Do Justice

The Bible is clear. God loves justice. "What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8) Abraham knew it. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (Gen 18:25) And, look, it is abundantly clear that God doesn't merely love; He is love (1 John 4:7). Paul says that the love of Christ is so big that it cannot be known (Eph 3:19). We know these things.

So the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) among us will strike up the band and cheer us on to love justice and to love our neighbors. And, in principle, we had better agree. It isn't their idea; it's God's idea.

You noted, I'm sure, my hesitation. "In principle," I said. Suggesting, "Not necessarily in practice." Yes, that's what I meant. Because, you see, as soon as this parade heads down the street it takes a sudden turn in a different direction. As I've written about on more than one occasion, they take "justice" and "love" and redefine them and then reapply this new meaning on our parade and expect us to follow.

"You love justice, right? It is unjust that anyone should have less than others, isn't it? It is unjust for a company to pay less than a living wage, right? It is unjust that a woman would be denied the right to choose her method of preventing reproduction, surely! We're all in agreement, aren't we? Patriarchy is unjust. Equal pay for women is just. Justice requires that anyone who wants to come into this country must be allowed to and supported in it. Justice demands gender and sexual orientation diversity." And so it goes. Investopedia defines "Social Justice" as "a political and philosophical concept which holds that all people should have equal access to wealth, health, well-being, justice, and opportunity." It's about the "poor and marginalized," but, again, the terms remain undefined or ill-defined.

So some of us begin to lag in the parade. "Um, hang on a minute, when did we sign up for your version of the term?"

"Well," they tell us, "you are certainly in favor of love!" "Yes, yes we are ... but, again, your version? Not so sure." Because their version is schizophrenic. It includes sexual relations, then makes those sexual relations inappropriate when they feel they should be. "Yes, if a man loves a man he should enjoy sex with that man and even marry him. If a man loves his mother, he shouldn't. If a man loves two women he might be allowed to enjoy sex with them, but never marry them. Yes, you might love pizza, but don't think about sex or marriage there, because while we assure you that love is love, that doesn't mean that love is love as you think about it; only as we think about it."

That, of course, is the problem. Justice is defined as they want to. Love is defined as they want to. But if we're talking about justice that God loves and love that God demands, shouldn't we be talking about justice and love as God defines it?

Justice is -- should be -- easy to define. Biblically it is what is right. Simple, right? Except that we like to take the next step and fill in "what is right" without regard for what God says is right. So biblically we find that is wrong to favor the rich over the poor (James 2:1-7), but it's not right by definition that no one should be poor (e.g., John 12:8; 2 Thess 3:10). It is biblically right that we should take care of the needy (e.g., James 1:27; Gal 6:10; Prov 21:13; 1 John 3:17-18), but not without limits (e.g, 1 Tim 5:3-16).

Biblically, love is self-sacrifice, not self-indulgence. It is commanded, so while it might have an emotional component, that would be a result, not a definition of love. (You can't command feelings.) Biblical love comes from God (1 John 4:7-8). We have a list of characteristics in 1 Corinthians 13:4-13. Love pursues the best for the one who is loved, sometimes painfully -- painful to the one who loves and/or painful to the one who is loved. Love is not embracing sin (e.g., 1 Cor 5:1-5; 1 Cor 5:9-11; 2 John 1:10-11; Titus 3:10).

What can be termed "social justice" is indeed found in the Bible. Just not the whole of what today's SJWs preach. Much of what SJWs claim as social justice isn't biblical, yet they try to tell us we need to do it. Conversely, without a doubt you and I are not doing enough of what the Bible refers to as social justice. We err on both sides -- not doing enough good for others and not doing enough of the hard task of calling others to repentance when they are wrong. We must love -- love God and love others -- and we must love justice. We're not doing these nearly well enough. We must recognize when voices tell us we need to "care for the poor and marginalized" as matters of justice and love when they are not speaking of the biblical poor and marginalized in terms of biblical justice and love. But that error on their part doesn't relieve us of our error in not doing it biblically.