Let’s play a little game of word association. The “rules” are simple: I give you a word or phrase and you observe the first thing that comes to your mind. (This would be a lot more fun if we could actually play face to face but imagination will have to do.)
Here’s your phrase: social justice.
So, what’s the first thought that comes to your mind? The first image?
The term has become heavy with political implications and has gone through enough re-definitions to adequately muddle the discussion. Social justice has become synonymous with a political position. We use the term “social justice warrior” to describe someone who holds certain specific political and cultural views and associates with certain specific political and cultural movements and groups. Many times, this phrase implies someone who politically falls left-of-center, is a minority, engages in social and political activism, and lives out their progressive views fairly aggressively. As you can imagine, this archetype has been saturated with controversy. This common cultural understanding and re-definition of “social justice” has lead to quite a bit of confusion and contention among Christians about the proper Christlike attitude towards social justice. I think the first step we need to take to come to a better understanding of the Christian’s perspective towards social justice is to step back and reexamine what social justice is, divorced from the cultural preconceptions we have learned to associate with it.
Michael Novak, quoted in Darrow Miller’s book Rethinking Social Justice, describes social justice as “the capacity to organize with others to accomplish certain ends for the good of the whole community.” This is a basic and simple definition but it is also appropriately comprehensive and sufficient to convey the essence of social justice. Social justice is justice done in society. Darrow Miller distinguishes between two types of social justice: “distributive” justice: handed down from the government in the form of conventional judicial actions; and “commutative” justice: activated by citizens towards each other.
Clearly, the next question we must ask ourselves is this: what is justice? In the Bible, justice is often synonymous with righteousness. It is the state of things being right. In a way, I think Biblical justice is related to another Biblical phrase shalom which, often translated to “peace”, describes a state of being “whole”. Shalom implies harmony, prosperity, peace, completeness and justice.
In a very simple way, social justice can be understood to be the act of people returning to shalom in their communities and societies. It suggests restoration, reconciliation, and the return to right relationships. (Ryan Messmore describes social justice as having “right relationships” with our neighbors.)
In this sense, the Christian position towards social justice should be one of enthusiastically embracing the imperative social justice instructions found throughout the Scriptures. (A few examples: Isaiah 1:17, Proverbs 31:8-9, Isaiah 61:1-4, Isaiah 61:8, Zechariah 7:9, Leviticus 19:15.)
Jesus himself saw social restoration as an element of his ministry and mission. He quotes Isaiah 61 in the temple and applies the words to himself and his own purpose. He declares that he comes to bring “liberty to the captives” and “good news to the poor”. If Jesus views social justice as a natural outflowing of spiritual resurrection, then the church should too.
Seeking to restore Shalom to the cities, communities, and societies where we live is a Gospel-driven, missionary directive from the desk of God himself. I hope to continue the conversation on social justice and examine practical ways we can bring restoration and shalom to society in future posts. Stay tuned!