It seems that everywhere we turn these days someone is talking about social justice. It seems like the right thing to do, but is it, and more importantly, how is social justice different from biblical justice?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #23 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
Social justice has become a watchword for political discourse in the past few years. It sounds good, sounds like what every decent person should be concerned about.
But what activists mean by “social justice” is considerably different from what the words used to mean in everyday parlance, and more importantly, it’s now become clear that social justice is not the same as biblical justice.
The best resource on this topic that I have seen is Scott David Allen’s book, Why Social Justice is not Biblical Justice. He defines the two phrases this way:
Biblical Justice is “Conformity to God’s moral standard as revealed in the Ten Commandments and the Royal Law: ‘love your neighbor as yourself.”’
Social Justice is “Deconstructing traditional systems and structures deemed to be oppressive, and redistributing power and resources from oppressors to their victims in the pursuit of equality of outcomes.”
In other words, the moral teaching of Scripture contrasts sharply with what is passing today as a means to a just society.
Allen notes that a biblical worldview describes human beings as made in the image of God, whereas social justice ideology argues “we are children of society, fashioned by its social constructions and the power dynamics they maintain.”
This is the critical difference. Biblical justice exalts and obeys God. Social justice ideology omits him entirely and introduces a surrogate—you, me, or society. And remember what Os Guinness said, either you worship God, or you worship an idol, even if that idol is you, me, or society.
Real justice, Allen notes, is truth conforming to a fixed point of reference, a higher law. “Without the higher law, justice is arbitrary and changeable based on whoever wields power.” God, not the self, not humanity, not government, “is the moral plumb line who determines what is good and right for all peoples, for all eras.”
Social justice ideology has made enormous inroads in virtually every corner of our culture. Promoting their ostensible ideology of fairness and equity, social justice activists have taken over education, Kindergarten to graduate school, media and entertainment, corporations, and politics as a speed that boggles the mind.
Social justice ideology brings with it far more than a concern for diversity, equality, and inclusion, the oft-heard mantra. It brings a counterfeit theology, something the Apostle Paul warned us about in Col. 2:8, when he said, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.”
And what’s more, the social justice ideology blitzkrieg, while right there in front of us, still seems to have taken a lot of Christians, churches, church leaders, and even Christian universities unawares. And while I dislike thinking this, it appears that some Christians, churches, church or mission leaders, and faculty and staff members at Christian universities have knowingly embraced what is at bottom a worldview antithetical to biblical Christianity.
This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform.
Download an episode for your friends.
Disconnected from God and his moral will, social justice ideology affirms the following:
1—The human mind, not God, is source of ultimate reality.
2—Objective truth, reason, logic, evidence are simply the tools of oppressors. One can therefore only know “truth” through victims’ “lived out experiences.”
3—Personal identity is wholly socially constructed via class, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., and individuals do not really matter.
4—Promote division as path to power.
- Oppressors vs morally innocent victims
- Class vs Capitalism, Property Owners
- Race-minorities vs White supremacy or “whiteness.”
- Females vs Males, i.e., patriarchy.
- Gender-LGBTQ+ vs Judeo-Christian morality and natural family.
5—Argue not for equality of opportunity, or even equality before the law, but for equity, a vague sense of fairness defined as “if someone has more, it’s unfair.”
6-Systematically redefine words based upon its values, then masquerades these words to the public in outright deception, terms like women’s rights, binary, inclusiveness, tolerance, empowerment, even male and female.
Depending upon the word or phrase, these words or phrases may not be “bad” as such but buttressed by redefinition in the interest of social justice, they become tools with which to deceive the public.
Social justice ideology is now a secular religion, embraced by many people on what is now called the Left, the so-called “progressive” wing of philosophy, religion, and politics. This secular worldview strives to attract converts to its false theology and false politics. To do this, the points of the spear are always one of two things:
- Race,now often promoted by a subset of social justice ideology called critical race theory,
- Sex, defined as LGBTQ+, and gender identity.
The Left unrelentingly propagates its views, even while its cancel culture inclination works to silence opposing points of view. The Left literally sells the public with deception:
- that all racial or ethnic minorities are ipso factovictims of society, and
- that any person who defines his/her sexuality as one of the ever-expanding 112 gender options, is somehow a victim of society.
Victimhood can include anything, but certainly bullying, lack of access and equity, trauma, mental illness, and more. For a public in the past 30 years that assumes every person must have unfettered path to self-actualization, this has become an easy sell.
People think they are doing good by expanding heretofore unknown justice. They feel good about themselves and often virtue signal online.
Social justice ideology sees injustice as, well, a social problem, but this is a critical mistake, for injustice is a moral problem. According to the Word of God, what human beings need as a remedy for sin is heart transformation, which is to say spiritual regeneration, salvation in Christ.
This is not a conspiracy theory. What I’ve said is not exaggeration. The social justice revolution is happening across American culture.
I am familiar with several Christian ministries already divided, weakened, and possibly lost to the Christian faith because staff members have either knowingly or unawares embraced this false worldview.
Unless we resist and unless in the providence of God, he intervenes, the American Church is in trouble and the America we thought we knew is fast disappearing.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022
*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.