Towards Christian Responses to Social Justice Theory on Various Levels

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5)

Wen we look at the problems in the world today, particularly in terms of how broadly the Social Justice/Woke movement has taken hold, it is easy to be filled with fear or even panic.  But this is never a good option, and, in fact, it is not a biblical option, as Paul wrote in 2 Tim 1:7, “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (ESV).  More than that, we are assured in Romans 8 that despite all the problems of this world, “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (v. 37). 

However, this doesn’t mean that we have an excuse to sit back and do nothing either.  The Church must respond to the problems in this world, particularly out of love of our neighbors.  I have previously argued that the Church needs to respond on multiple levels as well as looking at different timeframes. 

The different levels that I am thinking about are the personal, the individual, our immediate context, and globally.  Thinking personally is often one of the hardest things to do because this means taking a hard look at ourselves and trying to determine just how much the Zeitgeist has filtered into our own thoughts.  To respond to the individual means looking at how we can help someone who is right in front of us.  To respond to our immediate context is to look around at our immediate spheres of influence and determine how to respond.  Finally, to respond globally is to seek ways to influence the larger society.

The different timeframes can best be divided into the immediate/short-term, the intermediate/near future, and the long-term.  To respond immediately, or in the short term, is the question of what we should do right now to heal immediate wounds or to address immediate questions regarding local school curriculum or even governmental decisions.  The long-term responses are the ones that have an extremely long view of things.  This is to work in such a way that the fruits very likely will not be seen in our lifetimes.  The intermediate, or near future responses are those in between the other two.  This is to work in such a way that it might take 2-10 years to make a meaningful difference.

This means that there really needs to be a collection of twelve different responses.  Likewise, it is important to understand that the full scope of these responses should in some way be for the Church as a whole, not for every Christian, to answer.  It is helpful for all of us to think about all the different types of responses, but we are not all called to act in all of these.  The mother of a hurting teen needs to focus on the immediate needs of this one individual, while the Christian philosopher might focus on global, long-term solutions.  Nevertheless, all of these should be addressed.  The combinations can be considered in a grid format:

It is imperative that the Church as a whole start working at all of these levels, but with each issue it is helpful to think about which level and timeframe we are focusing on.  Very often we can get derailed by thinking of an intermediate to long-term solution and expect that we need to fully implement it now.  An example of this would be the parent who panics that their child will not be accepted into a highly ranked university because the child’s preschool teacher sends home a bad report.  (As a quick counterexample, I have joked that the main reason I might want to attend a high school reunion would be to watch the utter shock on my former classmates faces when they see “Ph.D.” behind my name.)  Joking aside, when we worry about changing university cultures today, we need to understand that the problem was, literally, decades or more in the making, so a lasting solution will also take a long time to fully implement. 

Not only should the Church respond in this variety of ways, but we should also think about how to work together on all of these as well as what levels of cooperation are needed.  So, if a pastor has a young man come to him and confess his feelings of guilt and worthlessness because he is a man, the pastor should not leave the young man to write an overture for the next synodical convention. Rather, this calls for an immediate response and with, at most, a relatively small number of people that the pastor might then turn to after immediately caring for the young man, such as the young man’s parents and elders of the congregation. 

Conversely, one person cannot turn around the whole of university faculties and structures, and it cannot be done overnight.  Even when we herald one person for making a great change, like the work of William Wilberforce in ending the international slave trade, we have to realize that he built a team and influenced others, so it was far from an individual effort.  Likewise, on October 28, 1787, Wilberforce wrote in his diary, “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners,” and by manners he meant morals.  Yet it took twenty years for him to get Parliament to ban the slave trade in 1807, and the full outlawing of slavery didn’t take place in English territories until 1833.[1] 

In a previous post, I addressed some of the immediate and individual problems that the Social Justice movement is causing, and then in another post I suggested some ways that the Church can respond to these individuals.  In the near future, I will try to offer some suggestions as to ways that we can respond to the other levels and timeframes. The goal is to look at each of the open squares in the grid in turn and brainstorm responses, please join me in this deliberation.

Responding on the personal and immediate level.

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[1] Jonathan F Bayes, “William Wilberforce: His Impact on Nineteenth-Century Society,” Churchman 108.2 (1994): 119–34.