What they are promoting in our universities and colleges: Critical Theory insists that societies are oppressed by a hegemony of powerful ruling interests. People can be divided between those who are complicit with the hegemony and those who resist it. God does not exist. He is not a consideration. Evolution and billions of years did away with God and His Word. Take away the Creator God who made man in His image. the origin of death – man’s sin of rebellion, then who needs a Saviour? Who needs Jesus?

Humanity is viewed as divided between powerful privileged groups and powerless victim groups (and their declared allies).

‘Resource equity’ is the phrase used to demand equal outcomes between groups. In terms of knowledge, only those who have lived experience of suffering oppression can claim true knowledge of that oppression. In academic circles, this is referred to as ‘standpoint theory’. Different people have access to different truths. Those deemed to have multiple layers of privilege may be stripped of any right to comment on the position of those with less privilege. They are not allowed to question their claims.

They may be banned from speaking in public (‘Noplatforming’ is barring someone from speaking because they do not agree with certain views). People without privilege may need to be protected from hearing any opinions which damage them. The only option for those with privilege is to declare themselves to be allies of those without privilege (i.e. accept their accounts of ‘truth’). Proponents of critical theory know that their claims can’t be exposed to external critique. They have the ‘hidden knowledge’ of lived experience.

MULTIPLE TRUTHS

In 2017, Evergreen College in Washington State in the USA hit international headlines. The socially progressive president had been encouraging students to oppose any perceived discrimination, and he had an informal system of labelling faculty as either allies or enemies.

One of the teaching staff, Professor Bret Weinstein, asserted in an email: On a college campus, one’s right to speak — or to be — must never be based on skin color. But Weinstein was told by colleagues that ‘there are multiple versions of “truth” that exist at once’. And he was warned to accept the experience of minority students without question: If our students are telling us … that they are experiencing a hostile environment, we must take our students at their word. On one level, there’s still the belief that there’s no universal truth. But some activists imply that those without privilege have access to a truth that the privileged can never enjoy. The only hope for the privileged is to sign up as allies of those without privilege.

A free society should ensure equal opportunities. All human beings made in God’s image should have the opportunity to flourish. But human beings are different. There will always be a wide variety of abilities, competence, energy, motivation, and integrity. Enforcing equal outcomes demands social engineering on a vast scale. It assumes state intervention in every aspect of life. It signals the end of a free society.

God’s Word tells us that this would be the state of the world prior to Jesus’ second coming to restore righteousness. We are yet to see it, but we are heading for a one-world government, the Antichrist and the Mark of the Beast.

INJUSTICE MULTIPLIED

Critical Legal Theory: Use the Law to Right Past Wrongs: Ideas like ‘equality before the law’ and ‘justice is blind’ were part of the ‘hegemony’ of power by which the privileged kept victims oppressed.

Critical Legal Theory: New Injustices Perpetrated If someone is part of a victim class, their crime may be excused if it is thought to result from their disadvantage. We are no longer equal before the law.

‘Hate’ legislation means that if an alleged victim (or someone else) ‘perceives’ that hate has motivated a crime, then the sentence can be heavier. The law is a means by which to advance the ‘progressive’ agenda (e.g. abortion rights, same-sex marriage, or self-declaration of gender). Justice is no longer blind. Judges take on too much power when they create laws rather than applying laws.

A BREAKDOWN IN THE LOGIC OF CIVILISATION

Critical theory aims to dissolve the universe of meaning by denying the existence of objective universal truth.

If we can’t appeal to reason and logic there can be no reasoned debate. On what shared basis can civilisation continue? Such a society is vulnerable to tyranny. The subjective judgements of the loudest voices win. Those who resort to violence and intimidation are given a free pass. The great political philosopher Edmund Burke observed: Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. Burke was writing in the context of the French Revolution. The dream of equality led straight to the ‘reign of terror’. Once universal truth has been denied, discrete groups claim their own ‘truth’ (aka experience of oppression) which others cannot comprehend. Reasoned debate is not an option. Violence is the only possible means to the end of perfect equality. That threatens the basic logic of civilisation.

Fortunately, Christians can affirm with confidence that there is such a thing as objective universal truth. And we are able to communicate with others, whatever their group identity because all human beings have been given the priceless gift of reason by their Creator.

“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:12-14