Chad at Clean Cut Kid posted today on social justice.
He's right that social justice in the Western world has traditionally been a Christian concept and motivation. It had a great deal to do with the recognition of "natural law" (what we today would call the higher law of God), not to mention abolition and the civil rights movement.
But social justice has never been legitimately sought at the expense of morality and God's principles for living. Social justice does not trump something God has told us he does not approve of; in other words, you can't advocate social justice on a Christian foundation when your "social justice" means allowing someone to do something that is harmful and immoral. Put another way, you can't legitimately say your "social justice" has a Christian foundation when what falls under your banner of "social justice" is something Christ clearly doesn't approve of (He is, incidentally, also called "The Word" so the entire Bible is His, not just the New Testament).
If God says, "Do not steal" and "Do not covet your neighbor's property," then you can't promote class envy and say the government has a God-given right to take one person's property against their will and give it to another person. Charity is done willingly by individuals, usually by people who know one another and can both gauge the need and help the person out of their needy situation.
If God says, "Honor your father and mother," then you can't teach children to ignore their parents and have sex outside of marriage, or take them to have abortions without their parents consent or even knowledge.
If God says, "You shall not murder," you can't advocate the murder of unborn children and call it a God-given right of "reproductive freedom."
If God says, "Don't sodomize one another," then you can't say people have the God-given right to sodomize one another. If God says marriage is between a man and a woman, you can't say two men or two women have the God-given right to shack up and call it "marriage."
Remember, when Jesus showed his marvelous grace, he didn't say, "Now go and keep sinning" or "Your sin isn't sin, so don't worry about it." He said, "Go now and leave your life of sin."
Social justice should never and can never legitimately be sought at the expense of what is right. Immorality and social justice are incongruous.
Let it never be forgotten that there can be no genuine freedom where there is no morality, and no sound morality where there is no religion…Hesitate not a moment to believe that the man who labors to destroy these two great pillars of human happiness…is neither a good patriot nor a good man. – Jeremiah Smith, Revolutionary soldier, judge, U.S. Congressman, Governor of New Hampshire
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Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Social Justice
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