“Social Justice”
Fox News talker Glenn Beck has drawn the ire of some on the Christian left after calling on people who attend churches that preach “social justice” to leave that church.
The Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians, says Beck perverted Jesus' message when he urged Christians last week to leave churches that preach social and economic justice.
Wallis says Beck compared those churches to Communists and Nazis.
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t quote what Beck actually said. I’m also always skeptical of the characterization of a foe’s comments by someone calling for a boycott – so I’m hesitant to take Wallis’s word as gospel here. For the record, I think it likely that all of the people vowing to boycott Beck’s show never watched it in the first place.
Let’s get some facts straight. Yes, as Wallis claims, Jesus did preach economic and social justice.
Jesus also said: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
And this really is the crux of the debate between those on the Christian left like Wallis and the Christian right like Jerry Falwell Jr. who is also quoted in the story.
"Jesus taught that we should give to the poor and support widows, but he never said that we should elect a government that would take money from our neighbor's hand and give it to the poor," Falwell says.
Falwell is exactly right. The Christian left seems to systematically confuse taxes and charity. One is freely and gladly given, the other is coerced with the threat of force.
I cringe every time I hear of Wallis or Tony Campolo (who does some excellent work) petitioning Congress or participating in a sit-in of some sort demanding more money for social programs. This is not a job that the government was designed for and it’s not one it does well. Think about what the perverse rules on welfare payments did to the largely inner-city black family structure in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s as fathers would be encouraged to abandon their children and their baby mamas so the latter could secure government hand-outs.
Wallis and Campolo shouldn’t be in the halls of political power in Washington, they should be in the churches and synagogues.
It’s interesting that over the past decade the political (and religious) left has attacked the Christian right as “Christianists” for their desire to protect the institution of marriage and place restrictions on abortion. These political maneuverings, they claim, are imposing their religious beliefs on the rest of the country.
Yet using the power of the government to forcibly take money from those in disfavor (the rich – whatever income level that happens to be at the time) and give to the poor somehow isn’t imposing their religious beliefs on the rest of the country? It’s easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, so we’ll make it easier for you (whether you’re a Christian or not) by taking your money.
The net effect of such policies is to outsource the duties of the Church to provide charity and support those in need – as directed by Jesus Christ – to the government. This is bad for two reasons: First, you have Christians focused on the government as the prime conduit for social and economic justice instead of the church. Second, you create an atmosphere where Christians take an “I gave at the office” attitude towards charity because their tax dollars go to it.
For some Christians, practicing economic and social justice means that churches should practice charity: setting up soup kitchens, assisting victims of natural disasters, and helping people find jobs.
This is largely where I come down – though I would add it goes further than just these items. If you didn’t have things like Social Security, food stamps, welfare, etc. outsourced to the government. Churches really should be doing those things too.
For other Christians, practicing economic and social justice also means trying to change the conditions that cause people to be poor or unemployed. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. subscribed to this definition of biblical justice.
And what exactly are “the conditions that cause people to be poor or unemployed?” Seriously? Substance abuse? Already illegal. Alcoholism? We already tried prohibition. Does a CEO making $200 million a year “cause” someone to be unemployed? Does that unemployed person somehow get a job when that CEO is taxed at a 90 percent rate and not have a job when the CEO is only taxed at 50 percent?
This is why the “economic justice” and “social justice” catchphrases make me cringe. Yes, as Christians we should seek these things because Jesus Christ told us to. But as they’re used in our current political environment, they’re synonymous not with Christian charity but higher taxes and bigger government. A bigger government doing things that Christ commanded the churches to do – and doing them far less effectively than the churches could.
An additional note:
I found it interesting in the article that “progressive” Christians wanted to claim the mantle of William Wilberforce, the British anti-slavery activist and MP who was recently immortalized in popular culture with the film “Amazing Grace.”
William Wilberforce, for example, is a 19th century British politician who helped abolish the slave trade in his country. He is now regarded as a hero for some evangelicals because he applied his faith to the economic and social justice issues of his day, [Southern Baptist convention pastor Marty] Duren says.
What is the most comparable social evil to the slave trade that exists today? Abortion. Yet most of these same churches that preach social and economic justice are strongly pro-choice.
One comment on ““Social Justice””
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Another problem with the "social justice" crowd is that they take the second of the two Great Commandments and put it at the top. Putting love of your neighbor first, in place of love of God, makes your neighbor an idol.
I've heard that type speak passionately and at length about helping the poor, without ever indicating that they thought the poor (or themselves) have immortal souls to care for.