To start, I want to acknowledge the two groups of people who may be reading this review. In the first group, I am sure quite a few people have automatically dismissed this book based on the subject. In the second group, I am also quite sure that some people saw the name Tim Keller on the front cover and decided this book was no good. If you fall into either of those two groups, you should know that this review has you in mind. This review is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of all the book’s ideas. Instead, I would suggest that an extensive response to Biblical Critical Theory is unnecessary. Intentional or not, Christopher Watkin has written a book that will live or die on its premise. The project fails if the book cannot adequately establish these initial assertions.
I think it’s also important to note that Watkin is a knowledgeable man. He has a very philosophically-minded approach to the world, and he writes as a person who has thought about these subjects for a long time. Taken as individual thoughts, some of Christopher’s work provides gainful insights into the Bible. Taken as a whole, however, the project offers little to no value.
The Premise
The biggest hurdle of this project is also the most obvious: How can a critical theory be Christian, much less biblical? Over the last few years, Critical theory (especially Critical race theory) has presented itself to Christians in the worst possible light. Thanks to Black Lives Matter, the majority of laypeople have been trained to associate the words critical theory as a synonym for Marxism. With this backdrop, Watkin starts his project in an uphill battle to prove his ideas are worth any attention.
Instead of addressing the long and infamous history of Critical theory, Watkin’s philosophical impulse leads him to choose a broader definition. “There are many social theories on the market today; some of the most prominent are feminist theory, psychoanalytic theory, postcolonial theory, queer theory, eco theory, and Frankfurt school critical theory, or ‘cultural Marxism’ as it has sometimes been called.”1Cristopher Watkin, “Biblical Critical Theory” – 2022 (page 27) By establishing a more generic understanding of critical theory, Watkin then presents his own project as more of a “biblical social theory.” To be honest, this would have provided a much better title for the book. Christopher’s project is best understood as an attempt to paint a biblical and theological framework that can “inform and shape a Christian social and cultural theory.” Noticeably absent from this premise, however, is the historic Christian understanding of this topic.
Typically, when developing a Christian social theory or philosophy, the most common place to start is in history. The Puritans, for example, provide a fantastic historical example of the Christian social phenomenon in practice. Many historians also gravitate to the early church, identifying the characteristics of early Christianity vs. Roman pluralism. That’s why it’s so strange that the Biblical Critical Theory project starts at ground zero. Instead of an in-depth study of previous Christian societies, the framework is created almost exclusively on biblical and theological grounds. While this approach is not necessarily a bad one, the weaknesses of such an approach should be incredibly obvious.
Even though Christians have had the same faith through the ages, every society that was markedly Christian looked different from the rest. Even though God’s word has guided Christians in every century, each culture the Christians create is entirely unique to that society. This phenomenon should not be interpreted as a deficiency in scripture. Instead, Christian social philosophy should be understood as the unique product of the Christians that formed it. Ernst Troeltsch, a German sociologist, theologian, and a friend of Max Weber, known for his studies in the churches’ social teachings, reaches a similar conclusion.
“Christianity has a social philosophy that was derived, for the most part, from the social philosophy of late antiquity, and that has been continually modified. But it has no social theology, that is, no social theory springing directly from its religious idea, either directly as dogma or indirectly as logical consequence. […]
In reality, the social philosophy of Christianity is to be found rather in works and treatises dealing with apologetics, canon law, and politics. A glance at the central religious conceptions of Christianity will show why this is, and must be, the case. All these conceptions culminate in that of the kingdom of God.”
Ernst Troeltsch, “Religion in History” – 1922
Christian social theory does not arise directly from theological beliefs, partly because it is not a theological matter. In every Christian culture, the social philosophy manifests in different apologetic approaches, church governance, and civil politics. Watkin, however, seems to believe precisely the opposite.
In his book, Christopher acknowledges that cultural engagement must be “refreshed” in every generation but, at the same time, fails to portray the specific nature of a Christian’s modern social theory. Watkin’s proposal generally works by speaking in abstracts, diagonalizing paradoxes in a “third-way” style2https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-third-way-is-dead-long-live-the-third-way/, or by “out-narrating” the culture. Not only does Christopher avoid the historical understanding of a Christian social theory, but he goes so far as to speak against the real-world application of one.
