Though interest in critical theory may have once been limited to academics, it has become a lightning rod issue among the general public in recent years. Given the complexity of the debate, how exactly should Christians assess critical theory from the standpoint of Scripture? In response to that question, I spoke with Christopher Watkin, whose most recent book is entitled, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture.
Christopher Watkin received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Cambridge University and currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in French Studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Chris Watkin specializes in contemporary French thought, with a special focus on the complex relationship between atheism and theism and its crucial implications for many aspects of thought and life.In this episode, we introduce critical theory in its broadest sense and discuss how any critical theory should be assessed from the standpoint of the Bible without succumbing to the common pitfalls of either naïveté or reductionism. Instead, Chris Watkin suggests that Christians must adopt the framework the Apostle Paul introduces in 1 Corinthians 1. There Paul supplies us with a model for how the wisdom of God, negatively, opposes and challenges every human culture, and yet at the same time, positively, fulfills the aspirations of every human culture by pointing to a greater fullness and richness that can only be found in the cross of Christ.
