Doing Justice and the Gospel, Part 4: Applications

[This is the last of a four-part series on doing justice and the gospel. See parts 1-3 for context here and here and here.]

Application of Justice and Injustice

• It is unjust to allow some people to break a just law because of their status, whether politicians or immigrants, celebrities, juveniles, or disgruntled citizens.
• It is unjust to withhold information or tell only part of a story to manipulate the public, as the media often does, or to escape just punishment as public figures often do.
• It is unjust to circumvent due process or the rule of law because we are outraged at a wrong.
• It is unjust to convict an innocent person because we want someone to pay for wrongdoing.
• It is unjust to forcibly take taxpayers’ $ for immoral purposes such as abortion, abortifacients, and sexually immoral causes.
• It is unjust to include sexual perversion as a human rights issue alongside genuine human rights issues such as racism, persecution, genocide, FGM, human trafficking, etc.
• It is unjust to bind the hands of law enforcement and then complain that they don’t do enough.
• It is unjust to ask law enforcement to risk their lives, witness unspeakable horrors on a regular basis, deal with the most wicked, evil, dangerous people, endure constant harassment, hatred, and scrutiny, and then provide them with little mental health counseling and minimal pay, all the while expecting them to always make the right decision in split-second, life-or-death situations that will be scrutinized by millions within seconds of the event.
• It is unjust to not hold law enforcement to a high standard of integrity, behavior and speech regarding treatment of those they encounter.
• It is unjust to judge all cases of police discharging their weapons as police brutality before all the facts have been revealed.
• It is unjust to tolerate corruption in our police, or attorneys, or politicians and to fail to prosecute them when they break the law.
• It is unjust for men to sexually harass women, to pressure them, to make comments about their bodies, to touch them in an unwanted way, to use sexual innuendos, to intimidate them, or intentionally make them feel unsafe, vulnerable, belittled, demeaned, or objectified.
• It is unjust for women to do any of the same to men.
• It is unjust to place artificial standards on a woman who has experienced sexual abuse before she is believed, such as “she should have reported it right away,” she should have stopped it somehow, she should remember all the details of this traumatic event in which she thought she would die, etc.
• It is unjust to allow our inclination to believe those who report abuse to drift into automatic conviction of the accused on the spot without due process.
• It is unjust for us to see injustice and fail to speak up about it. God calls us to courage and a prophetic voice in this world.

All this goes to show that JUSTICE IS DIFFICULT AND COMPLEX, because we are not God, who knows all things and who judges impartially. We should continue to pray and advocate for justice whenever we hear of injustices.

Doing Justice and the Gospel, Part 3: Principles to Guide Our Practice of Justice

[This is the third of a four-part series on doing justice and how it relates to the gospel. See the first and second parts here and here.]

Principles for doing justice and the gospel:

1. Hermeneutically, we must make distinctions between the combined political/religious institution of OT Israel and the Church today as a counter-cultural entity in a secular nation. The church is given to make disciples, which includes personal transformation leading to social transformation, but the church has not been given the task of cultural transformation apart from the gospel.
2. Social justice, as the world proclaims it, can divide us from one another by setting types of people against one another, destroying our unity in Adam as fallen, and our unity in Christ as redeemed, where there are to be no more distinctions. In the church, masters stood next to slaves, Jews next to Barbarians, men next to women. At this foundational level, hatred and separation were transformed by their unity in Christ. Identity politics will necessarily continue to fragment until there is no shared experience at all. Feminist v Womanist thought. Feminist v. Transgenders
3. The gospel frees us from false guilt, such as “You are guilty because you are white, or male, or middle-class, or educated, or tall.” It also frees us from false gospels, which say that you can never escape your guilt, or that you must denounce yourself and make unspecified reparations to make atonement. The gospel does not call us to conviction about who we are or how God made us, but for words, thoughts, and deeds that are clear and specific violations of his commands. The gospel says I am guilty because I have sinned against God and I can be forgiven because Jesus, the just one, was punished on my behalf. If God convicts you of a specific act of injustice, then repent and God will graciously forgive you.
4. The implication of the gospel is that in my personal life I should be the Good Samaritan who sacrifices significantly and materiallyto help others in need when my life intersects theirs. I should seek out those in need around the world and do what I can individually and as part of the community of the church to do justice and love mercy. This will look somewhat different for each person and church. Exodus 23:4–5 reminds us of our responsibility to love our neighbor: “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates youlying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.
5. Addressing matters of injustice is a powerful means to demonstrate the love of Christ and open doors for the gospel. Churches in America that ignore injustice cut themselves off from reaching their communities! Doing good is mentioned 12 times in 1 Peter as a way to deal with suffering in a hostile culture. One way wealthy, suburban churches can do justice is to support churches in the inner city who are faithfully reaching their communities.
6. The goal of doing justice is to glorify God by bringing Shalom to people’s lives. As a former pastor in an urban church, I witnessed firsthand the way the gospel transformed, individuals, then families, and even neighborhoods. When God transforms hearts and changes families, communities are blessed as a result. The church is supposed to be a foretaste of the justice, mercy, love, compassion, truth, and care we will experience when Christ returns.
7. When justice cannot be obtained, Christians must have a robust theology of suffering to be able to live triumphantly (1 Peter). We are called to follow the example of Jesus who suffered the greatest injustice, and yet did not revile his persecutors. If justice cannot be obtained, there is the reassurance that God will eventually bring justice (2 Thess. 1:5-7; Rom. 12:19). We are called to dojustice, but not to bringjustice—only God can do that. Our hope should not be in fixing the world, but in the return of Christ, who will restore all things. God will justly judge every person at the end of time. To do away with Hell, for example is to remove the reassurance of final judgment on the wicked.
8. Social Justice, as is practiced by those who reject Christ, is almost completely devoid of New Testament Christianity, and has the power to distort the gospel from a deliverance from the guilt of sin through repentance in Christ, to a deliverance from guilt for mere existence through activism. It reduces Christianity to an ethic of ambiguous love, where Jesus is merely incidental. American Christianity walked this path 100 years ago, and it proved impotent and disastrous.

