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

by Scott David Allen

Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom; You love righteousness and hate wickedness. —Psalm 45:6–7

According to the biblical worldview, people “are children of God, fashioned in His divine image. [According to] Social Justice, we are children of society, fashioned by its social constructions and the power dynamics they maintain.” —James A. Lindsay

Cultural engagement without cultural discernment leads to cultural captivity. —Ken Meyers

Christians of all stripes also share a deep commitment to justice, as well as to equality, diversity, and inclusion.

“It’s no good having the same vocabulary if we’re using different dictionaries.”

Words matter. They shape our ideas and form our belief systems.

All cultural change begins with language change. Changes in language—new words, new definitions—can usually be traced to powerful thought leaders who may have lived hundreds of years before.

Dallas Willard wrote, “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.”2

The Bible is far more than a message of salvation, as absolutely vital as that is. It is a comprehensive worldview that defines and shapes all aspects of reality and human existence.

Robert Lewis Wilken, “culture lives by language, and the sentiments, thoughts, and feelings of a Christian culture are formed and carried by the language of the Scriptures.”3

So, when the evangelical church intentionally or unintentionally exchanges the biblical definition of a word as important as justice with a counterfeit, it is no small matter.

The true definition of justice finds its source in the Bible and has expressed itself historically in ways that have blessed nations.

We need worldviews to make sense of our lives. They help us understand our identity and purpose. In our increasingly post-Christian society, a growing number of people have no knowledge of the Bible, yet it was the biblical worldview that shaped the West for centuries. It provided the basic assumptions that supplied many generations with their identity and purpose, whether they were Christians or not. But today, with the Bible and the biblical worldview in rapid decline, ideological social justice is filling the vacuum.

Our worldviews determine not only how we think, but how we act. They drive the choices we make. They act like the roots of a fruit tree.

ideological social justice can be recognized by its bitter fruit. The lives and cultures shaped by it are marked by enmity, hostility, suspicion, entitlement, and grievance.

Over time I came to see that Marxist worldview assumptions do far more to harm the poor than to help them. It did not see the poor as fully human, created in the image of God, with dignity, responsibility, and the capacity to create new wealth and new opportunities. My former Marxist-influenced worldview saw them largely as helpless victims, dependent upon the actions of beneficent Westerners to overcome poverty. This fostered a destructive sense of paternalism and guilt on one side, and a damaging sense of dependency and entitlement on the other.

gospel proclamation is only the beginning of genuine Christian mission, not the end.

God’s plan of redemption isn’t limited to saving souls. It encompasses the reconciliation of all forms of broken relationships: with God, with ourselves, with our fellow human beings, and with creation itself.

Poverty isn’t ultimately rooted in unjust systems but in satanic deception at the level of culture.

Each generation of Christians must uphold and defend the truth and pass it on to future generations, including the truth about justice.

The notion of “personal bodily autonomy” flows out of postmodernism, which holds that ultimate authority is not vested in God, or in science, but in the autonomous, sovereign individual.

In other words, “reproductive justice” is the assertion that a mother has the “human right” to take the life of her unborn child if she so chooses.

The inroads that ideological social justice is making into the evangelical church need to be recognized and exposed for the good of the church, and the good of the broader society the church exists to serve.

Justice is alignment to a standard of goodness.

An action can be said to be unjust if it is out of alignment with a moral standard.

The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws.

An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

“work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4 ESV).

The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice. Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. (Psalm 97:1–2, italics added)

First, He communicates it to us inwardly. As image-bearers of God, all people have a built-in sense of this law “imprinted on our heart,”

Micah 6:8 says: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (ESV)

In short, justice is living out the Ten Commandments in our everyday relationships.

“We do justice when we give all human beings their due as creations of God,” Tim Keller

justice requires truth.

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

“The evil in the world is not out there,” says Koukl. “It is in us. Put simply, we are guilty, and we know it.”20

“Against you, and you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge,” said King David in Psalm 51:4.

He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight. (Psalm 72:12–14)

There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness . . . so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:22–26, italics added)

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God.” (1 Peter 3:18 NASB)

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4–6)

God’s mercy and justice meet at the cross.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. . . . each person was judged according to what they had done. . . . Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11–13, 15)

Without justice, human flourishing is impossible.

Just societies value, protect, and preserve due process.

“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30–31).

A perfectly holy and righteous Creator has woven justice deeply into the cosmos, and our hearts know it.

Even if we deny God’s existence, we cannot live as if justice does not exist.