The Psychological Manipulation of Critical Race Theory

The psychological manipulation of critical race theory. That is the topic we'll discuss today, this Independence Day weekend right here on the Christian Real View radio program, where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Thank you to our listeners for your encouragement and support, and also to our national sponsor, Samaritan Ministries, who provide a biblical solution to healthcare.

You can find out about us and Samaritan Ministries at our website, thechristianrealview.org. Contrary to what the mainstream media and some evangelicals are saying about critical race theory—that it's a boogeyman, in other words, that it's made up and nothing to fear, just keep moving along—Christians who are even paying half attention know and see how this insidious ideology that pits whites against non-whites is infiltrating every institution around the country. The government-run public school system has become a flashpoint for heated confrontations between school boards intent on instituting critical race theory and parents pushing back on this racist and divisive worldview. One question, though, that has been little discussed is, how did critical race theory become so widely accepted and promoted so quickly?

In other words, how could such a blatantly wicked ideology be swallowed hook, line, and sinker by so many people? Our guest to answer these questions is Kathryn Kirsten. She's a writer, lawyer, and senior policy fellow at the Center of the American Experiment. She has written extensively on critical race theory, especially as it relates to the educational system here in Minnesota, which is likely taking place in your state as well. She's going to explain the psychological manipulation straight from the Marxist playbook that is being used to delude so many people.

She will also rebut the false assertions about America that critical theorists use as a basis for their deception. Let's get straight to the first segment of the interview with Kathryn Kirsten. Kathryn, thank you for coming on the Christian Real View radio program today to talk about critical race theory.

You've written two excellent columns recently, which we have linked at our website, thechristianrealview.org. The first is titled The Revolution in Minnesota Schools. I just want to read the first paragraph where you say, Today, a revolution of sorts is underway in many Minnesota schools in the name of ending white supremacy and systemic racism. School districts are falling over themselves to promote a radical new vision of American society. The upside down thought world of racial equity advances in the name of justice and harmony, yet its fundamental premise is deeply divisive.

It teaches that life is a relentless power struggle and splits human beings into two hostile camps, white and non-white, labeling whites as perpetual oppressors and BIPOC, the acronym for black, indigenous and people of color as perpetual victims. And you go on to give some examples of this going on in some of the local school districts. And let's just set the foundation by asking Kathryn, where did this critical race theory ideology come from that white supremacy and systemic racism exist in our country? Again, systemic.

That means it's all throughout the system, that that exists and they need to be ended. The fundamental claim is is absurd, right? This is a country that recently twice elected a black president and now has a black vice president.

We know that people like Oprah Winfrey and LeBron James are some of the highest earners in our nation and the most admired people. The initial premise is absurd, but this rose, I think, at least in relatively recent historical memory, with the rise of the New Left and the student revolution in the 1960s. I actually started college in 1969, and I remember this very well. But this was the time when, because of student protests, we saw more and more so-called oppression studies, departments of black studies, women's studies, kinds of departments that that politicized higher education starting at that time. Very, very much permeating over time to teachers colleges. And now we have a whole generation, a couple of generations of people who have gone through the university and been exposed to this kind of oppression studies, racial identity politics. And these this we have thought is rooted in neo-Marxist critical theory. And that, of course, is the the idea that used to be under Marx, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie were in this relentless zero sum power struggle.

And that's what life is. It's entirely about power with this with this mindset. But this is all built, I think, on that kind of ideological structure. And then you look at what's happened in our society with the racial learning gap, lawsuits about that, equity plans.

None of this has really helped that much when it comes to some of the differences in outcome that we've seen. So I think people are reacting to that with our family breakdown, with our secularization. There's this kind of growing communal vacuum of meaning and purpose. And many people are just kind of seduced into this simplistic way of explaining these very, very complex problems.

