WHO’S AFRAID OF CRITICAL THEORY?

Podcast aired 23 February 2023

Does the term “critical theory” or “cultural theory” make you nervous – or make your eyes glaze over? Christopher Watkin, a lecturer at Monash University and author of the book, Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture, argues that theory isn’t just for academics, and it’s not just a political hot potato either. He says it’s about reading the world and everything in it – which makes it an everyone thing.

Chris Watkin/A critical theory shapes the way you live in the world and what you see in the world. I talk about it in terms of three categories. So all different sorts of critical theories that disagree with each other will all be doing three possible to hold a particular position or to think in a particular way. And so an example from critical theory would be Marx and revolution. You might look out at society and think the idea that there could be a society-wide revolution in which the working class rise up is just ridiculous, that will never happen. And then you read a bunch of Marx and you begin to see – if you agree with his analysis – oh, I can understand how that might come about. That becomes viable for you – a piece of your mental furniture, if you like; something that you think is possible.

Critical theories also make certain things visible. So for a long time in the Western tradition, the ways in which women were oppressed and mistreated in society sort of went below the radar. People weren’t noticing it and choosing to ignore it all the time; at least in part, it was because people simply weren't sensitive to it. It just passed unnoticed. And then the different feminist movements of the 20th century brought it from the background into the foreground and said, you have to notice this, you have to be sensitive to these injustices and inequities in society. And that was a making visible of something that was there all along, it’s just that most people just didn’t notice it.

And thirdly, critical theories also make certain things valuable. If you read someone like Foucault or Marx, they’re teaching you, they’re catechising you what to value, what to commend, what to desire in society – and they’re also teaching you what to condemn as well.

And significantly, I think, among everything that the Bible is doing, the Bible is also working in terms of those three categories. The Bible is making certain things in the world viable, and visible, and valuable for us.

Making things like trusting God's promises viable; that’s just a stupid notion for most people who haven’t read the Bible, haven’t been brought up in a Christian context today. It’s not that they choose not to obey God’s promises – it’s that there’s no categories in which that would even be a remotely possible thing to do. And yet you read the Bible and you get to know the God who reveals himself in the Bible, and you begin to see that I can see what trusting this God’s promises might look like in the life of someone like me. That’s making viable.

Making visible – you may have looked at many sunsets in your life, but it may never have struck you that the heavens declare the glory of God. And so you read that psalm, and now something that was there all along has become visible to you in the world. You look at the sunset and you think, God is glorious, God is wonderful, and I can see that in this beautiful thing in the heavens.

And the Bible also makes certain things valuable. I remember, before I was a Christian, if you’d have come up to me and you’d have said, you know, you really ought to desire serving other people as one of your life goals, the selfish little teenager that I was would have just laughed at you and said, that’s a ridiculous thing to want to do. And yet you read the Christ of the New Testament who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, and you see how often he upbraids his disciples for wanting to be the greatest and says, no, you should want to serve each other – and gradually, as the Bible gets to work on you, you see service as something that’s desirable, something that should be sought after in the world in a way you wouldn’t have before.

And it’s in this sense then that I think the Bible functions – among everything else that the Bible is doing.

Life & Faith is a weekly podcast made and hosted by the Centre for Public Christianity, a media group seeking to present the truth, beauty, and goodness of the Christian message to a secular audience.