John McArthur (click here for a personal information ) has just written an article for his blog that strongly condemns Christians being involved with the social justice movement. His reason for doing so is because he regards the movement as coming from the wisdom of this world which, according to I Corinthians 3:19, is regarded as foolishness.
In addition, his other complaints about the social justice movement include its "real" agenda, which is to promote pure Marxism with its full equality in wealth and privileges. He objects to the social gospel's call for Christians to repent from 'social sins,' as so identified by Rauschenbusch and his attempt expand the scope of the Gospel and what it means to be a Christian. McArthur states that Rauschenbusch claimed did not want to change the Gospel, but did say the folloing:
Public evils so pervade the social life of humanity in all times and all places that no one can share the common life of our race without coming under the effect of these collective sins. He will either sin by consenting in them, or he will suffer by resisting them. Jesus did not in any real sense bear the sin of some ancient Briton who beat up his wife in B.C. 56, or of some mountaineer in Tennessee who got drunk in A.D. 1917. But he did in a very real sense bear the weight of the public sins of organized society, and they in turn are causally connected with all private sins.
In addition, he believes that, in following Marx, the
social justice movement is trying to stir up trouble by trying create
divisions between different groups of people by calling attention to
those social sins.
In contrast, McArthur contrasts the social justice with Biblical justice. He notes that Biblical justice provides for the vulnerable and oppressed. But in doing so, he places the same standards on anyone working for social justice as the Scriptures place on Christians. Included with that is the command to keep no record of wrongs as commanded in the New Testament (click here for McArthur's article). Finally, McArthur says the following about the social justice movement:
The message of social justice diverts attention from Christ and the cross. It turns our hearts and minds from things above to things on this earth. It obscures the promise of forgiveness for hopeless sinners by telling people they are hapless victims of other people’s misdeeds.It therefore fosters the works of the flesh instead of cultivating the fruit of the Spirit.
One can hear some of McArthur's thinking in the voices of many today's politically conservative, evangelical Christians. This is especially true when it comes to calling attention to the injustices practiced against certain groups of people. Such Christians regard that as being divisive. And thus, when Obama was President and called attention to racism, these Christians accused him of being divisive.
Though there are some valid concerns in McArthurs views on social justice, they are obscured by his seemingly a priori condemnation of anything that is attached to Marxism. In fact, as many Christians do, McArthur condemns the social justice movement with labels such as 'Marxism' as if to imply that Marx never made any valid claims. That kind of all-or-nothing thinking is part of authoritarianism which is the other pandemic that is infecting the world today.
What is there to say about McArthur's condemnation of the social justice movement? The first thing we should ask McArthur is whether there is such a thing called 'social sins' or 'public evil.' For if there is, then calling on Christians to repent from them is not really expanding the scope of the Gospel as McArthur fears. Rather, it is expanding our own understanding of sin. Racism, economic classism, sexism and so forth, if they are sins committed by society at large, then we need to preach against them when sharing the Gospel with people.
Certainly, religiously conservative Christians can't fully agree with the whole Rauschenbusch quote above. Christ came to die for all of our sins. In addition, the above quote shows where Rauschenbush reduced the Gospel to his concerns about social sins. But recognizing the existence of social sins and the call for us to repent from them does not imply that we must follow Rauschenbush in reducing the Gospel to the repentance of social sins only. Again, are racism, economic classism, and sexism sins practiced by society at large? If so, then we have social sins and calling attention to that is the duty of every Christian as much as it is our duty to call attention to the sins of the individual.
In addition, calling attention to these social sins does not cause division. That these sins already exist implies that there are already divisions. Calling attention to these social sins is like calling attention to an abusive relationship. It's a public recognition that something malevolent is also wrong and must be changed.
So here it is not clear whether McArthur objects to the calling of our nation's social sins because he does not believe that social sins exist or whether he believes that the status quo McArthur is accustomed to does not practice these social sins. In either case, observation speaks louder than assumption or ideology.
Also, when McArthur writes about Biblical justice, what he seems to ignore is that we have a justice for society that is different from the justice God expects from his people. The reason for that is because society consists of both believers and unbelievers. And unless Christians are meant to rule over society to some degree, to establish justice we Christians and unbelievers must collaborate as equals. We Christians must share the state and society with unbelievers as equals. And doing so means that we collaborate with unbelievers regarding what laws we should have regarding how we should live. That we should pass laws that do not give any group legal privileges over other groups and thus we should prevent the marginalization of any group.
Yes, McArthur mentions that we should all be equal under the law. But he needs to acknowledge that the laws we pass must be just and do not marginalize other groups. Such is not just a cultural Marxist way of looking at democracy, it is something that Thomas Jefferson warned us about in his 1801 inaugural address when he said that the rule of the majority should note be used to oppress minorities.
Some of what McArthur writes about Biblical justice and what it says about love and forgiveness could certainly help the social justice movement further its cause. Here we only need to consider how the nonviolent approach taken by Martin Luther King's Jr. SCLC or the Nashville Student Movement furthered the cause of social justice during its time.
The social justice movement is in great need for recovering the approaches taken by the nonviolent protesters from the past. But so to it is time for Christians like McArthur to evaluate movements and causes by accepting or rejecting what they practice and preach on an item by item basis rather than use guilt by association to condemn whole given movement or cause. It is in McArthur's complete rejection of the social justice movement that shows he is blindly endorsing the status quo. And doing so spells a life sentence for the marginalized while providing security for the privileged. Perhaps if McArthur understood what it means to be marginalized, he might find some kind words to say about the social justice movement.
References
- https://www.gty.org/library/blog/B180907/the-injustice-of-social-justice
- https://www.gty.org/about/john
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