Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Truth Exchange podcast. This is a weekly program with Doctor Jeffrey J. Ventrella, where he answers questions from subscribers around the globe, answering questions about worldview, cultural apologetics, and other miscellaneous items. I'm your host, Joshua Guillotine, and this is another edition of the director's Bag.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Greg from Nevada says, dear Jeff, I've.
[00:00:31] Speaker C: Been reflecting on your series of dictas on CRT, and it occurred to me that if christians make use of CRT as a tool in understanding worldview, would.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Not that also apply to God, especially since we believe that he is God almighty as the ultimate source of power, wouldn't that make him evil?
Or is that a straw man understanding of CRT?
I don't think. I think there's some, some part of that question it might be missing. But going back to your dicta, Jeff, I think he's referring to the power and oppressed versus oppressor. And it looking through that CRT as a worldview, God is. Then he says he's all powerful. He's therefore the oppressor.
[00:01:19] Speaker D: Yeah, no, I appreciate the nuance of the question and his caution. You know, the humility of the question is quite good. The answer is, you're precisely right.
[00:01:29] Speaker E: Critical theory.
[00:01:31] Speaker D: And one of the big architects of it was a professor named Herbert Marcuse. In the 1950s, Marcuse wrote a book called Eros and civilization. And there what he pondered was, in order for critical theory to ascend, it encounters two obstacles.
In particular, it encounters what he calls the patriarchal, monogamous family, that is to say, Christianity's version of what it means.
[00:02:03] Speaker E: To be a sexual creature.
[00:02:04] Speaker D: And he says, we must get rid of it. We must bulldoze it, we must dismantle it. And the second obstacle is a general obstacle, and it is Christianity. And the reason is because it has an all powerful God and that much.
[00:02:21] Speaker E: Power, they would view exactly as your.
[00:02:23] Speaker D: Question touches, as the oppressor. So critical theory is incompatible, not only in application but in design, with the christian worldview. And, in fact, its designers have targeted and called out specifically the christian view of the world and the Christian God as being obstacles that must be put aside and dismantled.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Jeff, you've been practicing law before, truth exchange and other ministries that you've worked.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: With for a number of years.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: And I was wondering when CRT at least budded to fruition of what we're seeing now in the culture with at least just in the past 510 years. I just wondered, is CRT something that you guys were seeing in law, in your practice of law in the eighties and the nineties. And in the turn of the century.
[00:03:23] Speaker D: Yes, of course, the notion of one of the tools of critical theory was called intersectionality. Kimberly Crenshaw invented it in an essay in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, legal education took a version of critical theory and called it critical legal theory. And this was the rage, particularly at Harvard, where Derek Bell was teaching. He was the founder of critical legal studies and critical race theory. And so it was imbued into the curricula of a number of the elite schools. So we began to see it in the sense of critical legal studies. We call them the crits. That's what people called them during the day. And then it was subsequent to that that critical race theory went into the mainstream, though it had been in existence for a long time, many decades. But now it's popularized with, we call.
[00:04:23] Speaker E: It CRT, or critical race theory.
[00:04:26] Speaker D: But, yeah, but unfortunately, most practitioners of law are very practical. They don't think of the very important question, the why question. Just assume the client wants to do this. Let's figure out a way to do that. But instead of understanding the nature of. So where does this come up? Definitions. What's the role of law? How should we craft new laws? How should we articulate how law applies? Those are the kinds of questions that most mainstream practicing lawyers simply do not do.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Is there. Is there.
I'm totally derailing from our focus, but it just makes me wonder that then, like, some of this stuff, it just seems completely absurd.
And I just wonder, are there, like, is, are there judges that buy into this and so that they propagate and it keeps going on and it grows more into society? Or is this. Or do some judges see the.
The utter, like, complete fallacy and the nonsense of this kind of thinking and rationale?
[00:05:33] Speaker D: Yeah. So the reality is that many jurists see this as their mission. They were trained in this. They were steeped in it. They don't, if they even profess a christian view of things, they certainly have it detached from the legal enterprise. Let me give you a great example. Last year, we had the students for fair admission case, which challenged the admission policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. And those policies were predicated upon, essentially, notions of critical theory, including critical race theory.