“…a Christian social theory should be nonpartisan. It will not be a tool to promote the interests of a single political party or interest group in society, and it will not be just one more turn of the emancipation narrative crank, with Christians portrayed as a downtrodden minority, victims of discrimination who need liberating and who demand equality. It will be radically conservative and conservatively radical, traditionally progressive and progressively traditional, soberly optimistic and optimistically sober, because these oppositions are too reductive to contain the complexities of biblical figures and their relation to culture. Biblical diagonalization cuts across reductive oppositions; Christian social theory must not reinscribe itself in their unhealthy and moribund binaries.”
Cristopher Watkin, “Biblical Critical Theory” – 2022 (page 30)
Whatever Watkin describes in the above quote is certainly not a social theory. As soon as Christians adopt a social philosophy, it is, by its nature, a partisan political stance, noticeable to the surrounding culture. If Christopher had bothered to find a real-world example, he would have realized that a nonpartisan social theory is impossible. Take, for instance, the politics of abortion (a word that only appears three times in his book). The Pro-life movement, a distinctly Christian social value, is currently considered a partisan agenda of the religious Right. If a Christian is determined to hold a nonpartisan social theory, opposition to abortion would be impossible. Suggesting that a Christian philosophy of social life will not have significant political effects is downright disingenuous. But, instead of addressing this obvious real-world contradiction to his premise, Watkin continues his theory in broad and nonspecific terms.
It should be evident that the premise for the Biblical Critical Theory project relies very heavily on unreliable and nonspecific definitions. It seeks to ignore any empirical portions of historical social theory and relies entirely on creating a self-defined framework from something that doesn’t prescribe one. I would have much rather seen Watkin justify his hypothesis using stricter definitions, as this is far more important than the theory itself. It’s hard to take this work seriously when it claims to be different than every other modern critical theory simply because it uses Christian themes.
Politics For The Blind
Because Watkin refuses to use Biblical Critical Theory as an actual, measurable social phenomenon, some of the practical applications of his theory are astonishingly distorted. While it may be difficult for foreigners to understand political nuances, Christopher cannot hide his ignorance in the matter. For example, when discussing the Biblical theme of exile, he appeals to the writings of Tim Keller to double down on his idea of a nonpartisan social theory.
“Timothy Keller puts the matter of Christian political exile bluntly, drawing attention to four biblical values: care for the poor, racial justice, being pro-life, and monogamous heterosexual marriage. The Christian position is split down the middle: two of these issues are characteristic of the left, and two of the right, indicating that both left and right are reductive heresies of a more complex biblical politics, and that a full-orbed biblical Christianity can be fully at home in neither camp.”
Cristopher Watkin, “Biblical Critical Theory” – 2022 (page 485)
It’s not entirely clear if Keller and Watkin appeal to media tropes because they are oblivious or consciously disingenuous. Christian politics are not split down the middle. Protecting the poor, positive ethnic relations, pro-life movements, and pro-family legislation are all biblical values that can be uniquely ascribed to Right-wing politics. To suggest that today’s Christian Right is participating in a reductive heresy is downright absurd! Sections like this illustrate the reason for emphasizing the scope and premise of the book. If Watkin had intended for this book to provide an abstract exposition of Biblical themes, this section shouldn’t have made it into the book. If he had intended to give a commentary on social narratives, the current state of politics could have at least been represented accurately.
Watkin continues his misrepresentation of Christian politics by venturing into a rebuttal of Christian Nationalism. The connection is not explicit, but Watkin fully expects the reader to comply with his modern understanding of Christianity’s ethics.
“One distinctively Christian aspect of this care for the poor is the culture of international aid. Most societies practice support at the level of one’s own family, social group, or nation, but cultures marked by the ethic of the kingdom of God show a disproportionate concern for those with whom they have no natural ties, such as the victims of distant natural disasters or oppression. The Christian roots of groups such as Amnesty International and Médecins Sans Frontiéres ‘run deep.’”
