A PDF file of this review is available here.
An expanded version of this review is available here.
Voddie Baucham has done the church and the world a tremendous service at a critical time. Seeing an ever-widening split on the horizon as the social justice movement (SJM) intensifies, especially within evangelicalism, Dr. Baucham has written a new book, Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe. Dr. Baucham believes the SJM, despite its high-sounding rhetoric, does not promote biblical justice at all. Moreover, it doesn’t effectively combat racism, either.
While only a tiny, tiny fraction of Americans are not against racism, a movement called antiracism is embedded in the fabric of the SJM, and it has become America’s new religion. In fact, contends Baucham, it qualifies as a cult. It’s a twisted belief system that seeks to redefine the word racism, recasting the term so it no longer refers to an individual belief that a person’s skin color determines or heavily influences the worth, or the superiority or inferiority of that individual in relation to others. Instead, antiracists see racism as an institutional and cultural quality that influences and even determines (however covertly) whites’ negative attitudes and oppressive actions toward people of color. Whites hold these attitudes and act upon them, say social justice advocates, to maintain their positions of power, oppression, and advantage over minorities, especially blacks (pages 81-82). They say this despite the remarkable progress America has made in race relations during the past sixty years.
Writes Baucham, “Antiracism offers no salvation—only perpetual penance in an effort to battle an incurable disease” (p. 67). Although there are others, this is one trait that I believe glaringly demonstrates that the SJM and Christianity are two very different worldviews, and thoroughly incompatible.
Even so, many evangelicals, both white and black, have bought into the deceptions of antiracism and critical race theory (CRT). Both of these ideologies are part and parcel of the social justice movement. Increasingly, evangelicals — leaders and laymen alike — are being misled and sincerely believe they are supporting a biblical movement. Other evangelicals see sharp contrasts between social justice and biblical justice and are sounding the alarm, warning that “social justice” is a counterfeit justice.
Herein we see the divide. The conflict is intensifying, and a split is on the horizon. As an authority on the subjects of 1) justice as Scripture presents it and 2) the social justice movement, Voddie Baucham exposes the SJM for what it is. He warns about being on the wrong side of the rift and shows what one must do to make sure he or she is on the right side.
Fault Lines will be released on Tuesday, April 6, 2021. For purchasing options, visit https://www.voddiebaucham.org/fault-lines/
Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe, (Salem Books: Washington, DC, 2021).
Copyright © 2021 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce this review in its entirety and to distribute it to others. A PDF file of this review is available here.
For a more complete review of Fault Lines, visit https://bit.ly/2P6x116.