can I read?

Even though I am a Christian, I don't agree with the usual Christian critique of critical theory, because critical theory has been and still is an important part of my education. It's never been ideological, for me. It's not about dividing everyone into oppressors and oppressed. It's not about social change. 

For me, and for a lot of other people, critical theory provides a framework for understanding texts. It's an academic pursuit, and it was really liberating for me to learn about the different theoretical approaches. In high school they taught us one way of understanding texts as if that was the only way, and I didn't get it. I didn't like English in high school. But then, years later, I studied English at university and in the first year we learnt about all the different theoretical approaches, or at least some of them, and I engaged with each of them. They were helpful and interesting in understanding literature and how it works. So, it taught me that there are lots of different ways of approaching literature, which was really exciting. 

I understand that it's possible to make the connection between critical theory and activism, social and cultural change, ideology, worldview, etc. but I'm not interested in doing that, and there's no imperative for me to do that. I'm a Christian. That's my ideology. For me, critical theory is a framework for understanding texts and academic discourse.