The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) 2022 convention took place over the past four days at Nashville, Tennessee’s Gaylord Opryland, where their Board of Directors unanimously approved a resolution on Tuesday denouncing critical theory (the broader term that umbrellas critical race theory or CRT).
According to their website, the NRB is “a nonpartisan, international association of Christian communicators whose member organizations represent millions of listeners, viewers, and readers.” They work to protect the NRB members’ free speech rights in a variety of ways including advocating those rights in government, corporate, and media sectors, the NRB explains.
NRB’s members include Christian media organizations, radio stations, television shows, movies, streaming services, podcasts, and more. The conference was attended by Eric Metaxas, Kirk Cameron, Darrell Harrison, Alley Beth Stuckey, John Cooper, and Greg Locke to name a few.
The resolution that was passed is titled “Opposing Critical Theory and Anti-Christian Ideology.”
“Critical theory places culpability for human suffering at the feet of anyone who thrives within, benefits from, or upholds an authority structure subjectively deemed corrupt by the secular culture,” the resolution reads. “Including God-given institutions such as the church, traditional family, and much more.”
“Critical theory advances the erosion of shared history and values, the yielding of human agency to tyranny, the supremacy of mob rule, and the deterioration of family and community bonds, producing great human suffering and alienation from truth,” the resolution continues. “As Americans, we inherit founding principles (equality of mankind, God-given rights, and self-government) that point to worthy and Biblical ideals for an orderly society, and we endeavor to advance these cherished promises for all.”
“NRB urges Christian leaders to reject anti-Christian cultural systems that hold out salvation apart from Christ, oppose the influence of critical theory in education, academia, Christian ministry, and Bible teaching, and faithfully apply historic truths of Scripture to contemporary cultural issues,” it concluded.
John Cooper, Eric Metaxas, Allie Beth Stuckey, and Darrell Harrison Discuss ‘Engaging a Hostile Culture’
On Thursday afternoon, the NRB brought together a panel of well known Christian voices to discuss the topic of “Engaging a Hostile Culture.”
The panel included popular BlazeTV podcast host and author, Allie Beth Stuckey, New York Times Bestselling Author and host of the Eric Metaxas Radio Show, Eric Metaxas, John MacArthur’s Grace to You’s Dean of Social Media and co-host of the Just Thinking podcast, Darrell Harrison, and Skillet frontman and author, John Cooper.
Lucas Miles, pastor of Nfluence Church in Indiana, filmmaker, and author, moderated the panel and told the audience that his hope was to encourage them. “We’re fighting cancel culture, we’re fighting transgenderism, we’re fighting an LGBT agenda, we’re fighting socialism—there’s a few things today that are really pushing against the purpose and the mission of the church,” Miles said, sharing that he’s heard stories from many who are doing well but others who are struggling because they’ve been kicked off social media platforms.
