Responding to Social Justice: Turning the Tide
Responding to Social Justice: Turning the Tide
Making a difference in the world
When we seek to make a difference in the world around us, we need to think about more than just the immediate context and start working towards a better future. Of course, this always includes proclaiming the Gospel to those who need it. However, there are also near term things that we can do to better address the problems in this world than what the Social Justice Warrior proposes. So, in this post we will look at making changes on a larger scale to improve the near future.
As I noted before when addressing how to respond in our immediate context by resisting evil and building good the same is true for the global context.
Resisting Evil
Resisting might be more challenging on a larger scale and is not for everyone. First, relatively few people have a platform and a voice that can speak to the larger culture. Simply put, this is not the calling for most people, and most of us should not thrust ourselves out there. However, there is a chance that God is calling you to that role in some way. In recent years a number of people who never expected to have a major voice found themselves suddenly thrust into this position. All too often it is because the mob has come after them and their fight for truth escalated them into a more public role. This, however, is something that we should not seek for ourselves.
That said, the principle of “live not by lies”[1] holds true in the global realm as well as the local. The short version of this principle is that the most basic form of dissent is to refuse to join in the lies around us. While we should not seek to make ourselves a target, we also should refuse to endorse things that we know are not true. Sometimes the most powerful thing that can be done in response to a seemingly all-pervasive problem is for a number of people to simply say that we will not go along because the emperor has no clothes.
We are starting to see some shifts in the economic realm with a weakening of the ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance investing) principle. Its advocates argue that ESG prioritizing of investments should be done according to the woke dogma of what is right and good. However, recently some of the investment companies have started to pull back from this. The state of West Virginia has been fighting banks on this, and winning. However, it is not just about states doing this, but as people are starting to notice the problems and how this form of investing is not really effective, the tide is turning against them.[2]
Of course, for an individual to stand up and try to take on these powerful voices can be a hazardous route. We all know how major voices have been cancelled and otherwise punished for questioning the prevailing orthodoxy. People have lost their jobs for speaking up, so it is not an easy thing to do in some places. Therefore, we need to stop fooling ourselves and acknowledge that this is considered, by the radicals, to be a form of warfare, and in war there are casualties. However, as Paul reminds us “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim 1:7).
Right Injustices with Truth
One of the reasons that the Social Justice Movement has gained so much ground is that there are real problems in the world to which it points and claims to correct. However, it doesn’t take too much careful attention to realize that they are all too often exacerbating problems or else creating new problems. All too often Social Justice appears to be a solution looking for a problem. This is not just hyperbole, as much of the root of this is, in fact, based in a Marxist analysis of the West that seeks to tear down our culture. As a result, the movement pushes an agenda that believes that our society is corrupt, and their Marxian solution is the answer.[3] Of course, most are not expecting an immediate revolution like Marx and Engels. So instead they have their Marxian, global solution (to tear down inequity), and are searching for, if not manufacturing, specific inequities to tear down.
While many of the injustices that the Social Justice Warriors worry about, like microaggressions, don’t really exist, that doesn’t mean that there are not still injustices in the world. Rather, we need to be honest that it is a fallen world, full of sin and so injustice still does exist. But it is also important to note that the single biggest force that has corrected injustices throughout history, by far, is the Christian church. From care for the needy, to women’s rights to outlawing slavery, Christianity has done more good than anything else.[4] In many ways, it seems incredible that so many today blame “religion,” and by that they mean Christianity, for the world’s ills, while history shows that Christianity has been such a force for good.
What this means for today, is that the Church needs to get back into trying to address injustices but must do so without compromising our integrity. One of the big problems was that theological liberalism, when it undermined trust in the Bible and spiritual matters, it then made Christianity primarily about helping people in this world. This led them to lose sight of eternal truths and now you have liberal churches who push whatever is the latest Social Justice fad. Because of this, sound, orthodox, biblically grounded churches have tended to pull back from working in the social sphere. While a proper understanding of the Two Kingdoms points out that the role of the Church is the salvation of souls, we have all too often then ceded the “left hand kingdom” to the world. Rather, what we need is for Christians, and Christian based organizations to work to right injustices.
The first step in this, is to make a careful study of what the root problems are. For instance, there is a serious problem with crime, poverty, and related issues in many inner cities, and these are often worst in minority communities. The easy answer is that this is just racism. However, a more careful study shows that children who are born out of wedlock are far more likely to experience these types of problems, and that out of wedlock births in the black community have been skyrocketing. So, a better solution than decrying racism is to work to reverse this trend.
The answer, therefore, must include the Church working to correct the root problems by putting the love of God into actions. In doing so, we must never neglect their spiritual needs, but we also must find ways to deal with their physical problems.
When this is done with love and compassion, we can end up building better solutions that will truly help people in the long run. After all, while rioting, stealing, and expressing rage might feel good in the short term, it leaves behind devastation that can last for decades. Christians, by working for the good of their neighbors can provide better solutions that may not make life easier today but will make it better years from now.
[1] This principle was first voiced by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and then this was built on by Rod Dreher in: Rod Dreher, Live Not by Lies : A Manual for Christian Dissidents (New York: Sentinel, 2020).
[2] “BlackRock, JP Morgan’s Pullout From UN Climate Group Signal Broad Backlash Against ESG, Experts Say,” The Epoch Times, n.d., https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/blackrock-jp-morgans-pullout-from-un-climate-group-signals-broad-backlash-against-esg-experts-say-5593532.
[3] Stephen Ronald Craig Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, 1st ed. (Phoenix, Ariz. : Scholargy Pub., c2004.), 151–56.
[4] Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World (Grand Rapids, UNITED STATES: Zondervan, 2004), http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=5607851.