Kathryn Kirsten with us today on the Christian worldview radio program, senior policy fellow at the center of the American experiment website is American experiment dot org. And one interesting thing that I think leaves people totally confused about critical race theory is the fact that being color blind and you write in your column, racial equity advocates preach the opposite. Not on what Martin Luther King Jr. said about not don't be judged on the color of their skin, but the content of their character that that's been discarded. Skin color, you're right.

Not personal character determines who a person is. Astonishingly, you're right. And seemingly overnight, Minnesota students are now being taught that King's color blind ideal is, in fact, racist. So how how did that get jettisoned? The fact that to be color blind is a virtue.

How did that get jettisoned so quickly? Well, I think you could say that is a kind of classical liberal idea based on the notion of equality. People have equal dignity, right? It's a very fundamental Judeo-Christian concept. They are individuals.

We must respect the dignity of all. That is very inconsistent with a neo-Marxist critical race theory point of view, which does see life as a simplistic kind of power struggle between oppressed and oppressors. Again, these were historically the bourgeoisie, the sort of wealthier middle class people versus the proletariat, the working class.

And in Marx's view, that approach to a kind of revolutionary transformation doesn't work in America. That was proved over many decades. This new approach, though, sort of taking advantage of America's racial history. And we all know that slavery existed. It was we inherited it from the British Empire.

The British, again, were among the first people to to abolish slavery. Nevertheless, we had that in Jim Crow in our past and and people people understand that. But they know so little about American history, unfortunately, because our schools have been so remiss in teaching accurate American history for the last 40 years. That they're easily, easily led astray on this, I think. And part of this is the rise of the new left's new speak. This is a term that George Orwell coined in 1984. And the idea is you use the left creates these morally loaded terms like systemic racism or white fragility, white supremacy that these words are designed to confuse people and to make it really hard to disagree.

Because if you if you're not an anti racist, the way they define it, then, of course, you're a racist. Right. People people are confused by the fact that these these common sense words have now been redefined in subtle ways. And it's been very effective in confusing people in a way that advantages the left.

You're right. And another word is tolerance. That used to be a word of the left that was was respecting other viewpoints, even if you disagree with them different, different than affirmation.

But tolerance is we can both live together, even if we disagree. You write in your column, teachers worry that refusal to give in to this group think could cost them their job. Critical race theory in District 197, which is in West St. Paul and that area Superintendent Peter Olson Skog made the threat explicit quote. If you think we're going we're being too sensitive, too politically correct, he said in a speech to staff. I would encourage you to look elsewhere for employment, as I do not believe that you will feel aligned with what he called the, quote, difficult and uncomfortable work ahead. I mean, this is this is a new definition and only colorblind is out the window, but so was being tolerant or actually being diverse in other in other viewpoints.

So how did this one get jettisoned as well? It means the opposite of what its common sense meaning is. Diverse now doesn't mean tolerance for different points of view. It everybody knows that what it really means is that if you dare to disagree, say, in a teacher professional development seminar, you will be declared a non person.

You will be branded as a racist. These are these are techniques of emotional blackmail that have been used very successfully by influencers of all kinds. In the last couple centuries, basically weaponizing our natural fear of social isolation. The left pushes to the side using this this morally loaded newspeak you've been talking about and letting people know that if they dare to disagree, they will be branded as bigots and racist, socially ostracized, perhaps losing their job.

This this is terrifying and it's it's really something quite new in American history, but not when it comes to repressive regimes in other parts of the world. So what do you do about that? Is it just best for someone who dissents or disagrees to speak up and stand up and speak the truth? Is that the best way to do it, no matter what the cost?

What do you recommend? You have to look at every situation individually, right? What are the stakes, et cetera? I think that the first thing that we must do is basically educate everybody, help them understand that they are being manipulated for for reasons that that benefit people who want to increase their power and, frankly, their their financial bottom line. Just think of all the new diversity consultants who have been hired, all the new equity consultants in our in our schools.

