Marimba guys, abuse is better than neglect. So neglect.
Oh and Jesus did talk about the Sabbath, He said it was made for man. He didn’t realise that it was made by man. How could He? Although He transcended it nonetheless and real Christianity, i.e. social justice now, is the Sabbath transcended. Equality of rest.
God is behind, in, every human face. You cannot have a personal relationship with Him in any other meaningful way. We can make one up for sure. A one sided one in which we entirely make up the other side; we play both roles. And yes, the story of full social justice, full equality of outcome, is a joke. You can only be in personal relationship and personal accountability to God through other real human beings. That is the only real measure.
What is your impression of what social justice is then? … or the what is it ‘as thought of today’, as you put it? And is there room for any sort of social justice (that you approve of) within your own system of belief? If so, what does it look like?
So where does Isaiah 58 fit into it then?
Sure, some people use “social justice” as a cover to push all sorts of weird and wacky left wing ideologies, but that doesn’t mean that the entire concept of social justice is anti-Christian by any stretch of the imagination. Be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I moved these posts here are they were off topic. While perhaps the issue of social justice is a little too political, will see how it goes. If too far off the rails, will move to a personal message or unlist.
I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon, but I find it a bit crazy that someone thinks social justice is unrelated to Christianity…… I think Christians getting behind the modern social issues is absolutely a core principle of our faith. Not just in America but across the world. All of the social justice issues I can think of now is important. Even if I think some are really misrepresented, there are often still grains of truth in them that should be addressed. Social justice is Christians looking out for those being treated unjustly. That’s very much part of being a Christian.
In a recent discussion, the idea of God ordaining governments and being the source of their authority was discussed as Paul wrote about in Romans 13 1:7. Even the oppressive Roman government was seen there as having authority from God. In a democracy, where we have some input as to what government does, it seems we are responsible for administering justice as God would have us do as Christians.
Well that was breath-taking. And here I was, thinking that I had missed something. Good to know that I haven’t.
Hi Beagle lady…what has your post got to do with Social Justice? Is this referencing a different forum post because it is felt that the 10 commandments are relevant here? I agree that they are for sure and i have no problem bringing the 10 commandments into a social justice environment…however, did one mean to put this here or was it an inadvertent error?
that is a really good point Phil. Of interest are the biblical references to other nations who overthrew Israelites in ancient times. Many of those nations were sent by God to punish the Israelites for disobedience and yet those same nations were themselves punished severely for what they did. The irony of it all! 
I would suggest however that there are a number of models of social justice that are anything but fair. The novel by George Orwell titled Animal Farm comes to mind as a satirical description and example of a very bad model!
Fancy that Phil. It’s coming down to us.
I’m of the view that all our attempts to make Jesus into a political, social, or otherwise revolutionary ends up shrinking his message for earthly things. With that being said, so much of Jesus’s message involves how we treat and view others, so it’s hard or perhaps impossible to separate it from modern “social justice” (which is heavily influenced by Christianity anyways).
The (in my view Valid) concern some theologians have about modern social justice is that becomes a pseudo-gospel. People achieve redemption by pointing out their own “sins” and the “sins” of others/society. The issue I see is there is no redemptive or otherwise metaphysical element to forgiveness. Instead one is accountable to the court of public opinion, not an impartial observer like God.
Do I think Jesus would be against racism, etc and want us to fight for equality and respect? Absolutely, and many Christians are doing a great job living this out. As Christians were are called out to be the light of the world and set an example to others. But there’s more going on here than just trying to change political or social institutions; Jesus came for personal transformations and to make a kingdom far greater than one that could be made by mere humans.
Thanks Klax… How is this one?
John 3:17, NIV: If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
Leveraging strategies to get power over others … that sounds about as far away from social justice (or justice of any kind) as a person could get. So yeah - if that’s what you mean by “social justice”; really social injustice, then I’m with you! Ditch it.
But regarding real social justice, I think I’ll be sticking with scriptures on this one. Let anyone try to show their
faith without concern for their neighbor, and I’ll strive to show them my faith by how I live and what I do for others. A man doesn’t love God if he can’t even love his neighbors whom he can see. I know you agree with that and aren’t suggesting works aren’t important. We probably would just go different directions in trying to discern what’s needed.
If it gets too political, that’ll be on me - I’m the one who questioned you on it - and you answered! Thanks.
I largely agree. The emphasis of social justice is not necessarily helping people as individuals or helping the population at large. Instead, the focus is aggregating people into group identities, and adjudicating between these groups. Even though I am partial to the classic welfare state with universal entitlements such as medical, dental, day care, and education, with the freedom to pursue individual values, I am askance from most of the current zero sum, progressive social justice agenda, as being corrosive to social cohesion and drawing attention away from and diluting universal programs. I think that is consistent with a Biblical perspective, where I see both individual responsibility together with global compassion, but no justification at all for dividing and aggregating of people for favored treatment based on group identity.
What heavenly things was Dives not responding to?
Providing public, mass plenty of health, care and education, with private sufficiency, is the opposite of favoured treatment for the rich.
What principled approach did Dives have to Lazarus?
How does that work with religious freedom? The 10 Commandments state that you shall not worship any other God than the God of the Bible which is in direct contradiction to our basic understanding of religious freedoms. They also state that you can’t worship idols, and even worse you can’t take the Lord’s name in vain which would seem to run counter to our ideas of free speech. If we aren’t supposed to covet, do we now hire thought police to arrest those who covet in their mind?
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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