Social Justice: A Nice Idea That Destroys Humanity

Social Justice is an attempt to insert Christian charity into the concept of justice so that justice is then understood to include both the traditional Aristotelian-Biblical notion of justice and the Biblical notion of charity (love) within itself. To strive for social justice, then, is to strive for a society in which love has been institutionalized, which is to say, removed from the sphere of personal moral decision and incorporated into the impersonal, automatic functioning of the social system. If a woman loses her husband, she does not need neighbours or the local church to rally around because a welfare cheque automatically arrives in her mailbox from the government. What was once occasional, haphazard and personal has been rendered perpetual, organized and institutional.

This transference of the necessity of private charity into the realm of bureaucratic institutions is an attempt to implement a Utopia in which the social system is so good that no individual need be good. What goes naturally with such a society is the release of the individual for hedonistic satisfaction of the impulses of the lower nature – immediate gratification of the sexual urge being the primary form this lifestyle takes. Sex has been disassociated from family, economics, honour and duty and thus has been animalized. As the nanny state grows we observe that first the family becomes unnecessary and then, finally, the church becomes irrelevant. The all-powerful, provident, parental State now presents itself as the source of all goods and the provider of all needs. When the mask finally falls off, the tyrannous, ravenous Beast is revealed as the Idol which demands worship and stands in the place of God.

Social justice can have a perfectly innocuous and respectable meaning, which is totally different from that meaning described above. It can simply mean justice applied to social relations, as opposed to justice applied to the individual qua individual. It such cases it is basically redundant because justice is justice whether applied to the individual as individual or to the individual as a member of society. The traditional Aristotelian and Biblical notion of justice is “giving to each one what he is owed.” In fact, one can see from this definition that since there is a person who owes and a person who is owed, all justice is actually social. Prefixing the adjective “social” to the noun “justice” thus effects nothing except a redundancy unless the point is subtly to change the meaning of justice from “what one is owed” to “the right to be loved.”

No one has a “right” to be loved because to love is a free moral choice and to say that Person A has a right to be loved is to say that someone has the duty to love him. If Person A has the right to be married, then some person has the duty to marry him. But marriage is an act of persons who freely contract with one another and, in fact, one partner contracting out of duty or coercion actually annuls and makes invalid the marriage contract. So no one could possibly have the “duty” to marry anybody and, therefore, no one could possibly have the “right” to be married. Just so, no one has the “right” to be loved. Love is personal, free and the very opposite of a duty.

If love can be combined with justice in the way that those who promote the idea of social justice advocate, then either love will be reduced to justice, which will result in a hard and rough set of social relations or else justice will be reduced to love, which will result in justice being turned into sentimentality. Sentiment is meant to temper and supplement justice, not define it. And love must pick up where justice leaves off if society is to be leavened by personal relationships based on charity.

In literature, the best depiction of a society in which the idea of social justice has completely triumphed is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. There is no crime, no poverty, no sickness, no unemployment, nothing to fear and nothing to live for except mindless, sensual pleasures. It is far more horrifying than the “hard totalitarianisms” of the twentieth century. It is dehumanizing and animalistic. Social justice sounds nice, but turns out to be the destruction of our true humanity. “There is a way that seems right to man, but the end thereof is destruction.”

Pious Hypocrites

It's old news now, but in case you haven't heard the Irish rock band U2 has decided to move its corporate headquarters out of Ireland to avoid paying sky high taxes. For this they must be mocked:

Poor old Bono. You spend your life campaigning against poverty and injustice, and making some pretty good music along the way, and what thanks do you get?

U2 played the Glastonbury Festival in Britain for the first time last night, and their performance was briefly disrupted when a group protesting about the band’s alleged tax avoidance inflated a large balloon carrying the slogan ‘U Pay Your Tax 2′.

Of course, no conservative is going to quibble about the band’s right to take all legally-available steps to minimize their tax liability. The trouble is, such business dealings sit rather uneasily alongside Bono’s repeated calls for Western governments to send more money to developing nations, and write off outstanding debt.

From the conservative point of view, if Bono devoted his energy to encouraging private individuals and business to hand over their cash to charities, there wouldn’t be an issue here; the problem is, if governments are to send more money to Africa they need to get it from someone, and that someone is you, me and U2.

Yup. If your whole schtick is built around how the government should give more money to corrupt, socialist, third world governments headed by kleptomaniacs with Swiss bank accounts and it says right in the Bible (somewhere) that we must, then said governments are going to need tax revenue and a lot more of it. So, pay up or shut up.

Timothy Noah quotes "Mr. Justice Issue" as follows:

"Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market … that's a justice issue," Bono said at a prayer breakfast attended by President Bush, Jordan's King Abdullah, and various members of Congress earlier this year. Preaching this sort of thing has made Bono a perennial candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. He continued:

Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents ... that's a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents ... that's a justice issue.

And relocating your business offshore in order to avoid paying taxes to the Republic of Ireland, where poverty is higher than in almost any other developed nation?

It seems odd to me that millionaires and billionaires who campaign for governments to spend more of other people's money on their pet projects and publicity-generating schemes don't want to pair their "fair share" of taxes in their own home countries. Surely they understand that there is a direct correlation between their redistributionist schemes and the high rate of taxes they have to pay, don't they?

Global Warming Activism Does Not Lead to Greater Social Justice: Here is Why

Please watch this video. It presents the other side of the global warming issue in a humorous, yet serious, manner. The other side I am referring to is not the other side of the scientific debate about how much human activity is actually affecting climate change. I refer instead to the moral debate over how to respond to climate change.

The environmental movement claims the moral high ground and poses as a humanistic and altruistic movement for social justice. Actually, as Crowder argues, is it posturing, insincere and anti-human. It is a front for Marxism, which always promises the moon but delivers only misery.

If you care about the poor and social justice, please watch this video and get the other side of the story.

Justice is Not Enough

Jim Wallis continues to confuse the definition of justice. In a blog post on Martin Luther King as a social justice Christian, he offers this statement.

This is why in the Old Testament, God commands his people to be charitable but also to work for justice. The people of God are to give offerings of their own free will, but there are also laws that show the government has a legitimate role to play. As a Christian, I believe that Jesus changes people's hearts and lives, and that is something that government policy can never compete with. But, I also believe that personal charity does not do the work of justice.

There is a lot of confusion packed into this one little paragraph so let's take the points one at a time.

1. Justice is rendering to each one his due. So when rich people oppress poor people by bribing judges to render unjust rulings and take their land, for example, that is an example of how working for justice can help the poor. (See Amos, for example.) We should be all for this kind of justice. But Wallis is clearly going beyond this definition of justice in what he calls "social justice."

2. When Wallis says that the government "has a role to play" in the OT, he subtly implies that that role might be a redistributive role, yet the OT does not say that. The OT concern is that the government be honest and uncorrupted so that each one gets what is his due. This concern is not the total answer to the problem of poverty because poverty has other causes than simply injustice or oppression of the poor by the rich.

The poor also get poorer sometimes by themselves without being oppressed by anyone. This is why the Wisdom literature, especially Proverbs, emphasizes the virtues of hard work and condemns sloth. Also, there are many life exigencies such as illness or the desertion of his family by a father that can cause poverty that have nothing directly to do with the government. Many of these situations are best addressed by civil society at a lower level than that of the central government.