Those were rejected by the Supreme Court in a very close vote. But I would encourage our readers, and you can look at this at no cost. Online you can find the concurring opinion of justice Thomas. And part four of that concurring opinion by Justice Thomas engages in the dissent of Justice Jackson.
[00:06:37] Speaker E: What Justice Jackson sets forth in her.
[00:06:40] Speaker D: Dissent is essentially an analysis predicated upon critical theory and critical race theory, and Justice Thomas both exposes it and dismantles it and rebuts it. So, to answer to your question, do judges see the absurdity of it? Some do, but some promote it.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Next up, we have Ruth from Jackson, Mississippi.
[00:07:03] Speaker C: Dear Doctor Vendrella, in your recent dicta, you call the state a servant and.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Minister to the Lord.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: And if I'm not mistaken, that is.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Also how scripture refers to the government in romans 13 and maybe other places as well.
[00:07:18] Speaker C: What are your thoughts on how christians are to respond to tyrannical governments today? And could those same thoughts and rules be applied to christians in the first couple of centuries?
[00:07:30] Speaker D: Yeah, thank you so much for that question.
[00:07:33] Speaker E: How we understand the theology of the.
[00:07:35] Speaker D: State really does matter, and we don't.
[00:07:37] Speaker E: Have to guess here.
[00:07:38] Speaker D: Scripture has given us broad outlines, and you're correct.
[00:07:42] Speaker E: The reference to the state as being.
[00:07:45] Speaker D: A servant comes directly from the hand of Paul, where he uses the word where we get deacon diacon in Romans chapter 13. So the state in the nature of.
[00:07:57] Speaker E: The case is to be a servant.
[00:07:59] Speaker D: And because of that, God has granted the state power to be coercive.
[00:08:05] Speaker E: That's the nature of the state.
[00:08:06] Speaker D: And so we have to be careful. We don't want to put things in the jurisdiction of the state that we ought not put in the jurisdiction of the state because it has power. Now, how do we think about this?
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Like sacraments and things of that nature, word and sacraments?
[00:08:20] Speaker D: Not only sure, but also there are.
[00:08:23] Speaker E: Areas where the state should not be.
[00:08:26] Speaker D: Involved just in terms of governance. The state is designed to preserve liberty, people, because mankind was created free. So it's to play, excuse me, referee.
So that we can freely roam and do the things we're called to do as churches, as citizens, and so on and so forth.
[00:08:47] Speaker E: As to the history of how we.
[00:08:49] Speaker D: Engage with Caesar, let's just call the state Caesar. I would encourage people to look up a book by a friend of mine called Glenn Sun Sunshine. The book is called Slaying Leviathan. And what he does is he presents a theological and historical overview of how Christians have opposed tyrannical governments. Second of all, there's a fairly recent book by Michael Byrd and Tom Wright called Jesus and the Powers.
[00:09:21] Speaker E: In there, they talk about both civil.
[00:09:23] Speaker D: Disobedience and uncivil disobedience, the idea being where things are utterly tyrannical and utterly evil, such as Nazi Germany, Christians may be called to uncivil disobedience. They define that as actually picking up arms, act of resistance, whereas civil disobedience is a voicing or opposition to particular things and being willing to submit to the consequences of that, whatever Caesar does. John Calvin talked about the doctrine of the lesser magistrate.
When a monarch or a governmental system gets so tyrannical, you need to have justification of doing uncivil disobedience. And that would be through the authority and recognition of a lesser magistrate to be able to do that. So there is a christian tradition, and we have christian examples, when there was a speech code imposed upon Peter in.
[00:10:28] Speaker E: Acts chapter five, you may not speak.
[00:10:30] Speaker D: Against in the name of this jesus. Again, they said, you know what? We're going to obey God, not man. So the doctrine is when the state requires a person to directly do what God has said you cannot do, like, say, perform an abortion, or to not speak, to refrain from doing something God is required to do, you may resist that and not comply. We saw this in the Obamacare era where the mandatory health care required christian institutions to enter into contracts that would provide the killing of innocent persons, particularly the unborn. And a number of people opposed that. And in fact, one in the United States Supreme Court, the hobby lobby case, would be one example of that.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: I've noticed there's been a huge interest in this kind of question, specifically relating to romans 13. We saw that certainly with COVID We saw that with the. Just even ten years ago or so with the.
