===Ed Uszynsk===
| Ed Uszynski is an Elder at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Xenia, Ohio, where he oversees the worship service organization, leadership development and serves as a teaching pastor. Uszynski has a bachelor’s degree in communication from Kent State, two Masters in Divinity and Christian Worldview from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a PhD in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University. |
If you can read only one book on critical race theory—if you will read only one book on critical race theory—this is the one. Ed Uszynski approaches CRT from a conservative and evangelical perspective. He holds to the infallibility of Scripture and calls for being discipled by the Bible, not sociology or politics. He doesn’t mince words, and he doesn’t take sides … politically. He says if you don’t have time or aren’t going to read about CRT, then, please, read your Bible.
CRT is a lightning rod. That’s why we need to understand it, Uszynski contends. And our understanding needs to go deeper than caricatures.
He sees a more important reason to understand CRT, though. One of conservative evangelicalism’s foundational authorities, Carl F.H. Henry, believed the conservative Christian emphasis on spirit over body left evangelicals without adequate language to address things the Bible talks about, allowing secular systems such as Marxism and Critical Theory—ancestors of CRT—to fill the linguistic vacuum.
Uszynski is not ignorant of Marxism’s, Critical Theory’s and many critical race theorists’ atheism. Nor does he commend their proposed solutions to the problems each diagnose, but he does advocate listening.
Marxism and Critical Theory ask incisive questions that reveal inroads and effects of sin in a way Christians steeped in capitalism and conservatism may miss. These questions are worth a thoroughly biblical response. Christians, then, ought to lead with Scripture and theology, not with politics, in responding to Marxism, Critical Theory and CRT. Uszynski believes their critiques are the reaction of people in pain. Instead of listening for the pain and bringing the gospel to it, however, he sees conservative Christians leaning into politicization, changing Christianity from a religion that cares into a religion that strikes back.
- Eric Black: Baptist Standard: Review: Untangling Critical Race Theory 6/5/24
CRT is a lightning rod. That’s why we need to understand it, Uszynski contends. And our understanding needs to go deeper than caricatures.
He sees a more important reason to understand CRT, though. One of conservative evangelicalism’s foundational authorities, Carl F.H. Henry, believed the conservative Christian emphasis on spirit over body left evangelicals without adequate language to address things the Bible talks about, allowing secular systems such as Marxism and Critical Theory—ancestors of CRT—to fill the linguistic vacuum.
Uszynski is not ignorant of Marxism’s, Critical Theory’s and many critical race theorists’ atheism. Nor does he commend their proposed solutions to the problems each diagnose, but he does advocate listening.
Marxism and Critical Theory ask incisive questions that reveal inroads and effects of sin in a way Christians steeped in capitalism and conservatism may miss. These questions are worth a thoroughly biblical response. Christians, then, ought to lead with Scripture and theology, not with politics, in responding to Marxism, Critical Theory and CRT. Uszynski believes their critiques are the reaction of people in pain. Instead of listening for the pain and bringing the gospel to it, however, he sees conservative Christians leaning into politicization, changing Christianity from a religion that cares into a religion that strikes back.
- Eric Black: Baptist Standard: Review: Untangling Critical Race Theory 6/5/24
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Mar 16, 2015
Ed Uszynski: Are Real Relationships Possible in Our Culture? [Biola University Chapel]. Dr. Ed Uszynski discusses the problem that American culture seems to have with relating deeply and honestly. He explains that the fundamental characteristic of someone who handles relationships well is that he or she is growing in Christ. Dr. Uszynski urges his audience to be intentional about seeking deep relationships and speaking vulnerably with one another.
Feb 5, 2010: Religion Today: God and the Gridiron? Some Cry Foul
Some evangelicals also have concerns. Ed Uszynski, who works for Athletes in Action, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, said he urges athletes to rethink how they express their faith. At a recent college football game he attended, he said at least 10 teammates dropped a knee in prayer: "It becomes rabbit-footish," said Uszynski, adding that he wasn't speaking for the ministry. |
Aug 9, 2021: USA Today: NFL cheerleading is demeaning to women. It's time to end this nonsense.
These are worse by degree but utterly consistent with the spirit of “cheerleading” in the nation’s most popular pro sports league, which reduces the female performers to “skin and sexuality,” as writer Ed Uszynski aptly puts it. 
Z-News Notes: Feb 23, 2014: "The Winter Games in Sochi have provided another opportunity for the world to celebrate the innate humanistic impulse for peace, while watching mini-battles that culminated in medals and anthems, individual glory and national pride. But they also inadvertently foreshadow a day when people from “every nation, tribe, people and language” will gather together to celebrate the One who ultimately provides the very peace they seek, a hope partially realized in real time in the person of Jesus Christ." --Ed Uszynski: Desiring God: "The Closing Ceremonies and the End of History")
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