Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice: An Urgent Appeal to Fellow Christians in a Time of Social Crisis

by Scott David Allen

Essayist Andrew Sullivan explains its appeal: For many, especially the young, discovering a new meaning [for life] . . . is thrilling. Social justice ideology does everything a religion should. It offers an account of the whole: that human life and society . . . must be seen entirely as a function of social power structures, in which various groups have spent all human existence oppressing other groups, and it provides a set of principles to resist and reverse this interlocking web of oppression.10 Many people have decided that fighting for social justice is the new purpose for their lives.

Practically, it reduces “individuals to puppets of social forces . . . powerless to rise above the communities to which they belong.”4 This helps explain why for LGBTQ+ individuals, their sexual activity isn’t viewed as a choice, or a behavior, but an identity. It’s not what I do, it’s who I am.

The bedrock of human identity is found in our common creation (we are all created in God’s image and likeness, with equal value and dignity) and in God’s gracious open door to redemption. We are all rebels, but God has opened a way for all people to be saved. When our relationship to God is restored through faith in Christ, we regain our true identity, one that transcends group identities: For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26–28 ESV)

The Bible is very clear: Ultimate authority resides with God and His revealed Word in Scripture. God also establishes legitimate human authorities: husbands in marriage, parents in the home, governing authorities in the state, and pastors and elders in the church. These authorities are to be treated with deference and respect, insofar as they adhere to godly standards of morality, because all authority comes from God.

And how does the Bible respond to the social justice notion that ultimate authority resides with victims? As Christians, we can agree that there are many victims of injustice and oppression in our fallen world, and they deserve justice and compassion. However, we disagree that we must confer moral authority on people who claim victim status, allowing them to define what is real, based on their subjective “lived experience.”

As Christ-followers, we should also be concerned about the emergence of “victimhood culture.” Ideological social justice drives a growing tendency to look for every opportunity to take offense and cling to every grievance, no matter how small or how long ago. This is terribly destructive. It leads to bitterness, unhappiness, and conflict. Christ shows us a very different way. Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39) and, in genuine love, to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things (see 1 Corinthians 13:7). We are to “forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). Rather than holding onto grievances in order to claim victim status, we are to keep “no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5), and even to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44).

Or consider the fact that higher percentages of black students than white students are expelled from Saint Paul, Minnesota, public schools. The superintendent, following the reasoning of social justice, has concluded that this disparity is incontrovertible proof of systemic racism. But is it possible that the actions of the black students themselves might play a role? Social justice ideology, of course, forbids this kind of thinking. Bad outcomes must never be blamed on personal choices or behaviors. This is “blaming the victim”—a cardinal sin. Blame must always be attributed to social, systemic, and institutional causes outside of human control. So the superintendent placed an arbitrary cap on the number of black students who could be expelled, without regard to the actions of the students. The result, predictably, was “chaos.”

We emphatically deny that lectures on social issues (or activism aimed at reshaping the wider culture) are as vital to the life and health of the church as the preaching of the gospel and the exposition of Scripture. Historically, such things tend to become distractions that inevitably lead to departures from the gospel.

The crying need today, as it was in the early twentieth century, is to recover a biblical, orthodox approach to justice and cultural engagement. At the same time, we must speak out against unbiblical social justice ideology. We need to rediscover and champion a deeply biblical approach to cultural engagement, in ways that lead to greater justice and human flourishing, and not to abandon these things as a distraction from our “core mission.” In short, the church must return to a comprehensive biblical worldview. Biblical justice is far too important, and far too central to the Christian worldview, for us to allow it to be compromised by an imposter such as social justice.

Christians committed to a biblical worldview should reject the redefinition of racism popularized by critical race theory, namely, “prejudice plus power that only applies to white people.” We should uphold and defend the true definition of racism—the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race—and then work hard for racial reconciliation, while we expose and mortify our own racist thoughts and attitudes, and work to root racism out of our churches, institutions, and out of every corner of society.

My friend and mentor Darrow Miller is fond of saying, “If the church fails to disciple the nation, the nation will disciple the church.” Someone is always actively impacting culture. If it isn’t the followers of Jesus, it will be, by default, those who adhere to another worldview. If we don’t like the worldview that is shaping our culture, we only have ourselves to blame.

Nancy Pearcey is exactly right: The best way to drive out a bad worldview is by offering a good one, and Christians need to move beyond criticizing culture to creating culture. That is the task God originally created humans to do, and in the process of sanctification we are meant to recover that task. . . . In every calling we are culture-creators, offering up our work as service to God.