by Lorinda K. F. Newton

Back in the mid-1980s, and a decade before the World Wide Web, one relied on brochures and word-of-mouth to learn about colleges.  Thus, one could only get limited information about a school in comparison to today.

I wanted to attend a Christian school as far away from home as possible while still remaining in Washington state. So, I chose Whitworth College (now a university) in Spokane.

Being a fan of different cultures, I appreciated Whitworth’s cross-cultural graduation requirement. I liked the small size as well. They had about a thousand undergraduate students at that time, seven hundred fewer than my Bellevue high school.

With the school being Presbyterian, I wondered how their beliefs would differ from mine. I grew up in the Evangelical Covenant Church, a denomination that stressed the study of God’s word with “where is it written” as a motto.

Lacking knowledge of church history, I assumed most Protestants believed nearly the same things about the Bible and the gospel. But, boy, was I naïve.

For January Term 1986, I took the Gospel of Mark, during which Dr. Dale Bruner introduced me to German Higher Criticism. I had no idea that some Christians questioned the authority of Scripture. My parents didn’t. My church didn’t discuss it. I thought only non-Christians did.

As a 19-year-old, I took the professor at his word. Yet, I still puzzled over these issues. Fortunately, because I had read the Bible extensively and took my faith seriously, this exposure to progressive theology didn’t rattle my faith. But the faith of many students has not fared as well.

Now, something more sinister than progressive theology lurks on college campuses. Not only has it completely infected the secular schools and the liberal Christian schools, but also conservative schools have fallen under the spell of this false doctrine: Critical Theory, aka Anti-racism, Social Justice, Wokeness, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

What Is a Christian Education?

Before explaining how Critical Theory conflicts with the mission of biblical Christian schools, I need to define what a Christian education is. David Young, in his article “Saving Christian Education,” puts it this way:

The promise of the Christian school is that it will demonstrate to its students and to the world that all truth is God’s truth and that Jesus is king over every corner of the universe. The Christian school takes captive every thought and presents it to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Young discusses ideas from Richard Hughes’s book,  Models for Christian Higher Education. According to Hughes, some schools conform to a “value-added model,” where a school may have a Christian faculty, Bible classes, and some religious programs.  Otherwise, its curricula vary little from what is taught at a secular university.

Others follow an “integrated model,” where all subjects are taught from a biblical worldview from the ground up. Young explains:

The purpose of this university is to demonstrate, using the magisterial treasures of the church, the Lordship of Jesus in every area of life. In this university, every effort is made to see the whole world as Christ sees it and to engage every discipline as followers of Jesus.

Young adds that such a school has students explore other perspectives as well but holds the Christian worldview as prominent.

Unfortunately, numerous American schools fall under the category Hughes described as a “historical model.” A university may have been founded on Christian principles but today is entirely secular due to mission drift.

Ideological Shifts

Initially, all but one of the Ivy League schools began as a place to train clergy. Over time, each drifted away from its roots, its mission corrupted by unbiblical ideas. Yet, up until around 1890, all American colleges and universities, even state colleges, required chapel attendance, providing at least the appearance of Christianity.

A major ideological shift occurred between 1880 and 1930 as Darwinian and German Higher Criticism ideas crept into college curricula. The 1920s saw a debate between the Modernist and the Fundamentalist Christians that split denominations. By the 1930s, naturalism and progressive theology dominated American colleges and universities. Many became totally secular.

In result, the fundamental Christians founded new Bible colleges to instruct students in an orthodox biblical worldview.

New Shift to Critical Theory

When America experienced a tectonic shift in cultural values in the 1960s, one of many philosophies that gained traction in academia was Critical Theory.  According to apologist Corey Miller of Ratio Christi, books on this topic grew popular among intellectuals in the 1960s. Some became professors who developed college courses for the subsets of Critical Theory, such as Critical Race Theory (CRT),[i] Gender Studies, and Women’s Issues. Such classes became common in the 1990s.

Now, this ideology permeates many disciplines in most halls of higher learning. Moreover, Bible-believing Christian schools have seen these ideas infiltrate onto their campuses as well.

What Is Critical Theory?

The term Critical Theory itself was first used by Max Horkheimer in an essay he wrote in 1937, “Traditional and Critical Theory.” The approach married the dialectical approach of philosopher G. W. F. Hegel to Marxism’s emphasis on class conflict, Nietzschean nihilism, and Sigmund Freud’s work on the subconscious. It amounted to a barrage of criticism of all the institutions of America and Europe, in order to bring down the entire edifice. (Mike Gonzalez and Jonathan Butcher, The Heritage Foundation)

Critical Theory (CT) sees society as a struggle between oppressors and oppressed groups. In CRT, whites are the oppressors and minorities the oppressed. 

The goal of CT is to liberate the oppressed, by force if necessary, and transform society. Salvation is found by eradicating the inequalities perceived to be caused by the oppressor.

As a worldview, CT answers common philosophical questions. I drew these ideas from author Scott David Allen’s book Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice. [ii]

• What is ultimate reality? “The human mind defines what is ultimately real.”
• What are humans? “Creatures whose identity is wholly socially determined. We are products of our race, sex, and gender identity.” All people are identified by their groups. Individuals don’t exist.
• What is our fundamental problem? “Oppression: white, heteronormative males have established and maintain hegemonic power structures to oppress and subjugate women, people of color, and sexual minorities.”
• What is the solution? “Revolution: Oppressed victims and their allies must unite to unmask, deconstruct, and overthrow these oppressive power structures, systems and institutions.” Everyone must become an activist to fight oppression. Anyone who resists is canceled. Forgiveness and grace don’t exist.
• How are we saved? “Victims are morally innocent and do not require salvation. Oppressors can never be fully pardoned, but partial salvation is available if they confess their complicity in oppression and support the revolution.”  These whites are called “allies.”
• How do we know the truth? Objective truth, reason, and logic are tools of the oppressor. The oppressed’s “lived experience” is the source of truth.[iii]

For a quick overview, here’s a video from the Colson Center.

In practice, CT’s goal is to destroy capitalism, Christianity, and Western Civilization. In contrast to a Marxist violent revolution, CT adherents have sought to control all the social institutions to transform American culture from the inside out.

Followers of this philosophy have worked for over a hundred years to gain positions of cultural power and have nearly succeeded at this goal. As a result, the CT worldview dominates the government, the media, the arts and entertainment, science, and education. Even many churches and Christian schools have succumbed to this false doctrine.

In part 2, I will explain how Christian schools have become “woke” and how Christians should respond.

Lorinda K. F. Newton began homeschooling her children in 2004, and her family joined Academy Northwest in 2014. Her family lives on beautiful Whidbey Island north of Seattle, Washington. She writes about faith, culture, and governing from a biblical worldview at Lorinda’s Ponderings. ©2021 by Lorinda K. F. Newton.

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[i]       The Heritage Foundation has written a succinct description of that philosophy. To dive deeper into this topic, see their 42-page report. You’ve probably heard the vocabulary of CRT such as “anti-racist” and “white privilege,” but the terms don’t carry the traditional meaning. For a glossary from the CRT point of view, see Racial Equity Tools; from a more objective and scholarly source, see New Discourses; for a Christian apologetic perspective, see Neil Shenvi’s Antiracism Glossary.

[ii]      Allen, Scott David. Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice: An Urgent Appeal to Fellow Christians in a Time of  Social Chaos. Credo Publishing House, 2020. p. 56-57.

[iii]     For an in-depth comparison of CT and Christianity, see Ratio Christi’s free e-booklet “Engaging Critical Theory and the Social Justice Movement.”