plan of action is flawed at every level.

This is why society must stop and listen to the voices of the oppressed minorities – and only their voices – as these are the only ‘Truth’ we will ever hear.

First of all, Critical Theory takes its stand on the cultural relativism of postmodernism: All cultures are meaningful, but only to themselves. There is no ‘better culture’ or indeed any way to measure one culture’s value against another. Minority cultures have been oppressed, so now need to be broadcast loud and clear. All the Big Picture narratives must stand aside for this to happen.

Secondly, we realise that Critical Theory has covertly created its own narrative which claims to be universally true – that all societies are systemically, institutionally and irredeemably racist and must be rebuilt from scratch. Having cleared away the ‘statues’ of Western civilisation, Critical Theory now erects its own Big Picture narrative – its own statue of oppressive Truth-Which-Cannot-Be-Questioned.

The third problem is the way the ‘Social Justice’ movement seeks to put itself above and beyond debate and discussion. It carries out a clever ‘ad hominem’ attack to shame anyone who questions its solution to social injustices. It puts the questioner in a double-bind: ‘The fact that you are disagreeing with our analysis of society is just all the more evidence that you are protecting your privilege. You are not part of the solution. You’re part of the problem.’ So much for freedom of speech and open debate based on evidence.

Having cleared away the ‘statues’ of Western civilisation, Critical Theory now erects its own Big Picture narrative – its own statue of oppressive Truth-Which-Cannot-Be-Questioned.

Critical Theory paints a bald and dark picture of the world, insisting that everywhere whites oppress blacks, men oppress women, the West oppressed the colonies, heterosexuals oppress homosexuals and transgender people, the able-bodied oppress the disabled and the thin oppress the obese. The remedy is for the institutions of the State to legally re-structure society to restrain and silence the dominant groups and to favour all these minority groups.

Part 2 will attempt to answer the questions set at the beginning of this article. Meanwhile you might find these short videos helpful:

• Critical Theory is Practical (7:38)
• Is Critical theory Biblical? (5:49)
• On rejecting Critical Theory and racism (5:35) [Neil Shenvi is a Christian]

Andy Fraser is a retired pastor and university lecturer with concerns for the generation of his 7 grandkids. 

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