Some of these people are being paid unbelievable sums for a few hours of lecturing and hectoring teachers. So people need to understand, number one, this language is being used to manipulate you. Number two, I think people need to band together. It's really hard to at least publicly stand up against some of this. But it's easier when you have a group of like minded people and you don't just you don't just criticize, you know, critical race theory or Black Lives Matter and its influence in your schools, but you talk about what you're for. You know, you talk about Martin Luther King. You talk about the importance of our common humanity and and the dignity of all human beings. You say, you know, I no matter what you say, I refuse to to teach my children, as you do, that people are determined by their skin color. I believe everyone is a unique individual and should be respected. I mean, you articulate what you believe. Frankly, just if we only taught the golden rule in our schools, nobody would be thinking about, you know, all this sort of equity, reeducation, et cetera, all these new vocabulary words, et cetera.

We wouldn't need to. It's common sense, really. It really is. Catherine Kirsten with us today on the Christian Real View talking about the psychological manipulation of critical race theory. We're going to get into that manipulation in just a second here. She's a writer and an attorney, senior policy fellow at the center of the American experiment. Their website is American experiment dot org.

We have it linked on our website as well. The Christian worldview with David Wheaton returns in just a moment. David Wheaton here, volunteer host of the Christian Real View radio program. Listeners are often surprised to learn that we as a ministry pay for airtime on the radio station website or app on which you hear the program. The primary way this expense is recouped is through listeners like you donating to the ministry or becoming a monthly partner. Our aim is to have each broadcast outlet fully supported by the listeners to that outlet. If you are a regular listener, we will be grateful if you made a donation or became a monthly partner of any amount. To do so, go to the Christian real view dot org and click on donate. You can also call one triple eight six four six twenty two thirty three. That's one triple eight six four six twenty two thirty three or the Christian real view dot org.

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Be sure to visit our Web site, the Christian worldview dot org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print newsletter, order resources for adults and children and support the ministry. Now, back to today's program with host David Wheaton. I just want to ask one more question just about how this has exploded so much before we get into how it's being, how people are being manipulated and accepting it so quickly. You talk about George Floyd's death or someone say his murder last year and in May of twenty twenty is accelerating as being the instigation point for all of a sudden this just exploding. You talk about going viral.

We use that expression. It seems that that was a pivotal moment in our country. It happened right here in the Twin Cities in Minneapolis.

Certainly there have been other police interactions that have gone wrong in Ferguson and different areas or places around the country. But why was that particular one seemed to be the tipping point? Or maybe you don't think it was, but it seems to me to be a tipping point for the explosion of critical race theory. COVID actually had a fair amount to to do with that.

People being so isolated, people being so kind of vulnerable psychologically. I think when you combine that in these thought manipulation techniques that that are being used with the fact that Black Lives Matter was then that the Global Fund was then in place had a significant bankroll, which has become, of course, far more healthy, let's say, since the Floyd incident. People on the left who are agitators, who do work through identity politics, are waiting for the opportune moment.

The guru of political organizing, Saul Alinsky, taught that 50 years ago that you wait for the opportune moment and then you move in. When you combine that with the rise of social media and woke capitalism, you've now got Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola and Nike. Even, I think, five years ago, we wouldn't have seen them piling on. So you've got this massive juggernaut of the media, entertainment, big business, et cetera, all kind of combining in this moment to force through this new mindset of systemic racism and white supremacy. And the teachers unions, big time have supported this for a number of years. So all this stuff has been going on for at least 10 years, well, longer than that.

But you're right, David, this was the crystallizing moment when success was right around the corner for them. I have a little theory that money isn't the bottom line in life, that worldview or ideology is actually the bottom line in life. Correct me if I'm wrong here, though, because why would big business, all these companies be falling over themselves, donating to Black Lives Matter and being woke and so forth?