3. When Wallis says that charity is not sufficient and that a social welfare state is necessary he is making a prudential political judgment and reading his view into the OT. That is not what the OT teaches. When the OT commands charity, it addresses the individual. It never says that the king should raise taxes and redistribute the proceeds to the poor; in fact, increased taxation by the king is always seen as a form of oppression in the OT. It was one of the things Samuel warned Israel about when Israel unwisely demanded a king.

4. For Wallis, personal charity is insufficient because his vision is a high-tax, welfare state and in such a state individual giving to charity always goes down instead of up. His big government preference, however, is the main factor in depressing individual charitable giving and so his prophecy becomes a self-fulfilling one to the extent that his leftist ideology prevails.

In conclusion, Wallis wants to create a hybrid out of a fusion of justice and charity called "social justice" which is neither just or charitable. It is a continuation of the centralizing power of the monarchy that proved fatal to Israel as a nation in the OT and which was condemned by the 8th century prophets. It involves government unjustly appropriating the wealth of ordinary people in order to redistribute it to those whom government bureaucrats deem to be more in need of it. It squeezes out charity and discourages hard work and productivity.

For Wallis, the term "social justice" is indistinguishable from socialism. There is a legitimate Roman Catholic tradition of social justice teaching which developed in conscious opposition to socialism, which is very different. Unfortunately, such subtle distinctions as the meaning of justice, the meaning of the principle of subsidiarity, and the on-going necessity of charity seem to be lost on Wallis. He is the kind of progressive for whom "progress" ultimately leads to socialism, tyranny, poverty, and the loss of individual freedom and responsibility before God.

Timothy Dalrymple on the Tea Parties and Social Justice

Timothy Dalrymple has a wonderful article on the Tea Party as a social justice movement. I want to quote a couple of passages but I urge you to read the whole thing here: "Is the Tea Party a 'Social Justice' Movement?"

First, he identifies correctly (in my opinion) the source of the passion directed against the Tea Party and conservatives by liberals: [my bolding]

What I witnessed in the Tea Partiers, however, were a moral, sensible, and patriotic people who had a justified concern that their representatives have grown disconnected from those they represent, and are perpetuating a dysfunctional political culture that will thrust our country back to the precipice of economic collapse. Washington cannot pour rivers of money we do not possess into thousands of programs we do not need, in exchange for the mountains of votes that will keep them in power, and complain when the taxpayers get upset. The Tea Partiers are not objecting because they would rather leave the poor to rot than surrender a little more of their money; polls show (as I will discuss in the next part of this series) that Tea Partiers are perfectly willing to accept the need for moderate taxation and social services. Rather, Tea Partiers are objecting because they fear that Washington is caught in a vicious circle of reckless spending and political payback that will cripple our economy and harm all Americans, rich and poor.

This led to the question on my mind that morning. Since it is intent on the formation of a more accountable and more restrained government that will better serve the interest of all Americans: Is the Tea Party movement a social justice movement?

When I asked this question of my beloved liberal friends, they were mortified. There may be no quicker way to help a food-poisoned progressive empty the contents of her stomach than to suggest that the Tea Party movement is just as much a "social justice" movement as are living wage or immigrants' rights movements.

The reason for their response is simple. For many religious progressives, "social justice" has eclipsed the old God in whom they no longer quite believe. The hope of a socially just world has not complemented and enriched (as it should) but impoverished and occluded their hope of eternity with God. Thus, for them, social justice is the final refuge of the transcendent, the one pure act that remains in a tarnished world, the last vision with the power to stir the graying embers of their religious devotion.

Even religious progressives who still believe in an eternal relationship with God tend to see social justice as holy in the Hebrew sense, as that which sets them apart -- apart from the fat cats and the country clubbers, to be sure, but also apart from those Christians, the Christians who live in "Jesusland," attend megachurches, and wear flags on their lapels: the very same conservative Christians who might be found at a Tea Party rally. Thus, to suggest that the Tea Partiers are engaged in a social justice movement is not only to soil their sacred ideal with the grubby fingers of the bigoted Tea Partiers, but to suggest that progressive Christians and conservative Christians are not separated so much by the presence or absence of love for the poor but by their sense of the policies that best serve the poor and the rest of society.

Darlymple goes on to discuss the meaning of the term "social justice" and while I cannot reproduce his whole discussion, here are some salient bits the whet your appetite:

Whether the Tea Party movement actually is a social justice movement obviously depends on how the term is defined. The irony is that one cannot exclude the Tea Party from the social justice category without betraying that "social justice" is a partisan political theory. . . .

When Glenn Beck condemned social justice as a "code word" for liberal political activism, the question that was presented to progressive activists like Jim Wallis was whether social justice is the sole province of left-wing political agitators. With apologies to Albert Einstein, we distinguish between general and special theories of social justice. The general theory is that "social justice is in fact a personal commitment to serve the poor and to attack the conditions that lead to poverty." That is how Jim Wallis defined the term in a Washington Post column. The special theory, by contrast, asserts that social justice is when one attacks "the conditions that lead to poverty" by advocating specifically the policies that liberals prefer. In other words, on the special theory, it is not enough to fight for the conditions that would allow the poor to prosper; one must do so through redistributionist policies, or living wage movements, or stronger unions, or etc. . . .

. . . when Wallis is pressed on whether he is merely anointing his own political preferences in religious rhetoric, he retreats to the general theory of social justice. People all over the spectrum, he says, are social justice Christians; what is important is simply "to stand up for the poor, even against wealth and power when necessary."

The Catholic theologian Michael Novak also offers a universal definition of social justice. After noting all the ambiguities in its history and meaning, Novak suggests that social justice is a joint, cooperative action (thus "social" in its form) for the good of the whole of society (and thus "social" in its end). By this definition, social justice is not an "ideological marker," but is "ideologically neutral." Social justice "is practiced both by those on the left and those on the right" because there is "more than one way to imagine the future good of society." If we adopt Novak's definition, or Wallis' universal definition, then the Tea Party movement is in fact a social justice movement. The great majority of those attending the rallies would tell you that the policies they advocate are for the common good of all, including the poor.

Yet Wallis does not actually hold to the universal theory of social justice. When Wallis actually uses social justice language amongst his supporters, it clearly means pressing for the systemic changes that Wallis and other leaders of "the faith community" prefer. I have never seen Wallis refer to a movement pressing for conservative policies, even when those policies are overtly intended to serve the poor and needy, as a social justice action.

One might respond that movements must press for a biblical vision of justice in order to qualify for the social justice category, and that conservative policies are simply not oriented toward the biblical ideal. To which the answer must be: According to whom? Countless thousands of conservative Christians vote the way they do, and press for the policies they do, precisely because they believe that they fulfill the biblical ideal of justice. . . .

Thus one must adopt the general, ideologically neutral theory of social justice, and then accept that all sorts of activities from soup kitchens to living wage demonstrations to, yes, Tea Party rallies, can count as social justice movements -- or else one must adopt the special, partisan theory of social justice and accept that Glenn Beck had a point. I leave it to my liberal friends to determine which is the more painful.

