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

by Scott David Allen

the nations of northern Europe were as impoverished as the nations of Africa are today.

Is all of Africa actually poor?

Ravi Zacharias, “Justice is the handmaiden of truth, and when truth dies, justice is buried with it.”16

Real rich considering....

We find it at the apex of God’s extraordinary story of redemption—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God incarnate, in an act of sheer love, took upon Himself the punishment we deserved for our transgressions in order to show us a mercy we could never deserve. The New Testament writers expressed their wonder at this over and over again:

The cross is God’s ultimate solution for dealing with the evil and injustice in this world. Calvary made achieving this goal possible, but it won’t happen fully until Jesus returns. God delays the final judgment for the moment, knowing full well that evil and injustice will continue. He delays it, not because He is powerless over evil nor because He lacks compassion for its victims. He delays it for the sake of mercy, for God is “patient . . . not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

During the trial, the judge gave Denhollander permission to speak directly to Nassar. Her testimony revealed a deep wisdom about justice and mercy in the shadow of the cross. This courageous Christian wife, mother, and attorney spoke of the terrible evil Nassar committed: “You have become a man ruled by selfish and perverted desires. . . . You chose to pursue your wickedness no matter what it cost others.” She reminded Nassar that in addition to earthly judgment, he would face a future heavenly judgment in which “all of God’s wrath and eternal terror is poured out on men like you.”1

Partial justice was served through the earthly court in Michigan on January 24, 2018, but perfect justice will be served if a forgiven Nassar is ushered into God’s heavenly throne room, his sins paid for by Christ’s perfect sacrifice.

Denhollander can forgive because she knows that she has been forgiven, and she too is unworthy of God’s mercy. She forgives, knowing that a future reckoning is coming, leaving the dispensing of justice in God’s capable hands.

Pastor John Piper believes that this means we are not to let an enemy’s hostility produce hostility in us. Piper says, “Don’t be overcome by his evil. Don’t let another person’s evil make you evil.”

I literally said “mhm” so good

“Justice, sir, is the great interest of [people] on earth,” said Daniel Webster. “It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.”3 Webster was right. Without justice, human flourishing is impossible.

But I knew from my own research in the history of European empires and their encounters with indigenous cultures, that societies have always had different conceptions of human worth, or lack thereof.

Injustice results when certain groups are dehumanized.

In one of his most controversial statements, Ta-Nehisi Coates describes to his son his reaction to watching the New York City police and fire fighters rush into the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11. “They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could—with no justification—shatter my body”12 (italics added). Here you see not only Coates’s inability to see people as individuals—as fellow human beings. His worldview reduces them to subhuman representatives of oppressive groups.

Having rejected the Judeo-Christian foundations of society,

This book presupposes that Christianity was what our country was founded on, and therefore to move away from it is wrong by virtue of rejecting the foundational beginnings of America

Yes, there are oppressive systems, structures, and institutions. We cannot stand idly by while these things continue destroying people and despoiling God’s magnificent creation.

Things that were formerly understood to be good—such as, freedom of speech; freedom of religion; reserving sex until marriage; marriage as the exclusive, lifelong union of a man and a woman; and even the male-female binary itself—are increasingly understood to be bad.

How it this morally right and biblical?

“Resistance to the claim that you are guilty is evidence of your guilt.”25

Without truth, as the late Ravi Zacharias rightly tells us, there is no justice.

Again, rich for a man who hid his sins

The Western concept of due process, rooted in the Judeo-Christian worldview,

These claims about American justice systems going back to Christianity is concerning. No proof, just claims. I find it annoying.

Poverty is often grounded in false, destructive beliefs. Biblical truth has the power to transform cultures of poverty.

Wtf

How we came to our present lamentable state is essentially the story of Western civilization—a civilization whose defining characteristics are slavery, colonization, greed, exploitation, racial superiority, imperialism, and genocide. For the millions who have been taught this neo-Marxist narrative of Western history since the 1960s, “The West” is nothing more than “a mythos of white power, imbibed by white supremacists.”

He’s joking.... right?

traditional marriage (“the patriarchy”),

Another lol

For the many who think like Coates, America is “an awful, no-good, very-bad, racist country that we ought to despise, tear down, and remake.”

I mean.... history don’t lie. Our history has current consequences.

This loathing of Western civilization and America is behind two recent trends: athletes not standing for the National Anthem and refusing to honor the American flag, and the desecration and tearing-down of statues, murals, and portraits that commemorate famous historical figures such as George Washington, Winston Churchill, and Christopher Columbus. For social justice ideologues, these icons of Western civilization and American history are not heroes but villains who perpetuated systems of violence, oppression, and bigotry.

This book is just getting absurd now.

Our perspective needs to be focused on finding truth, not confined to a narrative that cherry-picks and spotlights only the negative.

This is a generalization and absurd claim. Being honest about history would mean that those who hold to “new Marxism” may and do hold true views that are objective reality given historical fact.

For all its flaws, Western civilization offers so much that is good—freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, respect for the individual, due process, relative peace and prosperity, and so on. These goods arose from an understanding of biblical truth lived out imperfectly, but faithfully, over many generations. Those attacking the West are doing so, largely, with the tools provided by the civilization itself. The social justice narrative ignores this history entirely. We ought not to.

America is not and never was a Christian theocracy with a government reflecting Christian values, THAT is what is absurd.

“We would have been more virtuous and courageous if we had lived in their times and in their circumstances.” This kind of historical arrogance has no place in the heart of a Christian.

No, I wouldn’t have. But, it’s honest to still recognize that great evil was done and it’s worthy of lament and how that history has filtered into now

But a haughty, critical spirit that willfully ignores all the good gifts that other have given you, often a great expense—is a terrible thing. It destroys relationships, and the relationships we have with our forebears are among our most important.

I don’t disagree

Because the vast majority of these murders are committed by blacks against other blacks. In the worldview of ideological social justice, to even mention this fact is insensitive and racist. Blacks are victims; therefore, the violence they perpetuate is largely ignored by the media. Try and speak out for the victims of black-on-black crime, and you’ll find yourself quickly called out, corrected, or shamed.

This man is seriously tone deaf

Will all lives matter or only those from self-defined victim groups?

He doesn’t understand BLM, clearly

The loss of the gospel (Social justice ideology is utterly incompatible with the Christian gospel. It offers a false righteousness for victim-group members and a false form of atonement for oppressors. As such, it is a false gospel—and one that ultimately has no room for forgiveness, reconciliation, or redemption, only ever-greater division, condescension, and retribution.)