Do they really think it's good for their bottom line? Is that what it is? Or is it truly that they ideologically agree with this worldview? I think it's both, because bear in mind Howard Zinn's book on American history. He was a Marxist agitator, basically. That book, which is widespread in American high schools, was published first in 1980. That is 41 years ago. So the American people have received a very poor and kind of misinformed education about our history for many years and colleges just ramped up in colleges over the last, well, since the 60s. So the people running these corporations have been shaped by this adversary culture in many respects. But there's a new book out called Woke, Inc. Actually, I think it's coming out in August, but I heard the author of it speak recently.

It's a phenomenal book explaining the dynamics of big business, the sort of unholy alliance between big business, Silicon Valley, the big New York sort of hedge funds and all that with Occupy Wall Street. Remember that? When was that?

Just a few years ago. And one of his points is that these big corporations can buy off the left. They can buy off these very well financed left wing agitators to a good extent by kind of getting out in front of them with their PR and that kind of thing. And now Black Rock, I've read, is demanding that anyone who wants financing through them for a new venture must have a diverse board that meets certain qualifications.

This has nothing to do with maximizing shareholder profits, right, which is supposed to be what business is all about and staying out of politics. But more and more, I think we see both as an attempt to buy off the left and because there's kind of a general sympathy for this adversary culture mindset on the part of people educated at elite universities. Catherine Kirsten with us today and the Christian worldview. We're talking about the psychological manipulation of critical race theory.

We want to get into that now, how it's been so quickly imbibed by so much of the country. Catherine is a senior policy fellow at the center of the American experiment. I just want to read a couple of paragraphs because I think this sets up the manipulation you've been alluding to so far in our conversation. You say ideologues striving to reshape students beliefs and your columns are really about the educational system, but it's more broadly being used on broader society. But trying to reshape students beliefs about the role of race in America have found racial equity to be an ideal vehicle. It's a framework that skillfully plays on Americans desire to atone for the more reprehensible moments of our nation's racial history. And then you go into how this racial equity lessons how these destabilize a student's personal identity or a person's personal identity. You say that it conditions white children to question their ability to grasp reality and to act as they intend in the world. It warns that they can take no pride in their accomplishments because they are merely a function of white privilege. It insists they routinely harm their non-white classmates by committing microaggressions of which they aren't even aware.

It's a no-win situation. If they think they aren't racist, this just proves how racist they are. The message is that white skin is a source of self-deception, guilt, and shame.

It goes on from there. You go in your column to talk about black children too. Have it drummed into their heads that they lack self-awareness and self-agency. As victims of white supremacy, they are told they bear no responsibility for their behavior and can't even meet minimal standards like turning in their assignments on time or thinking logically.

They are constantly urged to feel anger and resentment. You go into teachers, how they're manipulated as well. If they don't understand, the white teachers have no clue about how they're oppressing everyone and so forth. You finish by saying the goal of this manipulation is to convince students and teachers they must turn for guidance to their enlightened betters, activists who alone can see reality and understand justice.

If they are to atone for guilt, the whites, or avoid being dupes, the blacks. You said that so well. That jumped off the page to me as I read the column. Just explain how this manipulation takes place. This again is another Marxist concept of false consciousness. The vanguard, the Marxist elite thinkers, their idea originally under Lenin was that they truly understand the problem. That the workers didn't understand they were being exploited. They had to turn to these college-educated brilliant self-styled leaders, the Marxist vanguard, in order to see that they were oppressed and what they needed to do to remove the oppressors. This is the very same concept that white kids are victims of false consciousness. They don't know that they really are not responsible for their own successes. Black kids don't understand the extent to which they're oppressed.

These are all techniques that are used by thought manipulators. What really kind of clued me into this sort of underpinning of what we're seeing now was that back in 2014 or so, these kinds of things, these kinds of racial curricula, etc., new race-based rules were invading the St. Paul school system. I spoke with a teacher there named Aaron Benner, a black teacher who was one of the few who had the courage to stand up before the St. Paul school board and say, you are ruining children's lives with this supposedly empathetic new approach you are taking. He told me afterwards that the professional development training he and other teachers were required to endure in St. Paul resembled indoctrination into a cult.