The dilemma for leftists articulated in that last paragraph is brilliant and true. Jim Wallis calls continually for a new conversation but what he really means is for letting left-wing rhetoric become dominant in places it has not previously been heard. Darlymple is asking for an actual debate between those advocating conservative and socialist methods for serving justice and fighting poverty.

This would require the Left to be willing to allow its left-wing theories to be placed in questioned without resorting to attacks on the character and motivations of conservatives. Are they willing to do that? In my experience most are not and therein lies the problem with having a new conversation.

European Social Democracy is Not Merely Unsustainable; It is Also Fundamentally Unjust

The Left has been attempting to move Canada and the US to the European model of social democracy in the name of social justice. The assumption is that socialism is just and so any approximation of socialist ideals, as in the European social democratic model, is more just than any capitalist system. Conservatives often find themselves on the defensive in the face of leftist dogma about social justice. Often, all conservatives do is to point out how inefficient social democracy is, which cedes the moral high ground to the socialists.

Samuel Gregg, however, goes on the offensive in his article "Europe: the Unjust Continent," and shows how unjust Europe is precisely insofar as it has implemented the social democratic system. He goes beyond the oft-made claim that Europe does not work to the more rarely heard, but much more significant, claim that Europe is fundamentally unjust.

In recent months, the European social model has been under the spotlight following Greece's economic meltdown and the fumbling efforts of European politicians to prop up other tottering European economies. To an unprecedented extent, the post-war European model's sustainability is being questioned. Even the New York Times has conceded something is fundamentally wrong with the model they and the American Left have been urging upon America for decades.

Western Europe's postwar economies were shaped by an apparent concern for the economically marginalized and the desire to realize more just societies. This inspired the extensive government economic intervention, high-tax rates and generous welfare states now characterizing most contemporary European economies. After 1945, Communists and Christian Democrats alike rallied around these policies. For Marxists, it was a step toward realizing their dream. For non-Marxists, it was a way of preventing outright collectivization.

Even today, words like “solidarity” and “social justice” permeate European discussion to an extent unimaginable in the rest of the world. If you want proof, just switch on a French television or open a German newspaper. The same media regularly contrast Europe's concern for justice with America's economic culture. America, many Europeans will tell you, embodies terrible economic injustices in the form of “immense” wealth-disparities, “grossly inadequate” healthcare, and “savage” competition.

But while such mythologies dominate European discourse, it's also true that Western Europe's economic culture is characterized by a deeply unjust fracture. Modern Europe is a continent increasingly divided between what Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi called in The Future of Europe (2006) “insiders” and “outsiders”.

The “insiders” are establishment politicians of left and right, trade unions, public sector workers, politically-connected businesses, pensioners, and those (such as farmers) receiving subsidies. The “outsiders” include, among others, entrepreneurs, immigrants, and the young. Naturally the insiders do everything they can to maintain their position and marginalize outsiders' opportunities for advancement.

So how do Europe's insiders maintain the status quo?

First, one needs to understand that Western European governments are largely managed by a political class that transcends ideological divisions. In France, for example, the main parties of right and left are dominated by people who went to the grandes écoles­ – elite educational institutions that are very difficult to enter but whose graduates supply most of France's business leaders, politicians, and civil servants. It's not untypical for a grande école product to work for a politically-connected corporation, switch to the civil service, return to the private sector, before eventually becoming a member of parliament.

France is an extreme case, but this situation manifests itself throughout Western Europe. Not surprisingly, this group – whatever their political differences – generally agree that they should be in charge. Indeed, Europe's political class is exceptionally good at self-perpetuation. It's common, for example, for politicians' children to follow the same road to power. Take Greece's current socialist prime minister, George Papandreou. His father and grandfather were also Greek prime ministers. In America, not even the Bushes have emulated this dynastic feat. Incidentally, Papandreou's predecessor as Prime Minister, the conservative Konstantinos Karamanlis, had an uncle who was prime minister of Greece 4 times and president twice.

Second, there is the phenomenon of what the Nobel Prize economist George Stigler identified in 1971 as “regulatory capture.” As Alesina and Giavazzi demonstrate, European regulators invariably identify themselves with those they are supposed to regulate – sometimes in return for jobs in a post-regulator life – and work hard to limit competition from new businesses or entrepreneurs.

This is a manifestation of a third disorder: European insiders' willingness to use state power to keep European outsiders marginalized. European unions, for example, could care less about the unemployed and immigrants. Instead they press governments to make it very hard for companies to fire anyone, especially union members. Employers are consequently reluctant to hire. Many young Europeans and recent immigrants are thus condemned to cobbling together part-time employment contracts with no benefits.

. . . snip . . .

Of course every society has its elites. The real question is whether a society embodies the possibility of social mobility through hard work and accessibility to economic opportunity.

This is what makes modern Europe's endless justice rhetoric so distasteful. All the tedious solidarity-talk and social justice-speak essentially masks a social stratification based on the highly-unjust foundation of proximity to government power – a situation which further incentivizes everyone to join the daily jostle to obtain state-mandated privileges.

It's difficult to imagine a more damning moral indictment of Europe's discredited economic culture.

The significance of Gregg's analysis here, which I think is sound and devastating, is that it leaves Europe with immoral social policies and laws regarding the sanctity of human life and the traditional family, as well as unjust economic laws and a democratic deficit. Given all of that, it is little wonder that demographic disaster looms and the culture of death is pervasive.

Evangelism, Mission, Charity, Justice and the Gospel

I argued in a recent post, "Challenging the Sacred Cow of Holistic Mission" that it is not possible for social justice and personal evangelism both to be equal as the highest priorities of the Church. I also noted some difficulties with the concept of "social justice" as opposed to classical conceptions of justice that lie at the foundation of Western culture going back to Aristotle and the Old Testament. Now I want to attempt to articulate how we should understand the relationship between evangelism, mission, charity, justice and the Gospel.

In Matthew 28:18-20 we have the Great Commission of our Lord to His Church: our mission is defined by Jesus Christ Himself and is not really up for debate or ratification by us.

"Then Jesus came and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.'" (Matt. 28:18-20 NIV)

Here we have the locus classicus of the mission of the Church. There are two parts to the commission: (1) baptizing - which refers to preaching, evangelizing, converting and baptizing into the body of Christ, that is, to the work of making Christians, and (2) teaching - or better "making disciples," that is, teaching them what Christ has commanded so that they can become obedient, growing, witnessing Christians.

So we see here that the advocates of "holistic mission" are quite right when they say that the mission of the Church cannot be reduced to mere evangelism. Getting people to the point of conversion and baptism is not the entire mission of the Church. However, it is quite a jump from there to including working to end material poverty as equal in importance to preaching the Gospel. Let me make several observations about this text.

First, evangelism comes first both chronologically and logically. The mission of the Church is to make disciples, which involves preaching for conversion and teaching for obedience. But its ministry is directed towards individuals, not institutions. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a "social gospel." There is a personal Gospel with social implications, but that is a different thing entirely. The question is who is the target audience: nations, business enterprises and governments or people? It is people who need their sins forgiven and it is people who can be baptized.