Cristopher Watkin, “Biblical Critical Theory” – 2022 (page 385)
This paragraph is one of the few places in which Christopher offers his metric of Christian culture in clear and plain language without dichotomizing it. In no uncertain terms, Watkin makes clear that a distinctly Christian culture is incompatible with a society that acts for its own good: the exact sort of society suggested by Christian Nationalists. The book decides to feature the “woke” terminology for this particular section, describing a culture of the kingdom of God as disproportionately concerned with victims of oppression.
It becomes especially hard to give Chris the benefit of the doubt after looking up his example of groups with “Christian roots.” A glance at Amnesty International shows the group is a proud supporter of transsexual extremists and advocates for the right to perform acts of sodomy.3https://web.archive.org/web/20230610022038/https://www.amnestyusa.org/pride-2022/ The group claims that abortion is a foundational right of humanity and encourages US citizens to lobby senators to support infanticide. 4https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/stop-the-roll-back-on-aborton-rights-in-the-usa/ The fact that Watkin views this organization as a group with “Christian roots” is deeply concerning. Combining this information with his atrocious understanding of abortion politics and it’s impossible to confidently say that Watkin’s motives can be trusted. Critical Biblical Theory represents political issues so poorly that a good faith reading is simply out of the question.
In another example, Watkin borrows a dichotomy from Bruno Latour. This situation paints the Left as “socially global, economically local” while the Right is described as “socially local, economically global.” Watkin attempts to diagonalize this Left/Right divide by appealing to something called “The globalization of blessing.” However, it was still incredibly unclear what the bridge attempted to cross. I have never once seen a political system describe the Left/Right difference in such a manner, so I had to visit Watkin’s source: Bruno Latour. After reading the relevant sections of his book, it became clear why the Left vs. Right dichotomy was described so poorly. Latour attempted to explain the rise of climate change denial and the attraction to something he called “Trumpism.”
“Trump’s originality is to link, in a single gesture, first the headlong rush toward maximum profit while abandoning the rest of the world to its fate (billionaires are called upon to represent “ordinary people”!), and second, the headlong rush backward of an entire people toward the return of national and ethnic categories (“Make America Great Again” behind a wall!).”
Bruno Latour, “Down to Earh” – 2018
Thanks to Watkin’s footnotes, the reason for the confusing Left/Right paradigm made complete sense. Latour tried to explain a nonsense Trump world where “For the first time, climate change denial defines the orientation of the public life of a nation” and Watkin was trying to apply Biblical social theory to that nonsense! Latour had created a political scenario where “Trumpian politics is not ‘post-truth,’ it is post-politics – that is, literally, a politics with no object”, and Christopher was trying to apply Christian social theory to this same asinine understanding. Latour’s political scenario made no sense when Watkin attempted to describe it because it made no sense at all.
With such a poor understanding of the world, it is impossible to take Watkin’s book seriously. Critical Biblical Theory provides a commentary that is laughable at best and subversive at worst. While some of Christopher’s paradoxes are accurate, the ones that rely on a real-world application are often ludicrous, sometimes going so far as to reveal the unconscionable ethic underneath.
The Positives
Oddly enough, there are some very good things in this book. Watkin is a knowledgeable man with some unique insights. What I still haven’t decided, however, is how to handle the brilliant and coherent sections of the book when they fail to follow through with a usable application. For example, Christopher discusses an “n-shape vs. a u-shape” dynamic, introducing a framework to consider God’s promises and our relationship with Him. While not necessarily a new theological concept, I found this discussion enjoyable. In the n-shape, a person thinks about performance and reward: “I do X for God, and I receive Y from God.” In the u-shape, this dynamic changes to grace and gift: “I receive X from God, and I give Y to God.” While not necessarily groundbreaking, Watkin’s rhetoric is enjoyable to read and offers interesting insights.
In another example, Watkin discusses secularism and the process of secularization. Watkin does not want the world to be secular, but he takes issue with how some people view the current problem. Christopher first offers this diagram – an illustration of the “subtraction story.” Charles Taylor discusses this view at length, and it paints a picture of modernity that wants to strip away all religion and superstition from a religious core.
