ទ្រឹស្តី

I love literary theory. that's why I often write about it when I read negative views about critical theory. Literary theory - including the Marxist and post-colonial approaches, but also others, like structuralism and post-structuralism - liberated my mind and opened my eyes to a whole realm of great ideas. 

In high school I never 'got' English. Like, for example, the idea of style. We always had to write about what the style of the writer was, and I never knew what that meant. Then I studied English at uni, and it was an amazing experience, because my teachers gave me something that I did 'get' and really liked. What changed everything for me was the realisation that you could approach and understand literature in a whole range of different ways. Learning about the different theoretical approaches taught me that, but that was just like a gateway, because it's the idea that it's possible to take different approaches that is really empowering. You can draw on different approaches and develop your own approach. That's what was missing in high school English for me - we were taught a particular approach as if that was the way - that was just the way to do English. But at uni I learnt that there are lots of different ways of analysing and thinking about literature.

That's why I can't agree with the views people express about critical theory being subversive and destructive and undermining healthy intellectual discourse. Critical theory didn't indoctrinate me or make me want to be a Marxist or even be an activist. For me personally, it was about literature and really engaging with literature and with interesting ideas and issues - it was an academic thing, which I think is how it should be in higher education.  

So, when I see all the many youtube videos that say that critical theory is incompatible with Christianity, I think they've missed the point. Another thing that I notice is that a lot of the most vocal opponents of critical theory - both Christian and secular - are not experts in literature...their specialisations are maths and science. They see all the links between theory and ideology and theory and culture, but they're not interested in the links to literature. They regard critical theory as a world view/ ideology that is diametrically opposed to Christianity (for the Christian opponents of critical theory) and diametrically opposed to good scholarship (for the secular opponents of critical theory). 

But there have been some very good literary theorists who are Christians - Northrop Frye, for example. He was actually an ordained Christian minister and one of the greatest literary theorists of the twentieth century. Besides formulating groundbreaking literary theory, he also wrote a lot about the Bible. I'm not sure how well his theology would stack up against that of recognised pillars of the modern western Christian church like John Macarthur and Paul Washer, at least according to them, but he does embody the reality that literary theory is not essentially unChristian or opposed to Christianity.