Another Christian View Of Social Justice

Because of the times, Christian leaders have had to focus their attention on social justice issues again. This previously occurred during the Civil Rights Movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. It has probably occurred before that including with the abolition movement. But today we see a resurgence in such interest in social justice.

Now I am most familiar with the Reformed Theology response to today's social injustices and the social justice movement. But my brief exposure to other religiously conservative Christian responses to today's social injustices and the social justice movement tells me that there is a near consensus of opposition to today's social justice movement. It isn't that there is no significant agreement between the two groups. That there is some agreement is one of the reasons why the writers I have read have tried to speak forcefully against today's social injustices. But they also speak against today's social justice movements while doing so. They have written that way because they are afraid of the inroads that today's social justice movements have made into the conservative churches.

Thus, there is a significant weakness in the conservative Christian response to today's social injustices and the social justice movements. That weakness is to try to speak to today's social injustices in ways that give the impression that any valid points made about social justice stated by today's social justice movements have already been better said by conservative Christian leaders as they speak from the Bible. And so even though these conservative Christian leaders say that they don't want to dismiss today's social justice movements, they do just that by implying that they themselves have everything to teach the world about how to approach social justice and nothing to learn from others. So these conservative Christian leaders claim that while today's social justice movements may be able to point out some of the problems that exist, they are unable to say anything solving our problems with the injustices better than what religiously conservative Christian leaders have said.

As a result, pursuing social justice no longer becomes a collaborative effort by equal partners in society. Instead, some conservative Christian leaders are telling their followers, and the world, to follow them as they, again, speak in a much better way than their theologically liberal and secular counterparts have. Thus, these conservative Christian leaders are vying for a privileged position for conservative Christianity in society. For they believe that without the religiously conservative Christian view of social justice, society's efforts to solve problems with social injustices are doomed to failure. And so the end game implied by these conservative Christian leaders is for America to pursue an ethnocracy led by conservative Christianity while leaving behind what is left of our democracy.

What is an ethnocracy? Below is one definition of an ethnocracy (the definition below is partially based on the definition given here): 

A form of government in which a particular ethnic group holds a disproportionate amount of government power so that the state and society are not shared as equal partners.

And how do we define an 'ethnic group'? Ethnic can be defined in the following way (click here):

of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background

In other words, when one group, such as a religiously conservative Christians, tries dominates the discussion on how to respond to social injustices, what it proposes no longer becomes a societal response. It becomes a special group response. That causes us to take the 'social' out of social justice. And that is designed to lead us to accept religiously conservative Christianity as deserving a special place of supremacy in leading, or controlling, society. The loss of that special place of supremacy is the point of the "culture wars" mentality that many religiously conservative Christians embrace.

There is one more observation to make as to why these conservative Christian leaders are reacting to the social justice movements the way they do. It is because the most visible social justice movements lean toward Marxism.This is highly offensive to those conservative Christian leaders because Marxism and its variants would dare become the slayers of Western Civilization's reputation. And this is where the heart of the conservative Christian opposition to many social justice movements lie. They fear that Marx's anti-religious viewpoints will gain more recognition and status and that the religious heritage that is so much a part of Western Civilization will suffer even more rejection by those in society.

So the above is a brief description of both the reaction and the problem with the responses to social justice and today's social justice movements by many religiously conservative Christian leaders. In reality, our society can't work toward achieving  social justice unless it is a collaborative effort by secular and religious groups working as equal partners. And to work collaboratively as equal parties means that there has to be significant give and take by both secular and religious groups working toward social justice. The subject of social justice is not one where my fellow religiously conservative Christians can learn how to respond to by isolating themselves and coming up with a plan apart from what the current social justice movements have said.

As a result, perhaps my fellow religiously conservative Christians must admit that Marx and his ideological descendants have more to teach us about social justice than they care to admit. Martin Luther King Jr. recognized that even though he saw Marxism as a 'Christian heresy.' And they can do so without giving into Marx's atheism. One doesn't have to agree with every major point Marx made in order to learn from him.

Without working with the current social justice movements in collaboration as equal partners, the current religiously conservative Christian approach to social justice can never adequately work for social justice. Rather, it will end up working for some kind of religious ethnocracy in the U.S and ethnocracies tend to promote social injustices. Achieving social justice must be a societal effort, not just attempts made by certain groups. And that means that not only must religiously conservative Christians work side by side as equals with current social justice movements, those movements must also reach out to work side by side with other groups of people, including us religiously conservative Christians, who don't lean toward Marx.