I think this diagram does a fantastic job of explaining the current situation. There is no such thing as a “neutral core,” totally devoid of religious principles. On this point, Watkin agrees: “The ‘neutrality’ of the naked public square, like the neutrality of the secular, is nothing of the sort…”5Cristopher Watkin, “Biblical Critical Theory” – 2022 (page 518) However, Watkin disagrees slightly on the reason for the current problem. Instead, Watkin holds to a “migration thesis.” He believes that the current version of secularization does not attempt to remove religious and theological ideas from society but to attach them to other ideas and institutions (like the nation-state). While the distinction is a bit minor, it was also a point I could understand and agree with. Thanks to COVID, I was well aware of the culture’s tendency to worship the nation-state. It was a point I could quickly agree with.
While reading the book, I became excited to hear the conclusion. Watkin accurately described one of the many issues with secularism and deconstructed it with clarity. I read with a sense of jealousy as Christopher unpacked some of the many issues with secularizing formerly Christian culture. However, Christopher’s conclusion leaves the reader with much to be desired despite his clarity.
“This complex context lends the church in the last days of late modernity both a conservative and a subversive dynamic. It is conservative insofar as the moral intuitions of our society are still largely Christian, and it is subversive insofar as those intuitions have been decontextualized, isolated, and inappropriately deployed.”
Cristopher Watkin, “Biblical Critical Theory” – 2022 (page 526)
In all honesty, how does this help? Does Christopher’s conclusion provide insight into radical two-kingdom philosophy and the limits of secular/natural law? What about institutional secularization? Does the presented dynamic contribute to the discussion of organizational “wokeness?” No. It doesn’t. Watkin somehow manages to isolate a problem with modernity, dissect it with ease and clarity, and then leave the reader with an unsolvable dichotomy – an “already, but not yet” sort of paradox. No solution was presented. The problem of secularization is abandoned at this point in Critical Biblical Theory, the chapter concludes, and Watkin moves on to the next subject. Disappointing, to say the least, and leaves the reader questioning the author’s motives. What was the point of identifying the problem without an actionable solution?
Conclusion
If you had hoped for a shorter review to read, I would like to apologize. However, this is a large book, and it isn’t easy to condense the concepts within unless I employ many words of my own. If you recall, I started this review by asserting that Critical Biblical Theory would live or die on its premise. A premise that seeks to introduce a new framework for a Christian social theory in today’s age and to use it to critique the world we live in today. It became clear from the first chapter that the project would need very charitable definitions – which only served to muddy the lines between sociology, philosophy, and Biblical fundamentals. And yet, I was still willing to excuse the strangeness of the approach until it came time for the rubber to hit the road.
Even when reading the book with an open mind, the most painfully unaware portions of Critical Biblical Theory can easily be identified as the politically relevant selections. It attempts to paint both the Left and the Right as tending toward Marxist patterns of oppression (page 273), a bizarre and spurious claim at best. The book attempted to look at Brexit “through the prism of the incarnation”(page 362), which, once again, resulted in more questions than answers. Watkin describes the New Jerusalem as “neither a conservative nor a progressive place” (page 562) – a phrasing eerily similar to the cringe statements of Scott Sauls.6“Jesus is neither conservative nor liberal and yet he is both.” – Scott Sauls, https://twitter.com/scottsauls/status/1572707564265308160 Even when taking into account an assumed post-enlightenment political scale, these statements are still an atrocious understanding of the day.
I believe Watkin and I agree that the Bible should inform our Christian social theory, but it seems apparent that we would strongly disagree on how. Looking back at the project’s premise, the reason for our disagreement should be reasonably obvious. Instead of attempting a historical approach to social theory, Watkin attempts to start from scratch, yet instead of genuinely starting from scratch and presenting a system outside of modernity, Critical Biblical Theory imports many terms and political notions from the very system it is trying to critique. Every application falls painfully flat, as Watkin’s points assume, and often support, the same secular system he is trying to criticize. And every time these critiques miss the mark, the reader is inevitably left wondering if the book was even written with reality in mind.
Sources:
- 1Cristopher Watkin, “Biblical Critical Theory” – 2022 (page 27)
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5Cristopher Watkin, “Biblical Critical Theory” – 2022 (page 518)
- 6“Jesus is neither conservative nor liberal and yet he is both.” – Scott Sauls, https://twitter.com/scottsauls/status/1572707564265308160
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