Second, the other part of the mission of the Church - teaching them to obey - is also directed toward individuals, not institutions. Moreover, it presupposes baptism. We can't disciple the unbaptized; only those who confess faith in Jesus Christ can go on to the next step of learning obedience to Christ's teachings.

Third, when we investigate the teachings of Christ we find things like His great summary of the Law and the Prophets when asked which is the most important of the commandments:

"The most important one, answered Jesus, is this: 'Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:29-31 NIV)

Surely, when we think about what it means to teach them "to obey everything I have commanded you" this is the best place to start in asking what making disciples is all about. It is about teaching converts to keep these two great commandments and thus fulfill in our lives the intentions of the Law of God.

Fourth, "love of neighbor" surely includes working for justice for all. We need to oppose all forms of injustice and ensure that people are not oppressed by unjust laws or by anyone or any organization working unjustly. But justice is rendering to each one what is due to that person. Justice is not equality of income nor is it charity. We are commanded to "love" the neighbor so clearly justice is just a base line, not a sufficient objective.

Fifth, in order to love the neighbor we must first and of greatest importance share Christ with him. Nothing else is as important as doing this, the greatest of all acts of charity. Of course, in emergency situations it may well be appropriate to relieve hunger or rescue from flooded lands or whatever. You obviously don't try to preach instead of digging through the rubble from an earthquake in order to rescue victims.

But relief and development work are not an alternative to or a substitute for evangelism. Ideally, they flow out of evangelism as converted people learn that to follow Jesus is to love their neighbors and therefore become involved in relief and development out of obedience to Him.

Sixth, there is a necessary relationship between evangelism and good works of charity. Loving the neighbor is not an optional aspect of the Faith. As Paul teaches us clearly, we are saved by faith alone, not by works lest anyone boast (Eph. 2:8-9). However, as James teaches clearly, true saving faith in Jesus Christ will result in works and any so called faith that does not lead to visiting the fatherless and the orphan in their distress (Ja. 1:27) is dead (Ja. 2:14-17).

To play off James and Paul against each other is to opt for a non-canonical reading of Scripture that denies the authority of Scripture as a unified witness to Jesus Christ. They go together. But note well: faith precedes works. If faith without works is dead, works without faith are not specifically Christian and therefore not mission.

Conclusions:

1. If by "holistic mission" we mean that evangelism and works of charity are both part of what Christians are called to do, then there could be no quarrel with the phrase. But this is not all that is meant in many instances.

2. In the mission of the Church evangelism has priority both logically and chronologically. It must come first if we are to make disciples and disciples cannot be made without it. Therefore it cannot be merely one of two equally important aspects of the Church's mission.

3. Social justice is a problematic term because it implies working for economic equality for society as a whole as a substitute for preaching the Gospel of sin and salvation to individuals. We must not bring the hope of heaven down to earth as simply the human project of reorganizing society in a better way by revolution and scientific social engineering. The Kingdom of God is a Divine work and our job is to witness to it not create it.

4. Wherever the Gospel has been preached with success and many baptisms have occurred, the society has been transformed as a result as people grow in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ and love their neighbors in a multitude of ways.

Glenn Beck and Social Justice: Part VI: Conclusions

This is the concluding post in a series on Glenn Beck and Social Justice. After an introductory discussion of conflicting definitions, we examined four appraoches:

1. Social Justice as Code for Communism
2. Social Justice in Roman Catholic Social Doctrine
3. Social Justice in Neocalvinist Thought
4. Social Justice in Evangelical Thought

Now, I want to try to draw a few conclusions. First, we should be thankful to Glenn Beck, clown that he is, for sparking a public uproar over the question of what social justice is. After all, not all that goes under the flag of social justice is innocent.

Second, we should reject social justice insofar as it is merely code for Marxism, Socialism or Communism. All of these involve the tyranny of statism and all must be rejected by Christians. Sadly, however, Liberal Protestants have bought into either an inconsistent form of socialism or, in many cases, into the whole thing. In doing so they have transformed the Gospel into a Social Gospel that neglects salvation through the cross and substitutes salvation through the state.

Third, we should recognize and be thankful for the vocation of Evangelicalism to keep before the Church Catholic the priority, integrity and centrality of the biblical and historic Gospel of salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ as the foundation of the Faith.

Fourth, we should recognize and be thankful for the contributions of Roman Catholic social doctrine and Neocalvinism in advancing non-statist and non-socialist thinking in the service of finding creative ways for the Church to be salt and light in modern Western culture. We can be especially grateful for the good work done by Neocalvinists in education and the magnificent contribution of Pope John Paul II to the naming of and the struggle against the culture of death.

Fifth, we must be cognizant of the danger of Evangelicalism, Catholicism and Neocalvinism drifting into a culturally accommodated liberalism or socialism. The danger of statism is the most pressing problem in contemporary culture as family is under severe attack and civil society is eroded. In this situation the temptations of Socialism and Capitalism (Liberalism) must be resisted for both are false answers to the problems we face. Resources for working for a kind of social justice that rejects the idolatry of the State and of the Market can be found in the Christian Tradition. The goal is not to conform to Modernity, but to reform it on Christian principles.

Glenn Beck and Social Justice: Part V: Social Justice and Evangelicals

Finally, in our series on Glenn Beck and social justice, we come to an Evangelical perspective as articulated by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president, Al Mohler, on his blog recently in response to the Beck controversy. He wrote a post entitled: "Glenn Beck, Social Justice and the Limits of Public Discourse." Mohler began by acknowledging that there is a sense in which justice in society is a properly Biblical concern.

"Is Glenn Beck right? That is the question most in the media were asking, along with a good number of Christians who were aware of the debate. With just a few words, Beck, a convert to Mormonism, set the world of American religion into a frenzy of discourse.

At first glance, Beck's statements are hard to defend. How can justice, social or private, be anything other than a biblical mandate? A quick look at the Bible will reveal that justice is, above all, an attribute of God himself. God is perfectly just, and the Bible is filled with God's condemnation of injustice in any form. The prophets thundered God's denunciation of social injustice and the call for God's people to live justly, to uphold justice, and to refrain from any perversion of justice.

The one who pleases the Lord is he who will "keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice" (Gen. 18:19). Israel is told to "do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness you shall judge your neighbor" (Lev. 19:15). God "has established his throne for justice" (Psalm 9:7) and "loves righteousness and justice" (Psalm 33:5). Princes are to "rule in justice" (Is. 32:1) even as the Lord "will fill Zion with justice and righteousness" (Is. 33:5). In the face of injustice, the prophet Amos thundered: "But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (Amos 5:18). In a classic statement, Micah reminded Israel: "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?" (Micah 6:8).

To assert that a call for social justice is reason for faithful Christians to flee their churches is nonsense, given the Bible's overwhelming affirmation that justice is one of God's own foremost concerns."

But then Mohler shifts gears and says:

"But, there is more going on here. Glenn Beck's statements lacked nuance, fair consideration, and context. It was reckless to use a national media platform to rail against social justice in such a manner, leaving Beck with little defense against a tidal wave of biblical mandates.

