Hello and welcome to another edition of Unbelievably with me Justin Brieley here on premier Christian radio this Saturday evening and broadcasting all over the world by our podcast and indeed our YouTube channel as well and got a really interesting important discussion on critical race theory for you today.

If you don't know what that is you will hopefully by the end of the show with the help of my guess Russell Barry and Neil Shenvie so we'll be hearing their debate on it very shortly.

Lots of response to recent editions of the show and I'll try to squeeze some of it in our towards the end of this week's edition of the program are John Steingard and Amy or younings fantastic conversation on suffering from a couple of weeks ago and last week's big Trump debate that came courtesy of John Brown University between Eric Metaxas and David French but just a reminder if you want to keep up with unbelievable get our weekly newsletter you can check out the links at the website premier Christian radio dot com forward slash unbelievable and we've also recently launched that new

website with special resources and a newsletter there for us listeners specifically at unbelievable dot show our new pathios blog is also available to if you want to keep up to date with some of the stuff we're posting there most recently a blog on Russell brand prayers aren't far from Jesus which has been written by our own Ruth Jackson the newest team member here on unbelievable and I'm going to be sitting down to chat with Ruth about what she's up to what she'll be bringing to the show in the future.

Towards the end of today's program so so listen out for our get together towards the end of today's show as well now something big to tell you about I really want you to put this in your diary and turn up if you possibly can absolutely free live stream event that we're putting on on our Facebook page and our YouTube channel this coming week Wednesday the 21st of October we're going to be hosting Alistair McGraft the famed Oxford theologian former scientist and he's got a great new book out called through the world.

Through a glass darkly it's his memoir his journeys through science faith and doubt so I thought we'd have Alistair on the program for a live stream edition of the show where you can ask questions on our Facebook page you just need to be at the unbelievable Facebook page on Wednesday the 21st of October this coming Wednesday from 8 p.m. UK that's 3 p.m. Eastern time okay so if you're able to come along then you will be part of our Alistair McGraft live stream event.

Hoping to also get that up on our YouTube channel as well and don't worry if you do miss it we'll be making sure to bring it to you on a future edition of unbelievable right now time to get into this week's edition of the show.

You're listening to unbelievable with Justin Briarley.

Today on the show we're discussing critical race theory and asking is it compatible with Christianity we're returning to the issue of race and culture as we debate CRT as it's called for short we'll find out what it is and why many Christians are split over it and in a nutshell but this is definitely going to be what we're going to be debating during the course of the show you could say that critical race theory is the view that racism isn't that it's going to be a real thing.

The center of the power dynamics of oppressed and oppressor which lie behind the disadvantages and inequalities that exist in our world between people well that's one definition anyway we'll see what Neil and Razzoul my guess on the show today have to say and how they define it Neil Shenvie is a homeschooling theoretical chemist and Christian a

psychologist and in recent years he's become well known for his work critiquing critical theory and he believes that the world view of CRT is at odds with the Christian gospel and is worried by the embrace of its teachings by many evangelical leaders.

Russell Berry is teaching pastor at the bridge church in Brooklyn and in a recent article titled critical grace theory he argues that CRT can actually be a helpful tool for understanding how a dynamics in our world and working towards the peace and justice embodied in the gospel so welcome Neil and result great to have you with me on the show today.

I'll start with you because I know that you've followed unbelievable for a while and you'll be aware of some of the discussions we've had over the summer with various guests around black lives matter and those sorts of issues but tell us about how you particularly came into you know this being your specialism if you like in the last few years what particularly got you engaged with critical race theory and critical theory in general.

Yeah it was unexpected so I was involved in apologetics for a long time and I was very apolitical I wanted to show non Christians and my atheist colleagues as a scientist that Christianity was true the gospel was true that Jesus was who he claimed to be and I kind of avoided cultural apologetics as it's called.

But then a few years ago I began noticing both people that I knew personally and Christian leaders beginning to drift theologically and I couldn't figure out why it often began with an interest in social justice but then they began espousing beliefs that were harder and harder to reconcile with orthodoxy and some even became atheists and I couldn't figure out why until I met my friend and collaborator Dr. Pat Sawyer who has a PhD in education and cultural studies teaches at UNCG.

And he wrote a dissertation that invoked critical theory and he's really an expert in this area and when I heard what he was doing I said this sounds very familiar and so we got connected and I began to read voraciously and began to understand what was happening both in our culture and even in the evangelical church and I think in the last say six months we've really seen that cultural shifts accelerate as more and more.

Of mainstream culture and more and more of evangelical churches embrace these ideas.

Great to meet you on the show and it's been really interesting reading and hearing some of your stuff over the last year or two.

Also new to the show Russell Berry joins us pastor of the bridge church in Brooklyn. Do you want to just describe what your church is like in Brooklyn, Russell?

Yeah, absolutely. So I've been there for five years where six year old church plant in the heart of downtown Brooklyn.

Our average age is 26 27 year old black and brown.

And so we're talking about the colonial gen Z is who we attract people we wanted to make a church for people who kind of got entitled to church and and reimagining how to do that in a way that was still solid theologically but culturally relevant and really speaking to the needs of where people are today.

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