The latest installment of Grove City College’s grapple with critical race theory came on September 27 in the form of a panel discussion sponsored by the Institute for Faith and Freedom. Featuring Dr. Paul Kengor and Carl Trueman, the spotlight for the event fell on guest panelist Monique Duson, founder of the Center for Biblical Unity. Ms. Duson spent more than two decades advocating for critical race theory before changing her opinion and is now an outspoken voice against CRT.
Duson, Kengor, and Trueman covered significant ground in their examination of critical race theory. The three panelists hit areas including the intersection between critical theory and activism, discussed direct quotes from CRT theorists like Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, engaged in a justified hardline criticism of modern CRT-adjacent activists like Ibram Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, and talked about CRT’s inconsistencies with Biblical ideals. “Critical race theory isn’t necessarily about having this critical thinking lens, it’s about adopting the narrative,” said Duson.
“When I think critically about critical race theory as a black woman… I am then ostracized,” maintained Duson, asking, “Am I allowed to think critically or am I not?”
The panelists avoided referencing critiques from CRT critics like Chris Rufo and James Lindsay, quoting Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic’s words on CRT’s activist elements. “CRT is not about critique so much as it is about activism,” noted Trueman, although he pointed out after the event that he still believes that, academically understood, critical theory is “highly problematic but deserving of serious attention and refutation.”
Duson’s perspective, as a former CRT devotee and someone who has experience standing for issues like social justice and inequality, was an invaluable asset to a college and community audience struggling with the questions of how best to handle issues of race and discussions of CRT. There’s just one problem—it would have been nice if she’d actually been able to give it.
At no point during the event was the fact that Duson was once a proponent of CRT and believed it to be consistent with Biblical ideals mentioned
While neither I nor anyone else in attendance can judge intent, the message presented was clear: we must avoid the idea that Christians can hold to critical theory in good faith, even as a reference to past views for the purpose of argument, contextualization, or intellectual exploration.
Make no mistake, many of the criticisms and arguments raised at the panel were perfectly legitimate. While there were likely areas of past disagreement and present nuance between the three minds on stage, however, a listener wouldn’t have known it from their conversation.
As a journalist and someone deeply concerned about the manner in which Christian communities talk about race, this strikes me as an oversight that, even if unintentional, reveals a blindspot in our understanding of racial conversations: we must be willing to entertain the possibility that people can believe in bad theories for good faith reasons.
I don’t blame any of the panelists for this. I’m blessed to know Drs. Trueman and Kengor personally, and the brief conversation I had with Duson indicated that all three panelists came into the event with the right motivations. Yet even the best of motivations can’t elicit an intellectually rigorous response from an audience if the structure of an event isn’t designed to foster one. And an event that does not inquire into difficult pasts or ask the hard questions fosters an intellectually-cheap response.
Neither faith nor freedom excuse us from difficult conversations. Conversely, they necessitate them.
If the Institute put on an event about Marxism’s compatibility with Christianity and brought in a former Marxist to discuss the issue, it would hardly be too controversial to, at some point, turn to him and ask, “You used to be a Marxist, and now you’re not. What changed?” On the contrary, it would be a disservice to the audience to not ask such a question. Why did we not do the same with Monique Duson and CRT?
“If we are going to be Christ-centered, Christ-focused first, I must look at the word of God and say, ‘What does the Word of God say?’ The Word of God is our standard by which I identify the things that are good, true, and beautiful. And if I am going to use a sociological lens to define the good, true, and beautiful, I must understand that I am no longer participating within the realm of Christianity first. Sociology is first,” Duson said regarding the posture of critical theory.
Duson herself, however, historically took this posture. Her years as a proponent of CRT attest that she had not always “participat[ed] within the realm of Christianity first” but has struggled to order her participation in Christianity and sociology. Why did we not address this struggle while Duson was on our campus? Why did we not query her for lessons learned from such a struggle?
Grappling with philosophies in an intellectually honest manner, even philosophies incompatible with Christianity, requires that we confront the possibility that our ideological opponents are coming to the issues in good faith – and that an issue might bear more complexity than two opposing sides. This shouldn’t be difficult. Neither faith nor freedom excuse us from difficult conversations. Conversely, they necessitate them.
Carl Trueman shares the sentiment that last Tuesday’s event shouldn’t be the end of Grove City’s CRT conversation. “It would have been interesting and helpful, I think, to have had Monique give her life story, especially her work among the marginalized in South Africa,” he remarked after the event. “A further discussion might also be helpful—hopefully the quotations from Kendi and DiAngelo showed just how insubstantial and unworthy of serious engagement the popular writings about ‘whiteness’ and ‘anti-racism’ are. Sophisticated CRT is a different story.”
Treuman’s words are right. Sophisticated theories don’t become crystal-clear in a 90-minute panel discussion. On a broader level, however, we need to be realistic about what this event – and events like it – do and don’t do.
Did the Institute’s panel discussion further reassure anti-CRT Christians of the rationality of their own positions? Definitely. Did it potentially convince Christians on the fence about CRT of the incompatibility of pop-CRT and Biblical Christianity? Possibly.
Did it persuade Christians who believe in CRT for good faith reasons to reconsider their position? Probably not, and maybe that was never the intent.
But if so, perhaps that’s part of the problem.
Amen