A closer look at his statements reveals a political context. He made a specific reference to Rev. Jeremiah Wright and to other priests or preachers who would use "social justice" and "economic justice" as "code words." Is there anything to this?

Of course there is. Regrettably, there is no shortage of preachers who have traded the Gospel for a platform of political and economic change, most often packaged as a call for social justice.

The immediate roots of this phenomenon go back to the mid-nineteenth century, when figures like Washington Gladden, a Columbus, Ohio pastor, promoted what they called a new "social gospel." Gladden was morally offended by the idea of a God who would offer his own Son as a substitutionary sacrifice for sinful humanity and, as one of the founders of liberal theology in America, offered the social gospel as an alternative message, complete with a political agenda. It was not social reform that made the social gospel liberal, it was, its theological message. As Gary Dorrien, the preeminent historian of liberal theology, asserts, the distinctive mark of the social gospel was "its theology of social salvation."

Even more famously, the social gospel would be identified with Walter Rauschenbusch, a liberal figure of the early twentieth century. Rauschenbusch made his arguments most classically in his books, Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) and Theology for the Social Gospel (1917). In a 1904 essay, "The New Evangelism," Rauschenbusch called for a departure from "the old evangelism" which was all about salvation from sin through faith in Christ, and for the embrace of a "new evangelism" which was about salvation from social ills and injustice in order to realize, at least partially, the Kingdom of God on earth. He called for Christian missions to be redirected in order to "Christianize international politics."

The last century has seen many churches and denominations embrace the social gospel in some form, trading the Gospel of Christ for a liberal vision of social change, revolution, economic liberation, and, yes, social justice.

The urgency for any faithful Christian is this -- flee any church that for any reason or in any form has abandoned the Gospel of Christ for any other gospel."

Mohler, as a good Evangelical should, makes politics secondary to the most central concern of the integrity of the biblical Gospel. He goes on:

"As I read the statements of Glenn Beck, it seems that his primary concern is political. Speaking to a national audience, he warned of "code words" that betray a leftist political agenda of big government, liberal social action, economic redistribution, and the confiscation of wealth. In that context, his loyal audience almost surely understood his point.

My concern is very different. As an evangelical Christian, my concern is the primacy of the Gospel of Christ -- the Gospel that reveals the power of God in the salvation of sinners through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church's main message must be that Gospel. The New Testament is stunningly silent on any plan for governmental or social action. The apostles launched no social reform movement. Instead, they preached the Gospel of Christ and planted Gospel churches. Our task is to follow Christ's command and the example of the apostles.

There is more to that story, however. The church is not to adopt a social reform platform as its message, but the faithful church, wherever it is found, is itself a social reform movement precisely because it is populated by redeemed sinners who are called to faithfulness in following Christ. The Gospel is not a message of social salvation, but it does have social implications.

Faithful Christians can debate the proper and most effective means of organizing the political structure and the economic markets. Bringing all these things into submission to Christ is no easy task, and Gospel must not be tied to any political system, regime, or platform. Justice is our concern because it is God's concern, but it is no easy task to know how best to seek justice in this fallen world.

And that brings us to the fact that the Bible is absolutely clear that injustice will not exist forever. There is a perfect social order coming, but it is not of this world. The coming of the Kingdom of Christ in its fullness spells the end of injustice and every cause and consequence of human sin. We have much work to do in this world, but true justice will be achieved only by the consummation of God's purposes and the perfection of God's own judgment.

Until then, the church must preach the Gospel, and Christians must live out its implications. We must resist and reject every false gospel and tell sinners of salvation in Christ. And, knowing that God's judgment is coming, we must strive to be on the right side of justice.

Glenn Beck's statements about social justice demonstrate the limits of our public discourse. The issues raised by his comments and the resultant controversy are worthy of our most careful thinking and most earnest struggle. Yet, the media, including Mr. Beck, will have moved on to any number of other flashpoints before the ink has dried on this kerfluffle. Seriously minded Christians cannot move on from this issue so quickly."

Mohler correctly raises the fundamental question of the nature of the Gospel, which is addressed to individuals and not to cultures or societies. He acknowledges, however, that once people have become Christians, they will be involved in social reform and politics and that is good. But he is primarily concerned about getting the Gospel right and rejecting the social gospel. This is the role of Evangelicals: constantly to remind the Church Catholic of the Gospel.

Glenn Beck and Social Justice: Part IV: Social Justice in the Neo-Calvinist Approach

We continue this series of posts on social justice by examining the thinking of a Neocalvinist political scientist, David Koyzis in a post called "Neocalvinism and Social Justice" at the Cardus website. He sketches the background against which the concept of social justice arose.

"There is a rather quaint way of describing the modern maldistribution of the world's goods between haves and have-nots. The fact that some people live in want while others live comfortably—that some go to bed hungry while others risk obesity—is summed up in this term: the socialquestion.

Although poverty itself is nothing new, the conditions exacerbating the social question in the nineteenth century were indeed unprecedented, in that they stemmed in large measure from the dislocations generated by the industrial revolution. Although socialists were generally in the forefront of efforts to combat poverty, they were by no means the only people to recognize that, in the context of an industrializing economy, the plight of the new working class must be attended to in some fashion. Conservatives, too, were suspicious of a development uprooting people from their homelands and traditions and sending them off to the faceless cities to seek employment in the new factories.

The litany of abuses engendered by the factory system is by now familiar to any adequately-informed person: excessively lengthy working hours, low wages, dangerous conditions, and the use of child labour. All of these were apparently the direct result of the normal functioning of the laws of supply and demand. Where there was a glut of potential labourers, they tended to drive down wages to subsistence level. Where jobs were fewer than those willing to fill them, the latter were disempowered relative to their prospective employers, who could set their own terms.

It was out of this situation that labour unions arose as a means of empowering workers and counterbalancing the power of capital in the job market. Efforts to empower the poor, whether the traditional rural poor all but ignored by Marxists or the new industrial poor populating the teeming cities of Europe and the United States, were grouped under the broad rubric of seeking social justice."

This was the background against which modern social doctrine began in the Roman Catholic Church, with the great encyclical: "Rerum Novarum" issued by Pope Leo XIII on May 15, 1891. The 19th century was the age of the Industrial Revolution and it was also the age of the birth and growth of Marxism. The Roman Catholic Church offered an alternative to socialism in its social doctrine. Liberal Protestantism's social gospel movement basically took socialism on board as its ideology. But in the Netherlands, the 19th century Dutch Calvinists led by Abraham Kuyper and others tried to forge a specifically Calvinist way that was neither socialist or Catholic. Koyzis speaks out of that tradition. So how does the Neocalvinist tradition answer the question of "what is social justice?"

"Justice itself is an ancient concept with roots in both the biblical and Greco-Roman traditions, implying a rebalancing of the scales to give people what they deserve. When Thomas steals a pig from Edward, the law intervenes to punish Thomas and return the pig to Edward. In other words, the justice system is brought to bear to rectify a manifest injustice.

But what if nothing obviously illegal has occurred yet a whole class of people, through no fault of their own, find themselves without adequate means to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and their families? If they further find virtually all their waking hours occupied by back-breaking labour with little time left over for pursuing other activities, including the cultivation of family and communal life, then something is obviously amiss. More than this, a massive injustice is being perpetrated. The quest for social justice was intended by its proponents to remedy this systemic form of injustice.