I've heard this over and over in recent years from other teachers who have had to go through similar training. People who are pulled into cults are manipulated through, you could say, techniques of salesmanship and propaganda. One of the most important, the first, is to destabilize this sense of self so that these people question their own ability to make decisions and understand reality and look to self-styled leaders. That's what you're talking about here. You mentioned that first point of this manipulation, that racial equity lessons destabilize a student's personal identity. That's what you just talked about. You had one more point on this manipulation. You said, point two is, ideologues introduce an alternate system of reality and restrict access to ideas that challenge it. Racial equity advocates make the assertion that America in 2020 is systemically racist. That's absurd on its face, you're right. Our nation recently had a two-term black president and immigrants of all colors have flocked here and continue to do so, I might add.

They found unparalleled opportunity and prosperity in this country. Activists use emotional blackmail to pressure students to buy into their ideology. Those who question it are denounced and shunned as racist.

You mentioned that. Those who comply are praised as, quote, allies or on the right side of, quote, history. Thought reform is particularly effective when it is framed as a movement for an enlightened elite and naysayers are repudiated as inferior. So explain just the second point a bit too, how just the social pressure to conform. Otherwise, you're like, you're a non-person. You're on the wrong side of history. So this self-doubt and confusion with this morally loaded language, if you don't agree with them, you're a bad person.

And then they present this new way to understand reality. And that's where the terms like systemic racism, white supremacy, et cetera, come in. And people can be easily, especially when they're young, easily confused by this new lingo that they're hearing for the first time. So some of the fundamental concepts behind this new lingo are racial essentialism, meaning that your skin color determines who you are. There's a pressure to keep you from looking at alternative ways of thinking by branding you as a bigot if you do so and getting you to submerge your individual identity into a larger racial identity. And then to accept if you're white collective guilt. You are responsible for what was done 400 years ago by some people who shared your skin color. And if you bring all these three kinds of techniques together, if you first undermine people's sense of self and their sense of moral agency, and then you introduce this new closed system of reality and they can't even think about or question, that's what microaggressions are. You know, if you say, no, I'm not guilty of this, then they say, oh, that proves even more how racist you are because you don't even know that you're doing this. So that kind of techniques turns kids away from alternative explanations for racial disparities of various kinds. And then the last is this emotional black male tactic. And you see this in some classrooms where kids are told to stand up if they disagree and don't think that their racist or white supremacy is real. And this is like out of the Cultural Revolution in China, where people who have the guts to separate themselves are ashamed and there's a kind of a figurative dunce hat put in their heads.

So all those techniques working together can be very effective and they are used in indoctrinating people into cults. The Christian Worldview with David Wheaton returns in just a moment. Courtney was 17 weeks pregnant when she and her husband Greg learned that their son Shepherd had a heart condition that would require multiple surgeries and were uncertain about his future. But Samaritan Ministries connected them with other Samaritan members who began to pray and share the financial needs of the pregnancy and the medical care Shepherd needed. I don't know how Samaritan could have answered any differently and done any better.

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It is 264 pages, hardcover, and retails for $18.99 plus shipping. For a limited time, we are offering it for a donation of any amount to the Christian Worldview. Go to theChristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233. That's theChristianworldview.org. Kathryn Kirsten with us today in the Christian Worldview.

Again, the Senior Policy Fellow at the Center of the American Experiment. We have their website linked at theChristianworldview.org. Also, the two columns that we're covering today in the program, you really should read both of these.

