Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 26:2 (Summer 2022)
Article: A Biblical Analysis Of Critical Race Theory
Author: Adam W. Day

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A Biblical Analysis Of Critical Race Theory

Adam W. Day

Adam W. Day is Associate Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Tyndale Theological Seminary, Netherlands. He earned his PhD in New Testament from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of Jesus, the Isaianic Servant: Quotations and Allusions in the Gospel of John (Gorgias Press, 2018) and has written articles for the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Presbyterion, and Bulletin for Biblical Research. He previously taught at the International Graduate School of Leadership, Manila, Philippines. He and his wife, Anna, have three children: Luke, Caleb, and Kara.

Prior to its mention by President Trump in the first presidential debate of 2020, many Americans were unfamiliar with the term “Critical Race Theory.” However, the past decade has seen various terms from Critical Race Theory (CRT) make their way into the popular consciousness, such as “systemic racism,” “white privilege,”“1619 Project,” “woke,” among others. Discussions around the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown (and others), often utilize language and terminology from CRT, whether the average person is aware of it or not.

Though CRT—or, at least, language borrowed from CRT—has become ubiquitous in our conversations surrounding race, many Christians have neither analyzed the key tenets of CRT nor considered these tenets in light of a Christian worldview. A potential danger for Christians is what one scholar calls “hermit crab integration.” “Hermit crab theology” as Thaddeus Williams describes it, “takes Jesus and jams him inside the preexisting shell of some extrabiblical ideology.”1 The problem with this model is that we cannot utilize a structure that is antithetical to the Christian worldview

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and try to “make” it Christian. The Christian message would get distorted and shaped by this competing worldview, so that it is no longer Christian. The question Christians must ask is, are we at risk of falling into “hermit crab theology” in relation to CRT? Are we taking the “shell” an ideology or system that is antithetical to the Christian worldview and trying to force a Christian paradigm within that framework?

The very act of questioning CRT usually comes along with accusations of racism or claims that those who oppose it are against justice. However, we must not resort to ad hominem attacks, but rather seek to understand a view and rightly compare and contrast it with the teaching of Scripture and Christian theology. When we consider the con...