Over the past century or so, the notion of social justice has been all but monopolized by socialists and late liberals. (By contrast, classical liberals—sometimes masquerading as conservatives—eschew the entire concept.) Socialists have usually offered as solution some variation on the theme of collective ownership of property coupled with an abolition of classes. Since private property is held to be at the root of economic disparities, they have tended to argue that it should be held in common to the greatest extent possible. While there is logically more than one possible meaning of this commonness, it has tended to translate into some form of government ownership. Late liberals generally do not go this far, stopping at heavy regulation of large private enterprises.

Along with attempts at collectivizing or regulating ownership comes a concomitant establishment of a welfare state, including any number of social programs aimed at cushioning those harmed by the vicissitudes of an impersonal market. Libertarians have generally been alarmed by these developments, but they have offered little in the way of policies that would rectify the potential excesses of statism other than to reaffirm the free market and consumer sovereignty—the single-minded promotion of which led to the earlier abuses in the first place!"

So Kayzis says that systemic injustice is recognized but capitalist/libertarian solutions are rejected. What then does Neocalvinism propose be done?

"Must the pursuit of social justice be tethered to statist solutions? Not necessarily. This is where I believe neocalvinism has much to offer as an alternative. To be sure, recognizing that there are systemic causes to the social question undoubtedly entails a strong government willing and able to intervene on behalf of the poor. Provided they are fine-tuned so as not inadvertently to subsidize personal irresponsibility, the programs of the welfare state have a legitimate role to play as a social safety net shielding citizens from the worst of the market's deficiencies. Returning to the era of unfettered markets, the night-watchman state, and no labour unions would be a historically regressive move to say the least.

At the same time, the notion that government can solve the social question outright is misguided. There is a certain persuasiveness to the libertarian argument that social responsibility is a misnomer because society as such is not a responsible agent. Indeed, policies aimed at ameliorating poverty should recognize the pluriformity of society, including the multiplicity of responsible agents therein. The full complexity of society cannot be reduced to state and market, as if these were the only two factors to be accounted for. Much of the current debate pits political parties that would strengthen the state at the expense of the market in opposition to parties that would enhance the market at the state's expense. What is missing on both sides is an acknowledgment that a healthy society consists of much more than these two constituent elements."

So the statist solutions of socialism and fascism are rejected and the importance of civil society - the family, churches, political parties, trade unions, and free associations of all kinds - is stressed. Institution other than the state and the market are necessary parts of the solution to the problem of social justice. Koyzis stresses that governments can do some things - perhaps more things than I might want governments to be doing - but he explicitly says that the scope of government to act is very limited. Government can only do so much. Most of the solution lies elsewhere. He writes:

"This brings us to the second component, which is to strengthen nonstate institutions. Because North Americans are so influenced by liberal individualism, they tend to view institutions as potentially oppressive and restrictive of freedom. In so far as we value communities at all, we prefer to see them as voluntary associations. For example, the legal trend over the past four decades has been to reduce marriage to a mere private contract revocable at the discretion of the partners. That the courts have accelerated this tendency over the past year should not unduly surprise us.

An understanding of the importance of institutions is one of the genuine contributions that neocalvinism, with its recognition of societal pluriformity, has to offer. For example, any effort to ameliorate child poverty that focuses solely on raising the level of state expenditures but ignores the financial impact of no-fault divorce laws on children will inevitably be addressing only part of the problem. In this case, seeking social justice will move us in the direction of legally strengthening marriage and family, even if it goes against the grain of an individualistic society. If it is true, as the evidence suggests, that poverty is more likely to afflict a single-parent family than an intact family, then making divorce easier to obtain would seem to be counterproductive and, more to the point, unjust.

Even here, however, the public policy process cannot exhaust the quest for social justice. Addressing the social question requires initiative proceeding from a variety of sources, including churches, charities, labour unions, businesses and chambers of commerce, political action organizations, farmers' co-operatives, private social support agencies, and so forth. Where government chooses to involve itself, it best does so by cooperating with these pre-existing efforts rather than by pre-empting them and pushing them aside.

Finally, when government does collaborate with such organizations, it must do so equitably by not discriminating against those with an overt faith basis. This is the point of the so-called charitable choice provision in the 1996 welfare reform law in the United States.

Whereas both socialist/late liberal statism and the vaunted market solutions of libertarians may lend themselves to catchy slogans intended to resonate with the voting public, neocalvinism may well have the long-term advantage in so far as it takes seriously the complex, differentiated character of society. Any effort to help the poor that fails to recognize this is certain to fall short."

Obviously Roman Catholic social thought and Neocalvinism share a great deal in common. Both reject the idea that the market alone is sufficient (libertarianism, classical liberalism) and the idea that the state alone is sufficient (socialism) or paramount (welfare state liberalism or "late liberalism) to achieve the goal of social justice.

Glenn Beck seems to fall into the libertarian or classical liberalism camp, which means that he is not a true conservative. Conservatives always show great concern for the intermediate institutions between the state and the individual and want to preserve them against the acids of the free market and the insatiable appetite for control of the imperious, modern, bureaucratic state. Insofar as he wants to bash socialists and their fellow travelers, he is performing a useful function. But his limitation is that he has few alternatives to offer. Fortunately, we have valuable resources in Roman Catholic social doctrine and Neocalvinism, among other sources, to use in thinking about alternatives.

Glenn Beck and Social Justice: Part III: Social Justice in Roman Catholic Social Thought

We continue with our series of posts on Glenn Beck and social justice by turning to Roman Catholic social thought. Here Beck's lack of nuance become glaringly obvious. He urges people to leave their churches if their churches mention the phrase social justice on their websites and in so doing he basically assumes that any Church that uses this phrase without intending to teach socialism must be uninformed. Yet the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church does use the phrase "social justice" and clearly means something other than Marxism by it.

In section 81 we are told that it is the social doctrine of the Church to denounce sin, especially the sins of injustice and violence. It says:

"By denunciation, the Church's social doctrine becomes judge and defender of unrecognized and violated rights, especially of those of the poor, the least and the weak. The more these rights are ignored or trampled, the greater becomes the extent of violence and injustice, involving entire categories of people and large geographical areas of the world, thus giving rise to social questions, tha tis, to abuses and imbalances that lead to social upheaval. A large part of the Church's social teaching is solicited and determined by important social questions, to which social justice is the proper answer." (See Chapter II, II.d)

So here justice is defined in classical, pre-Marxist terms and then social justice is said to be the rectifying of injustices like the violation of rights. This could be interpreted in a Marxist sense, but need not be necessarily.

It is striking to compare the language of the Compendium (the official teaching of the Church) to the language of liberal Catholics who are working in social activism. Whereas the Compendium uses the language of "social doctrine" and "social teaching" most frequently, liberal Catholics uniformly utilize the language of "social justice."

Obviously, the topic of Roman Catholic social thought is complex and I am no expert on it, although I find myself drawn to it more and more. But a few more observations are in order.