They will give you a much fuller understanding of what is taking place. Those are both linked at our website, theChristianworldview.org. I'd like to get into, this is Independence Day weekend where we celebrate and remember the signing of the Declaration of Independence and all the values and principles that this country was built upon that are being, if you want to know something that's systemic, that is systemically being removed from our schools across the country teaching the accurate American history. You write in your second column, which we'll talk about, Educrats Unleashed, again about Minnesota schools. You say the Minnesota Department of Education intends to mandate that your first grader learn, quote, to recognize stereotypes, biased speech, and injustice at the institutional or systemic level.

That is a first grader. Your middle schooler will be drilled in how his, quote, identity is a function of his skin color. Your high schooler would be required to explain that Europeans invented, quote, whiteness and that America's 19th century westward expansion was the shameful product of whiteness, Christianity and capitalism, unquote.

So this is Independence Day weekend. And how about giving us a history lesson, correcting the history of what the Minnesota Department of Education is trying to do here? Talk about the founding of America, the principles upon which it was founded, and also the westward expansion. People, I think, will think, yeah, well, we just kind of mowed or white people just mowed down the Indians in a mass genocide as the country moved west.

And we should have this collective guilt over this. In terms of the American founding, you know, Abraham Lincoln called this country the last, the world's best, last best hope, essentially, because this was the first experiment in ordered liberty, just unheard of in world history. Our great American experiment was built on principles of equality and human rights that existed nowhere else at the time.

And but they weren't utopian. You know, we we understand that human beings, our founders did that, that they are flawed. They are selfish. They are greedy, et cetera. That's why we need a Bill of Rights. That's why we need checks and balances. And that's the kind of system, not like the French Revolution, which was a utopian project that ended in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. Our founders got it right. And in fact, the standards of equality and human rights that leftists now claim to judge our country by and find it so so terribly wanting. Those arose only in the West. And what they want to do now is to cut down the tree of Western civilization, you know, what they call Eurocentrism or white supremacy.

But they still want its fruits. And here's an interesting little anecdote. I talked recently with a black woman who was a janitor at a place where I found myself.

She was from the Ivory Coast. And we began to talk. And she said to me, America is heaven. She said it over and over. I said, what do you mean? She said, you know, this is a place where when I when I call the police, they come and they help me. This is a place where when I work hard, I get ahead, where I am viewed because of on the basis of my character, not the color of my skin. I thought, if only the people trying to tear down our school system could hear the voice of a real person who came here for the right reasons.

And so and found what she was what she was hoping to find. So in terms of westward expansion, again, we are not a perfect people, right? You look at what happened around the world when an advanced civilization encountered a prehistoric group of people who didn't have the written language. They didn't have the use of metal. They hadn't invented the wheel, et cetera.

You're going to have a clash of civilizations. But in this country, although, of course, we fell short in a number of respects here in Minnesota, for example, land, there were treaties negotiated. The the Dakota Indians were paid annuities. This was extremely sparsely settled, by the way. Minnesota was something like six to eight thousand Dakota Indians here in 1821.

I've forgotten the number of acres. It was like, let's say, hundreds of square miles, something like that per per Indian. And they mostly lived along the rivers. And there were there were treaties that were that were that were contracted and largely fulfilled. And there were tremendous benefits that were brought to to basically hunter gatherer people. They got a written language. They they had the opportunity today for for modern health care. I know they've got lives that are so much easier and more comfortable the way all of us do than they did back in 1821.

So it's obviously a mixed story. But overall, when you look at world history, you look if you look at the fact that the Dakota Indians moved down to the Twin Cities area in, let's say, a little after seventeen hundred. And they did not negotiate treaties with the Iowa and Oto Indians who lived there. They killed them. They drove them out. They enslaved their enemies. All human beings are flawed. So that's why we try to understand what we look at history.

And we come out quite well in that respect. Moving forward here, Catherine, just to what the effect of this critical race theory, the manipulation going on, the revision of history going on. What is going to be the impact of that first on students who go through this and get everything taught to them a completely different way? Revising of history, everything taught through this lens of oppressor and oppressed.