The county clerk in Kentucky, was it, who was refusing to sign on marriage licenses. I remember there was a whole dust up. She should just do her job. Another rising to her defense, saying, no, what she's doing is biblical.
[00:11:51] Speaker D: Yeah, it's the Davis case. And again, the question is, you take an oath if you're a civil servant. And so the question is, how do you navigate that in that particular situation? And what she could have done is simply transferred that to someone else saying, look, I'm not comfortable working on this particular situation. The analogous position would be an ob gyn nurse who loves delivering babies and caring for young infants, but has been asked to participate actively in an abortion. She could simply say, I decline to do that because of my conscience and religious convictions. I'll take no part in that. So there's ways to, I think, navigate that. We don't always have to put thumbs in our supervisors eyes, but think we need to speak clearly with respect to that.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah, excellent. Another question following this same line of thinking and question is from Gabriel in Pensacola, Florida. And he says, I don't see in scripture. Anywhere where there's a command for how the government is to operate, you mentioned they are servants. And where's the manual for Nero or Titus how to operate?
[00:13:05] Speaker D: Yeah, that's kind of a very direct question.
[00:13:09] Speaker E: Let's start where we should start.
[00:13:10] Speaker D: In the beginning, in the creation, creating all things.
[00:13:14] Speaker E: And we see that it was Tohu Vahotu.
[00:13:17] Speaker D: It was formless and void. And what did God do? He formed it and he filled it.
[00:13:27] Speaker E: This tells us that God prefers order.
[00:13:30] Speaker D: And content as opposed to chaos and anarchy. Well, the same is true when God liberated people from Egypt. What did he do? You're free now. Do whatever you want. Did he say, look at the natural law and just figure out how to live? No. He granted them particular parameters and structures.
[00:13:55] Speaker E: Within which to exercise their liberty.
[00:13:58] Speaker D: As Augustine has taught us, we are not free from. We are free unto how to live in the most pleasing way to the Lord our God, our creator and redeemer. And so then when it comes to Caesar or what we might call the civil magistrate, we in fact are not witnessless. We have romans 13, we have one Peter. But we also see in the older testament things like righteousness exalts a nation. That is to say, a coming together of a nation ought to pursue that which is righteous collectively. We see in proverbs 28 very directly those who forsake the law, speaking of the law of God, praise the wicked.
So nations are not to praise the wicked.
[00:14:51] Speaker E: Rather, they are to use the true.
[00:14:53] Speaker D: And reliable standard of the law of God upon which to predicate what we call the positive law, not just photocopy the Ten Commandments or the book of Leviticus and say, okay, state legislature, enact these sorts of things, but together to use the wisdom that comes from this law of God in such a way that we can make more accountable sorts of rulings with respect to that. And then I think a third point we should see is that we see this when the people wanted a king like the other nations. And that whole idea there, that's one Samuel eight. God warned them and said, hey, I'm your king. And, well, we want to be like the other nations. We want to have this person do this. He said, okay, but he's going to lord it over you. He's a fallen man. It's going to be difficult.
[00:15:49] Speaker E: He's even going to tax you up to 10%.
[00:15:52] Speaker D: If only we had such a tyrannical king today, because the tax rates are about 60% when you add them all together. All that to simply say is, I think we do have instructions on how folks are to govern. And in fact, because of that, we as people, whether we're citizens or some other feature, must hold those governmenting officials accountable. They are accountable unto God for not governing in a way that reflects righteousness, fairness, impartiality, not doing things like ex post facto laws. We are to, in fact, hold them accountable. So I think there's a good bit of biblical data that informs the state its role and how it is to perform that role.
[00:16:45] Speaker F: This concludes the recording of the director's bag.
[00:16:48] Speaker C: For more resources from Truth exchange, please.
[00:16:50] Speaker F: Visit us online at wu www.truthexchange.com. you can follow us on X as well as Facebook for more updates and content related to Truth exchange. Be sure to join us next week for more questions from the director's bag. I'm your host, Joshua Gulo, and this is the Truth Exchange podcast.