The Church recognizes the the reality of social problems above the individual level; in fact, the Church is very concerned about families, nations and even the world economic system. But the Church does not make the State the prime actor in the struggle for social justice. The principle of "subsidiarity" prevents that. The principle of subsidiarity is defined as follows:

"On the basis of this principle, all societies of a superior order must adopt attitudes of help ("subsidium") - therefore of support, promotion, development - with respect to lower-order socieites. IN this way, intermediate social entities can properly perform the functions that fall to them without being required to hand them over unjustly to other social entities of a higher level, by which they would end up being absorbed and substituted, in the end seeing themselves denied their dignity and essential place."

Obviously, this principle, which, the Compendium points out, has been the most consistent and characteristic part of Catholic social teaching from the beginning of the great social encyclicals in 1891, rules out all forms of statism, whether Communist or Fascist. The solution to social problems is never as simple as "start another government entitlement program" for Roman Catholic social teaching, as it often seems to be for socialists and their liberal fellow travelers.

Another observation I would like to make is that the social doctrine of the Church is as multi-faceted and complex as is human culture. Unlike Marxism, which basically reduces justice and the good for human being to economic equality of outcome, Roman Catholic social doctrine encompasses sexual ethics, family life, the sanctity of life, economic life, political life, education, medicine and bioethics and international affairs.

Making economic leveling the sole or primary goal is normal for socialist political movements and for the liberal "social justice" Christians who imitate them. A perfect example is the way that Sojourners supports Obama's health care reform on the basis of how it makes for economic equality while ignoring the largest expansion of funding for abortion ever.

You can't build true justice on a foundation of policy that denies the right to life to the weakest and most vulnerable members of the community. This is why the stance of the Roman Catholic bishops in the US, who want health care reform but refuse to support this bill is so principled and admirable. If the Democratic Party was really concerned about social welfare in general and not fixated on economic equality alone, it would find a way to get the bishops on their side. The fact that they have not done so strongly suggests that their idea of social justice is more socialist than Christian.

Glenn Beck and Social Justice: Part II: Social Justice as Code for Communism

In this second post on the subject of Glenn Beck and Social Justice, we look at the argument of a person who argues basically in favor of what Beck believes except more coherently. Barry Loberfield, in a post from a few years ago entitled "Social Justice: Code for Communism," points out the origin of the term "social justice" in the writings of Karl Marx.

"To understand "social justice," we must contrast it with the earlier view of justice against which it was conceived -- one that arose as a revolt against political absolutism. With a government (e.g., a monarchy) that is granted absolute power, it is impossible to speak of any injustice on its part. If it can do anything, it can't do anything "wrong." Justice as a political/legal term can begin only when limitations are placed upon the sovereign, i.e., when men define what is unjust for government to do. The historical realization traces from the Roman senate to Magna Carta to the U.S. Constitution to the 19th century. It was now a matter of "justice" that government not arrest citizens arbitrarily, sanction their bondage by others, persecute them for their religion or speech, seize their property, or prevent their travel.

This culmination of centuries of ideas and struggles became known as liberalism. And it was precisely in opposition to this liberalism -- not feudalism or theocracy or the ancien régime, much less 20th century fascism -- that Karl Marx formed and detailed the popular concept of "social justice," (which has become a kind of "new and improved" substitute for a storeful of other terms -- Marxism, socialism, collectivism -- that, in the wake of Communism's history and collapse, are now unsellable)."

Loberfield is a liberal, not in the contemporary sense of the term, which now means "semi-socialist," but in the classical 19th century sense of one who upholds the virtue of liberty over the virtue of equality - and therefore sounds like a conservative in today's climate. This is actually the stance taken by the neoconservatives today. Loberfield is correct in saying that liberalism is the mortal foe of Marxism, even though both are derived from the Enlightenment and essentially modern.

"Give Marx his due: He was absolutely correct in identifying the political freedom of liberalism -- the right of each man to do as he wishes with his own resources -- as the origin of income disparity under capitalism. If Smith is now earning a fortune while Jones is still stuck in that subway, it's not because of the "class" into which each was born, to say nothing of royal patronage. They are where they are because of how the common man spends his money. That's why some writers sell books in the millions, some sell them in the thousands, and still others can't even get published. It is the choices of the masses ("the market") that create the inequalities of fortune and fame -- and the only way to correct those "injustices" is to control those choices."

Every policy item on the leftist agenda is merely a deduction from this fundamental premise. Private property and the free market of exchange are the most obvious hindrances to the implementation of that agenda, but hardly the only. Also verboten is the choice to emigrate, which removes one and one's wealth from the pool of resources to be redirected by the demands of "social justice" and its enforcers. And crucial to the justification of a "classless" society is the undermining of any notion that individuals are responsible for their behavior and its consequences. To maintain the illusion that classes still exist under capitalism, it cannot be conceded that the "haves" are responsible for what they have or that the "have nots" are responsible for what they have not. Therefore, people are what they are because of where they were born into the social order -- as if this were early 17th century France."

Loberfield here identifies the key goal of Marxism as economic leveling, equality of outcome. Now he comes to the difference between social justice, as Marx conceives it, and justice in liberalism.

"The imperative of economic equality also generates a striking opposition between "social justice" and its liberal rival. The equality of the latter, we've noted, is the equality of all individuals in the eyes of the law -- the protection of the political rights of each man, irrespective of "class" (or any assigned collective identity, hence the blindfold of Justice personified). However, this political equality, also noted, spawns the difference in "class" between Smith and Jones. All this echoes Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek's observation that if "we treat them equally [politically], the result must be inequality in their actual [i.e., economic] position." The irresistable conclusion is that "the only way to place them in an equal [economic] position would be to treat them differently [politically]" -- precisely the conclusion that the advocates of "social justice" themselves have always reached."

Hayek's observation is key. Unless the government intervenes, equality of opportunity and equality before the law will inevitably result in some getting richer and some getting poorer. This is what social justice opposes. Loberfield gets to the point.

"What is "social justice"? The theory that implies and justifies the practice of socialism. And what is "socialism"? Domination by the State. What is "socialized" is state-controlled. So what is "totalitarian" socialism other than total socialism, i.e., state control of everything? And what is that but the absence of a free market in anything, be it goods or ideas? Those who contend that a socialist government need not be totalitarian, that it can allow a free market -- independent choice, the very source of "inequality"! -- in some things (ideas) and not in others (goods -- as if, say, books were one or the other), are saying only that the socialist ethic shouldn't be applied consistently."

As far as Loberfield is concerned, socialism that is not totalitarianism is simply socialism applied inconsistently and partially - usually due to conservative and/or liberal resistance to socialist agitation. So some "social justice" activists are ideologically driven socialists (really communists), while others are so-called democratic socialists, that is, socialists who renounce violence and are content to live with contradictions and half measures. Those who, like many well-meaning Christian clergymen, use the concept of social justice without really being fully aware of what ideology it represents are basically dupes. They are like children playing with fire. It is amusing and fun, but they have no concept of how destructive it could be if it got out of control. Loberfield writes:

"What is "social justice"? The opposite of capitalism. And what is "capitalism"? It is Marx's coinage (minted by his materialist dispensation) for the Western liberalism that diminished state power from absolutism to limited government; that, from John Locke to the American Founders, held that each individual has an inviolable right to his own life, liberty, and property, which government exists solely to secure. Now what would the reverse of this be but a resurrection of Oriental despotism, the reactionary increase of state power from limited government to absolutism, i.e., "totalitarianism," the absolute control of absolutely everything? And what is the opposite -- the violation -- of securing the life, liberty, and property of all men other than mass murder, mass tyranny, and mass plunder? And what is that but the point at which theory ends and history begins?"

