Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe, by Voddie T. Baucham, Jr. Washington, D.C.: Salem Books, 2021. 251 pages, $24.99.

Voddie T. Baucham, Jr.’s book on social justice activism and evangelicals came out when the protests inspired by George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis were still fresh in the minds of many. His warning—the very title of the book, Fault Lines—that protests over racism and police brutality had revealed a split among evangelicals was plausible in 2021 when the book was published. Baucham’s argument remains relevant if you take the case of Wheaton College as a measure.

In 2023, the college’s administration determined to remove the name of J. Oliver Buswell from the college’s library. The president of Wheaton from 1926 until 1940, Buswell was a prominent figure among conservatives who with J. Gresham Machen contended against theological liberalism in the Presbyterian Church, USA. When the board at Wheaton decided to sever their ties with Buswell in 1940, the reasons were largely theological. Buswell was too Calvinistic for a school that included Arminians and many varieties of Holiness groups. Even so, the college was sufficiently impressed with Buswell’s academic stature (he had a BD from McCormick Theological Seminary, an MA from the University of Chicago, and a PhD from New York University). He had increased the enrollment from four hundred to eleven hundred and also oversaw an increase of PhDs among college faculty (from 26 percent to 49 percent) over his tenure.

But in the wake of America’s racial reckoning, prominent figures—both public and private—became fair game for activists who wanted to remove any hint of bigotry from the nation’s history. Not only were statues of Confederate soldiers removed, but even Presidents of the United States (Thomas Jefferson at the New York City Public Library) needed to come down thanks to either owning slaves or exhibiting forms of racism. At colleges and universities, cancellation on racial grounds saw Woodrow Wilson’s name removed from Princeton University’s School of Government, Daniel C. Calhoun College (2017) renamed by Yale, and a statue honoring George Whitefield removed by the University of Pennsylvania from its campus.

Wheaton College followed this trend after students complained about parts of the institution’s racist past. Administrators responded by forming a committee to study instances of racial prejudice at the college. The major finding was that Buswell had cautioned administrators, applicants, and alumni about admitting black students to the college. Although the detailed report found primarily that Buswell had expressed worry about the signal admitting blacks would send to supporters, along with concern for black students who would have to make their way in an overwhelmingly white institution, the committee found enough dirt to conclude that Buswell was a racist. This prompted the removal of his name from the building opened in 1975. It is now simply called Wheaton College Library.

Readers of Fault Lines will not learn about these developments in evangelical higher education, but they will gain a sense of the assumptions that made Wheaton College’s decision plausible. Baucham’s 2021 book was likely a headache for librarians who catalogue new accessions. It is one part memoir, one part theological assessment, one part history, and one part exhortation. In the memoir section, Baucham describes his conversion while a student athlete who played NCAA Division 1 football for New Mexico State University and Rice University (he eventually graduated from Houston Baptist University). The author also describes briefly his study at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, becoming Calvinistic in theology, and ministering in the Southern Baptist Convention, which eventually took him to Zambia as a missionary where he is dean of the School of Divinity at African Christian University. As much as memoirs may present a flattering image of the author, Baucham’s details add a human dimension to what could have been merely an attack on progressive politics (and Christianity).

Baucham’s diagnosis of Critical Race Theory (CRT) may seem dated since the Left in Europe and America has moved on to other “current things,” such as climate, transgender, and the rights of Palestinians. But without bogging down in intellectual precision—whether over words or authors—Baucham presents a generally fair depiction of CRT according to its chief theories or theology (especially equality and systemic racism), its most influential proponents (he calls them priests), and its most representative texts (Baucham refers to these works as a new canon). In sum, CRT is a new religion that preaches only sin and judgment to the exclusion of forgiveness and grace. As persuasive as Baucham is, his recounting the number of evangelicals (even New Calvinists) who since 2020 have championed CRT is remarkable. These changes among evangelicals, which involve associating CRT with the gospel’s call to personal and social sanctity, have created the “fault lines” of Baucham’s book title. CRT has exposed a theological flimsiness among evangelicals that is also responsible for much of the disarray in conservative Protestant institutions.

The book concludes with an exhortation. The book builds to Baucham’s plea in the final pages:

I believe we are being duped by an ideology bent on our demise. This ideology has used our guilt and shame over America’s past, our love for the brethren, and our good and godly desire for reconciliation and justice as a means through which to introduce destructive heresies. (204)

Baucham is emphatic that baptizing, modifying, or Christianizing CRT is fatal to the gospel. For that reason, he advocates identifying, resisting, and repudiating CRT. The way to do this is not through politics but through preaching and teaching. If God overcame the barriers between Jews and Gentiles through the gospel, Baucham deduces, the antagonisms in the United States based on race are equally remedied by the good news of Jesus Christ.

Baucham’s book is for the church, not for American society writ large. Because of that focus, some may still wonder what is to be done in various institutions where CRT has gained a hold. (By now the common idiom may be DEI rather than CRT—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.) Baucham does not pretend to answer that question. For him the stakes of the church’s witness and fellowship are too high to let the discontents in American society and government obscure the truths of the gospel.

Darryl G. Hart is distinguished associate professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, and serves as an elder in Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Hillsdale, Michigan and as a member of the Committee on Christian Education. Ordained Servant Online, October, 2024.