What is going to be the impact of on students coming through that? And then can a nation, part two of that question is, can a nation actually survive this kind of self-loathing? In other words, we have a terrible country. It's built on white supremacy. It oppressed the BIPOC people, black indigenous people of color.

It's inherently unjust, unfair. Can a nation really survive that? Excellent questions.

In terms of what what will happen to students, I think of an anecdote that one of my friends, actually somebody connected with Center of the American Experiment, told me recently. He said he had his granddaughter in the car. They were driving somewhere. She looked down at the floor and she saw a quarter and she said, oh, you know, that's that's a bad man. You know, this is this is George Washington.

And her grandfather said, well, what are you talking about? Well, he was a slave owner. You know, he owned slaves.

Our first president was a bad man. In fact, I've read somewhere that something like a half of all American elementary schools and some survey said that they thought that that all American states had once had slaves. This kind of gross, gross distortion of history really, I think, steals from our children their birthright. This wonderful legacy of freedom, the most the freest, most prosperous nation in world history that their ancestors sacrificed to create. And, you know, in many cases died in military actions in order to pass this on to them.

This is being this is being stolen from them. And along with that, the the the sense of gratitude that all of us should feel about the opportunities we we have in life. That is so important for us to be for for human flourishing to to have a realistic sense of the blessings that that you've been given in a hopeful sense about the future and a sense of personal accountability and responsibility. You know, democracy doesn't continue on unless it's renewed with every every generation. All of those insights are our children going to be deprived of.

And what an excellent question. I don't think we can point to another society in history where this kind of self-inflicted wound, you know, this kind of self-loathing, as you described, it has been inflicted by elites on ordinary citizens. Certainly when you look at our greatest adversary now, communist China, they are doing just the opposite of what we are doing.

They have a new patriotic citizenship initiative in their in their schools and telling their students what a marvelous place China is. Well, we're telling our students what a terrible place they live in and who wants to defend it. So, of course, it's all being we will become vulnerable to people who are self-interested in terms of power, transforming the system so that they they can help to create a new system.

Right. If white supremacy means that all of our institutions and norms have to be transformed, removed, then somebody else is going to be building new ones. And it's not going to be a country I think that any of us want to live in. I just want to conclude by reading one final paragraph of your your column here. By recruiting students into identity politics, you write, it will drive toxic wedges between children. That's true, create frictions and resentments that permeate their school day and amplify the depression and anxiety that already afflicts so many of our young people. Minority students will suffer most. They will come to see themselves as victims instead of learning the success formula of having character, resilience and hard work.

That has lifted so many, both white and black, even in the face of discrimination and adversity. Finally, this new racialist ideology is deadly for our democratic way of life. America's freedom and prosperity are based not on shared race or ethnicity, but on an allegiance to shared principles, including human beings unique dignity and unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness straight from the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate this weekend. And you say the current administration, all this nationally and locally here in Minnesota, us versus them ideology, taken to its logical conclusion, denies the very possibility of democratic governance. Now, I think we still have a representative republic, Catherine, from a standpoint of elections. I'm not sure, though, I don't know this last election, lots of abnormalities and so forth, whether our vote actually makes a difference anymore.

I know that's kind of a big statement, but I think there's questions. Why don't people, the vast majority of people in America, see this critical race theory for the toxic garbage that it is and vote other people in office who don't perpetuate this? Why are school boards and other places where people are voted into office? Why are governors and presidents voted into office by people who perpetuate this godless worldview?

That, of course, is an excellent question. I think we may be seeing things start to turn around here on a hopeful note. Our Center of the American experiment is creating a parent toolkit, kind of a one stop resource hub for parents who want to push back, fight back against this. We are seeing these pop up all over the country now.