In the final post of this series, I will make some specific statements about injustice in our country and our world today.

Doing Justice and the Gospel, Part 2: Justice According to Leviticus 19

[This is the second of a four-part series on doing justice and how it relates to the gospel. See the first part here .]

The laws that God lays down in Leviticus contribute to the overall picture of justice in the Bible. Let’s take a look at one passage that is rich in instruction about doing justice. There are many passages in the Bible that address justice, but Leviticus 19 touches on a number of concepts related to justice that are especially pertinent to doing justice in our world today.

One thing to notice about Leviticus 19 is that it is set in the context of commands forbidding Israel from walking in the customs of Canaan or do as the Canaanites do (18:3, 30 and 20:23). In other words, Israel was not to take its cues regarding justice from the surrounding culture. So, while we may be made aware of social ills and injustices by unbelievers, we will not be able to agree fully on the interpretation, causes, and solution for the problems. The unbeliever’s solution will not contain the gospel, and so will be only partial at best and destructive at worst.

The commands for justice and mercy in this passage are also set in the context of the repeated phrase, “I am the LORD.” Sixteen times this phrase is included to remind readers that the ultimate authority in matters of justice is God. Justice is done by God’s people for Him and according to his revealed directions. Justice is an act of worship to God, just as injustice is an act of rebellion and rejection of God’s authority.

I will focus on five principles of justice in this text, even though there are others. First, justice includes material concern for the indigent (v. 9-10). The poor referenced here were landless people and so had no means of survival apart from the mercy of others. They were not people who refused to work and just wanted a check in the mail. When we talk about issues of justice related to poverty, we must define who are the vulnerable poor.

In the United States in 2015 about 6% of the population had an income-to-poverty ratio that put them in the category of extreme poverty, which is a combination of inadequate food, clothing, and shelter, little or no healthcare, and inadequate education for children. Another 7% were moderately poor, with only slightly better conditions. This amounts to around 42 million Americans who live on less than $17.00 per day. When we look globally, approximately one billion people live on $1.00 per day, and another one billion live on $2.00 per day.

God’s heart for the truly poor is evident in his instructions not to harvest all the produce in their fields or vineyards to give the poor an opportunity to survive. But this act of charity was not a do-nothing handout. The indigent had to work to obtain these resources. They had to go to the fields and vineyards and harvest the remaining food. God does not diminish the created order of work for people in need. Because work brings dignity and fulfills the Creation Mandate to cultivate and subdue the earth, it is a positive and productive requirement for the needy to do what they can for themselves when receiving charity. If a poor person does not like the kind of work required to receive charity, he may be motivated to seek greater opportunities to provide a better life for himself. “The appetite of laborers works for them; their hunger drives them on” (Prov. 16:26 NIV).