Read the whole thing here. This is one perspective on social justice.

Glenn Beck and Social Justice: Part I: Confusion over Definitions

The latest uproar caused by Glenn Beck has at least had the virtue of causing a lot of people to ask just what does that common phrase "social justice"means anyhow? During his March 2, 2010 radio broadcast, Beck said:

"I beg you, look for the words "social justice" or "economic justice" on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If I'm going to Jeremiah's Wright's church? Yes! Leave your church. Social justice and economic justice. They are code words. If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop and tell them, "Excuse me are you down with this whole social justice thing?" I don't care what the church is. If it's my church, I'm alerting the church authorities: "Excuse me, what's this social justice thing?" And if they say, "Yeah, we're all in that social justice thing," I'm in the wrong place."

When Glenn Beck took a swipe at Jim Wallis and other liberal Christians who use the social justice label this past week, Sojourners reacted defensively. Jim Wallis had a clip of Beck on his website and a defensive reply that amounts to: "If you don't like social justice, you don't like Jesus. But I like Jesus and liking Jesus means liking social justice." Or something like that.

But what, exactly, is social justice? How is social justice different from just plain old ordinary justice? Why has this term become widely used only in the past 150 years or so? How is it used and who uses it the most?

In the next few posts, I want to examine the phrase "social justice" from a number of perspectives.

First, we will look at the argument that this phrase is simply another label for Marxism and those who embrace it fall into one of three categories: Ideologically Driven Socialists, Inconsistent Socialists and Dupes. Second, we will look at what the concept of social justice means in Roman Catholic social thought. Then, we will look at what a representative of Neo-Calvinist thought has to say about social justice. Finally, we will consider an Evangelical perspective on social justice and try to come to some conclusions about how we ought to use this concept.

All over the web this week liberals who don't think John Spong is a heretic were sputtering that if you are against social justice you are a heretic. They can't seem to believe that anyone on TV with a big audience would have the nerve to question them. That is pretty much the only thing I like about Glenn Beck: the fact that he seems to be able to get under the skin of liberals and reduce them to sputtering, raving lunatics. Even the village idiot is good for something.

What is my beef with social justice? Part I

A commenter on a previous post asked me a good question. I said that I was trying to oppose the Evangelical Left because it is pushing a social justice agenda that is rooted in the Enlightenment and this made no sense to him. So he asked me “What is your beef with social justice?” I understand completely that in today’s environment this sounds like being upset with motherhood and apple pie. How on earth could any thinking person oppose social justice? Is that not like being against freeing the slaves?

I realize that people use the phrase “social justice” to mean different things and to most it is a fuzzy phrase that signifies being nice to others and not being a mean old capitalist. The evil of capitalism is one of the pillars of orthodoxy on the Left and is unquestionable and seldom thought through carefully because it is never questioned. I hope to at least offer some food for thought that will make you question the left-wing orthodoxy so often assumed today. Up until about five years ago I could describe myself as theologically conservative and politically liberal (in the sense of leaning toward socialism, not classical 19^th century liberalism). Since then I have gradually come to realize that these two stances are contradictory and I had to give up one or the other. Since I have been committed to Nicene orthodoxy and a biblical and Evangelical theological position all my life, it was no contest as to which one had to go. But I have struggled with how much I could retain and how much I had to let go. It turns out that I have had to give up feminism, socialism, population control and statism, among other things.

So the question is “Is social justice compatible with conservative theology?” First, some definitions are in order.

1. 1. Conservative Theology: This is not controversial, really. It is what Pope Benedict XVI, C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham and John R. W. Stott have in common. It is the "Great Tradition" common to Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. There are Evangelical distinctive and Roman Catholic distinctives, but basically it is what we hold in common. It is enshrined in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds and is expressed in many systematic theology textbooks including those of Tom Oden, Herman Bavinck and Millard Erickson. It is grounded in the Augustinian-Thomist tradition of the first Christian millennium.

2. Social Justice: By social justice I mean the following interconnected set of beliefs:

1. equality is the highest goal of society

2. equality is best defined in terms of equal economic opportunity

3. natural inequality must be overcome by human will

4. individual freedom must be sacrificed in the pursuit of equality

5. the rule of law must be sacrificed in the pursuit of equality

6. the state is responsible to create equality

3. Statism: Is the pursuit of “social justice” a socialist project? Not quite; it is a “modern” project, i.e. a project of the Enlightenment. I call this project “Statism” because the state assumes center stage as the engine of history in order to create equality. This is also known as “progressivism” or sometimes “liberalism.” It is not liberalism in the classical 19^th century sense, but liberalism has gradually been drifting throughout the 20^th century into a statist quasi-socialism.

The Enlightenment produced 2 great systems of political economy: Capitalism (freedom) and Socialism (equality), but these two systems are being combined into one entity in the Western European welfare state or social democracy. Social democracy, European style, is the means by which the social justice agenda is pursued. Increasingly, in Western culture, freedom is being re-defined as economic freedom, which means equality. But this is not equality of opportunity in which all people are equal before the law and no gets special treatment. Rather, it is equality of outcome in which the State must intervene in order to ensure that all individuals end up with a certain minimum level of economic resources regardless of how hard the person works, how talented he is or how much risk he took. So what many liberals and socialists mean today by “freedom” is not really freedom, but rather, “economic equality of outcome.” This “economic equality of outcome” is regarded as the definition of freedom and the mark of social democracy.

Socialism as such is dying as a revolutionary movement because its ideal of equality has gone mainstream. The modern Western nation-state is a synthesis of socialism & capitalism in the corporate, welfare state. An article in the New York Times by Steven Erlanger on Sept. 28, 2009, illustrates my point. It is entitled: “Europe’s Socialists Suffering Even in Downturn” and it says:

“Europe’s center-right parties have embraced many ideas of the left: generous welfare benefits, nationalized health care, sharp restrictions on carbon emissions, the ceding of some sovereignty to the European Union. But they have won votes by promising to deliver more efficiently than the left, while working to lower taxes, improve financial regulation, and grapple with aging populations.

Europe’s conservatives, says Michel Winock, a historian at the Paris Institut d’Études Politiques, “have adapted themselves to modernity.” When Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Germany’s Angela Merkel condemn the excesses of the “Anglo-Saxon model” of capitalism while praising the protective power of the state, they are using Socialist ideas that have become mainstream, he said.

Another way to express what has happened is to say that, while economic socialism has proven to be a failure, cultural Marxism, (channeled through “critical theory”), has “gone viral” within Western liberal democracies (especially the universities and the media) and is changing them into welfare states with a progressively statist trajectory. [To be continued in next post]