It's very heartening. There's a new organization called the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. These are people from center right to center left who are very concerned about this, starting chapters all over the country, creating alternative curricula, lining parents up with legal representation when this kind of thing invades their schools. There's another group called Parents Defending Education, doing the same thing, teaching parents how to do FOIA requests to find out what's really going on in their schools. I think people are really beginning, now that COVID is really winding down, I think they're beginning to understand that this is a real threat. So we find it very heartening, the kind of response that we are increasingly getting to our education efforts.

We've had a 17 city tour of Minnesota. We've had hundreds of people come out and we've created a portal for them on these social studies standards you described to register their objections. 80% of all the objections that the Department of Education got here in the state were from the citizens we informed. So I think we are going to see some very hopeful developments here. Catherine, thank you for coming on the Christian Real View today, but even more, just the way you write so insightfully about this worldview that is so divisive and so harmful to not only our country, but to people, to souls.

I mean, this is really bad for people. Exactly. So we just wish you the best and all of God's best and grace to you, Catherine. Thanks so much, David.

Thanks for having me on the program. Well, I hope you enjoyed the interview with Catherine Kirsten today. You can find out more about her in the Center for the American Experiment by going to our website, thechristianrealview.org. There are links to both of the columns we discussed there today as well. She has a very good handle on critical race theory.

I know we've covered it a couple of times recently, but a question about how it's been advanced so quickly is an interesting one and one she addresses in one of those columns. If there was a passage of scripture that describes the worldview of critical race theory, it would be Colossians 2. And this is where the apostle Paul is writing to the church in Colossae, which is near Laodicea, that lukewarm church that Christ describes in Revelation.

This is a worldly minded church. And so this is why Paul writes in Colossians 2, starting in verse 8, he says, See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. And this is exactly what critical race theory does. It takes minds captive. People begin to live in an alternate false reality. The whole thing is based on a lie. Secondly, that verse talks about empty deception. It is empty deception. It deceives people into believing something that's not true. And when you believe a lie, you just get deeper and deeper into it and go further in the wrong direction. The passage also talks about it's according to the tradition of men.

It really is. This is a worldview that is based on fallen sinful human reasoning, not a biblical worldview, but fallen human reasoning. And finally, that passage says, according to the elementary principles of the world, it's based on a false notion. Even the racial aspect of it is based on a false nation that there are multiple races.

Of course, there are not. They're just one race, the human race. People have different skin colors, ethnicities and so forth.

But there's only one race, the human race that God made. And God calls us to treat each other individually as people, not based on the color of our skin or ethnicity. And the next verse, verse nine, gives the contrast. It says, for in Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in him, if you're a believer, you have been made complete. And he, Christ, is the head over all rule and authority.

In other words, if you have repented of your sin and put your faith, your trust, your belief in the person of Christ and his work for you on the cross, you can be complete or whole, not in captivity or bondage to these false philosophies that come and go and have a worldview that is sound, that truthfully understands what is going on in the world. So thank you for listening to The Christian Real View today. You can always go to our website, thechristianrealview.org, to hear this program and other past programs, to order resources for adults and children, to sign up for our free weekly email, to support the ministry or to become a monthly partner.

You can also call us at 1-888-646-2233. And just a reminder, if you have any health care needs, click on the Samaritan Ministries banner on our homepage at thechristianrealview.org. Just a quick follow up to our topic last week on the Southern Baptist Convention, the new president, Ed Litton, it was revealed this week, plagiarized over 100 sermons and they've been removed from his website, so that's something that is just even hard to make up that we'll be addressing in the weeks to come on the program.

But in the meantime, let's remember Hebrews 13-8, that Jesus Christ and his word are the same yesterday and today and forever. We hope you have a wonderful Independence Day weekend as you think Biblically, live accordingly and stand firm. The Christian Worldview is a listener supported ministry and furnished by the Overcomer Foundation, a nonprofit organization. You can find out more, order resources, make a donation, become a monthly partner and contact us by visiting thechristianworldview.org, calling toll free 1-888-646-2233 or writing to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian Worldview. Until next time, think Biblically and live accordingly.