Second, justice requires complete, absolute honesty in every dealing (v. 11-12). Stealing, cheating, and lying were all forbidden. That means that deception, exaggeration, or misrepresentation should not be tolerated in a just society. This is especially true, because those who are weak (socially, economically, and educationally) are the most hurt by dishonesty, as they often have no recourse. Complete honesty benefits everyone, except the deceptive person. All these sins are rooted in greed—they get a person some benefit in an improper way, often by defrauding them. As a teenager I worked for my father who was a stone mason. I remember the fury I felt when we finished a job that took us months, and the homeowner refused to pay the last half of the bill simply because he knew my father couldn’t afford a lawyer to sue for the money. It was nothing more than theft and fraud, and God warns wealthy employers not to withhold the pay of their employees for any reason (James 5:1-6). Such an action is abhorrent to God, and he will exact justice from the wicked.

Another injustice mentioned here is swearing falsely on God’s name (taking God’s name in vain), God is clear that he will not consider a person who takes his name in vain to be innocent (Exod. 20:7). These laws equally applied to government officials, employers, civic and religious leaders, as well as employees, students, immigrants, and citizens.

Third, justice refuses to take advantage of others (v. 13-14). Exploitation, extortion, bullying, manipulation, oppression, and blackmail of any kind are forbidden. Most of us may not consider ourselves to be in a position to do these things to anyone, but there are applications of this principle that are more common. Tormenting, mocking, belittling, and name-calling reveal a cruel heart that does not fear God, and thinks that no one sees or will help. Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch theologian and later Prime Minister of the Netherlands, promoted a robust view of justice when he defined a just society as one that pursues for others security from drastic imbalances of power in their basic relations. Again this is important because the weak are most often exploited in an unjust society. Proverbs 23:10–11 reminds us, “Do not move an ancient landmark or enter the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause against you.”

Fourth, justice includes judging everyone by the same standard (v. 15-16, 35-36). This is true regardless of their economic, ethnic, educational, gender, or national stations in life. We should never let a person’s social or economic position influence a decision, whether in personal dealings, or in the legal system. No favoritism or partiality is allowed. Further, I should see anyone accused of wrongdoing as a neighbor, not as an enemy. Justice is rooted in love for neighbor, even if the just penalty for his wrongdoing is severe.

Finally, justice requires loving your neighbor as yourself (v. 17-18, 33-34). Hatred of anyone because they are male or female, black, white, Asian, Latino, Middle Eastern, Native American, rich or poor, educated or not, older or younger, American or foreigner, law-keeper or law-breaker, etc. is forbidden. So is ill-treatment of vulnerable people in society.

Embracing and empowering those who are truly in need and truly vulnerable reflects biblical justice and compassion. Defending those who are harmed by those more powerful is a just act to perform. And there is no greater injustice in society than abortion.

In the next post We will look at 8 principles derived from the biblical teaching on doing justice related to life in the 21st century.

Doing Justice and the Gospel

The question of the role of social justice and the church is one of the hottest topics of the day among Christians. Recently I had 30 minutes to address the issue in chapel at Lancaster Bible College. In the next four blog posts I will unpack my chapel talk.

Preliminary Statements:

1. No one can escape their bias regarding these issues, so it is impossible to be neutral. Neutrality implies that I can set aside my personal feelings or experiences. It is, however, possible to be objective. I acknowledge my personal bias and you should too. And anyone you hear, or read, or watch should also acknowledge their bias. Everyone’s desire when addressing a topic as important as this one ought to be objectivity. What I say here today represents my best attempt to address the massive and complex issue of justice like a pizza delivery—in 30 minutes or less. Therefore, the views I express are my own and do not necessarily represent those of the Bible and Theology faculty or Lancaster Bible College.
2. What God reveals in the Scriptures ought to be for Christians authoritative and definitive for understanding any issue. If we do not have an unchanging and objective foundation for our thought, we can ultimately have no shared meanings or experiences, and what we call evil and unjust today could be considered good and normal next week.
3. Right and wrong, justice and injustice, are not determined by what I or anyone else perceive to be the quantity of harm done by an action, but rather are determined by God, who has revealed his character and commands, primarily in the Bible. We should not judge ourselves according to how the world evaluates us, but how God evaluates us. The world will often hate Christians and slander us regardless of what we do.
4. We need to define our terms:
   • Biblical justice is the faithful exercise of power in the community, doing the right thing in relation to other people. This ties justice to mercy and compassion (Rom. 13:8—owe no one anything except love). Justice means treating people equitably, acquitting or punishing every person on the merits of the case, regardless of ethnic, economic, gender, or social status. Justice also means giving people what they are due, whether punishment, or protection, or care.
   • Righteousness denotes virtue, uprightness, moral rectitude—godly character. This message today is primarily about doing justice, rather than “social justice,” which is a nebulous term.
   • When referring to social justice, I will use the definition of Innosanto Nagara, an Indonesian intellectual, author of the children’s book, “A is for Activism,” and founder of the Design Action Collective in Oakland, CA. He writes that “Social Justice Work is work that we do in the interest of securing human rights, an equitable distribution of resources, a healthy planet, democracy, and a space for the human spirit to thrive (arts, culture, entertainment).” While we can sympathize with some of these commitments, they do not correspond to biblical concepts of justice and righteousness. The danger of the gospel of Christ being reduced to a social gospel is a real danger. It happens all the time.
   • More specifically, the U.N. defines social justice as “the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth.” Social justice is not possible without strong and coherent redistributive policies conceived and implemented by public agencies.
   • Michael Novak’s book, Social Justice Is Not What You Think It Is, notes that Social Justice typically refers to: state redistribution of wealth, equality of outcomes, and a collectivist notion of the common good, which becomes an excuse for total state control.
5. The fundamental reason for injustice in our world is human depravity.
   • Systemic depravity where corrupt governments use power to enrich themselves or treat people unfairly based on any number of factors.
   • Institutional depravity where corruption, greed, discrimination, and exploitation are protected to advance the institution or cultivate a biased ideology.
   • Individual depravity is the source of the other forms of depravity, and is the primary reason for broken families, poverty, violence, ignorance, hatred, greed, etc.
   • The Christian understanding of depravity prevents us from believing what I call the “magic of socialism”—the belief that when individuals act on behalf of the government, they magically become honest and wise, so they can redistribute the wealth of others without greed and corruption.
6. Many of the concerns expressed under the name of social justice can be shared by Christians who are seeking to love their neighbors as themselves, but too often the interpretation and solution for those concerns are antithetical to the Christian gospel. Therefore, as Christians we cannot naively join with those who oppose the tenets of our faith, if doing so requires our endorsement of unjust and immoral solutions. Proponents are often seeking to establish a social order with no reference to the one true God.
   • For example, “intersectionality” refers to the compounding of experiences that can render some people significantly more vulnerable in society than others. A good example are the Greek widows in Acts 6, who were not only vulnerable because they were widows, but in the early church were overlooked in the care of widows because culturally they were outsiders, compared to the Hebrew widows. The church’s response was to appoint six deacons like them (with Greek names) to make sure they were cared for. Empathy for their situation resulted in a remedy that appropriately corrected the vulnerability. But when the ideology of intersectionality turned toward Freud and the reduction of humanity to feelings, concepts like “dignitary harm” arose, and the concept was corrupted (Rosaria Butterfield, “Gay Rights, Hate Speech, and Hospitality” .
   • The #MeToo movement has rightly exposed sexual harassers and predators, and what has happened so far may just be the tip of the iceberg. My guess is that the vast majority of women have been the recipients of inappropriate statements, physical contact, and more. Yet, the broader culture seems to take no responsibility for the rejection of God’s standards of sexuality 50 years ago that set the stage for widespread exploitation of women. #MeToo can be misused to summarily convict anyone against whom an accusation is made.
   • The concept of “privilege” is indisputable if we take it to mean that in certain circumstances or locations, some people are free from fear, while others are at a disadvantage or in potential danger. The solution, however, is not to heap guilt and blame for society’s ills on people perceived to be privileged. Nor is it to silence anyone who is perceived to be privileged, because they have allegedly “had their turn” or can’t possible speak into a situation they have not experienced. The biblical answer is for people who have “privilege” in any given situation to use their advantage or strength in the service of others. Moses, Nehemiah, Esther, Daniel, and Paul all had privilege and used it when appropriate.
7. It is easy to get focused on American issues, when global issues of justice are significantly greater. When we consider the global scene it significantly reshapes our ideas of where the greatest injustices lay.  Human trafficking, corrupt governments, lack of basic healthcare, education, clean water, and food is widespread.
8. The fruit of the gospel is not the gospel. The implications of the gospel are not the gospel. “Preaching Christ crucified will transform society. Preaching transformed society will transform nothing” (Douglas Wilson, “American Vision and the Word that Justified”). Do you care deeply about justice? Which issues? Only the culturally acceptable issues such as racism, the environment and child labor, or also the unacceptable issues, too, like abortion and pornography? Do you care as much about the message of the gospel and the saving of souls as you do social issues? It is easier to march and demonstrate and protest than it is to tell someone they are lost and need Jesus. Mark 8:36—”For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

In Part 2 we will look at Leviticus 19 to see what it says about justice, and how it can challenge us about our part in doing justice.