Social justice seems to be something that everyone should be working toward, but why is there often differences of opinion between conservatives and liberals on the topic?
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Christian Theology 
Acts 2:45 is a case of believers supporting other believers. They were not trying to win the lost to Christ with their giving and sharing. As a matter of fact, most cases in the New testament point to this kind of giving by the church. The SJ movement has really distorted these facts and I for one am really tired of it. Should we help the poor? Of course! But if they become the entire focus of the church, what happens to the body of Christ? Acts 2 tells me that the body is to care for itself. The way the church won others to Christ was by going to the Temple every day and testifying about who Jesus is, not by handing out money. Once a person believed, they became a part of a family that cared for them and provided for them. Memebership (I know its a dirty word these days) did and does have its priveleges. The main form of poverty we need to work towards ending is spiritual poverty.
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Acts 2:45 was a voluntary giving by individuals, not a government taking and redistributing. I don’t think God views taxes the same way he views voluntary giving. Some would have the government do what they can’t bring themselves to do on their own.
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When believers begin to follow Jesus’ real teaching in heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, then – and only then – will people begin to listen and desire to follow Jesus followers. I don’t read anywhere in the Bible that Jesus went through all that He did to feed those that DO NOT want to feed or care for themselves. It doesn’t take faith to hold out your hand and expect others to give you money for not working. Look where that has gotten society? If our children did this we would be ashamed of them and ourselves!
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WOW!!! Ignorant gringo’s rule. The political right by way of Capitalism stand on the pillars of the right to ownership of property and the means of production. Damned are those who stand in the way of this “natural” order by imposing taxes. Great… survival of the fittest, but don’t be such a biblical sluggard and let this self-glorifying political idolorgy constrain, or package, or kill, God’s living word… IT DOESN’T FIT INTO YOUR POLITICAL BOX. Read Acts 2 and don’t skip over vs 45. Let the bible inform your agenda… not vice versa, you sluggard. Grab some compassion. Swallow your greed. Pay your taxes and tithe. You are the reason why the world “hates” America and Christians. Obviously I am a better sinner than you, “they will know we are Christians by our love”
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Interesting commentary. You paint social justice as a redistribution of wealth from those who have worked hard and deserve rewards to those who are “sluggards” and deserve to be punished.
I think your interpretation is flawed in a number of ways.
I will be the first to admitt that we are all broken. We are all sinful by nature. That being said to assume that the less fortunate in our society are there primarily because they are lazy (or sinful) is a bit of a stretch. We have far less control over our lives that people like you would like to believe. Perhaps you were born into a comfortable middle class life. Perhaps you were not born with a drug addict mother. Perhaps you have had opportunities that others have not. Perhaps you do not suffer from mental illness. All of these thing greaty impact a person socio-economic status in life.
The reality is the vast majority of people owe their financial status in life to the circimstances they were born into.
We are all sinful by or nature and to assume that God hands out punishment in this life based on this sinful behavior is ludicrous.
There are many hard working good Christians who spend their entire lives in poverty just as their are many dishonest unethical people who have wealth and comfort.
Jesus is very clear that we are to have a minimum of personal possessions and we are to spend our lives caring for the poor. I would suggest you hold yourself up to His standard before you are so quick to pass judgment on the “sluggards” of society. Jesus spent most of his ministry in confrontation with the Pharisees not telling the poor to suck it up and work harder.
I would strongly encourage you to spend some time reading about His ministry. Perhaps by doing so your position on social justice might change.
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Seems to totally miss the mark. I’m real disappointed in this video’s explanation of social justice and the prejudicial attitudes that float throughout. There is no practical explanation of what the form of “social justice” that he says he believes in looks like. There are just terms – left, Biblical, equality, good, evil… there is no description of what a demonstration of “true” social justice looks like. This is extremely weak and only upholds prejudice against giving of oneself, giving away time, goods, energy, wisdom… social justice that includes tutoring people, helping people find jobs, creating business or creating loans for people to start their own businesses.
To simply characterize the emergent church as left or in the camp of the left reduces a wide-ranging group of people to a caricature. It is prejudice in its plainest form.
This is so disheartening as a statement from anyone following Jesus.
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Thank you so much, I am trying to research this Social Justice issue and also some of the doctrines that seem to accompany it. Such as, the death of Christ, Salvation, Justification, and Heaven and Hell. If this has become a part of where your church is going, you better find out what it means. Our church has adopted Social Justice in a dogmatic way and our pastor is unwilling to dialog, although, he SAYS he will. It does not matter that many have left the church. Why is this so important? That is the scary question. If it denies the basic orthodox teachings of Christianity, I say, look out, look into it, and do something about it. This is not an easy teaching to pin down, the proponents seem to say that they agree to basics, but distort biblical truths on the other hand. Please be careful people, the Bible warns us about the Apostate church.
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Good call – thanks for explaining this here. Naturally with a site about serving others, a lot of people assume I’m a big fan of the social justice movement.
Thank you for laying it out in a constructive way… where it makes sense that “social justice” as we know it isn’t always wonderful. I loved the point about it all coming back to how we view human nature. I just wrote about this last week I think. The more I look around, the more I realize why so many people want to assume that people are naturally good instead of paying attention to what the Bible actually says about it.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
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My word of the day: Sluggard. I am going to see if I can get the word sluggard into a sermon more times than Doug used it in this video. I love it. =-)
Great message.
I am a conservative Christian who does a lot of social ministry in addition to the ministry of preaching the word, and I rub elbows in that way with a lot of people who think that the social stuff is what it is all about. They are Christians who deal with the poor, and because they deal with the poor, they assume that all people are poor because they are oppressed. Likewise, anyone with money acquired it unfairly. Therefore, the poor, being oppressed, have the right to the wealthy’s (a relative term, not usually referring to actually wealthy people) income. I don’t remember Jesus ever advocating this.
Maybe you have heard people say how Jesus would have supported Universal Health Care. If that is true, why didn’t he heal everyone who needed it?
More importantly, why do liberals only want to use Jesus when they want something radical done. But when it comes to issues like homosexuality, we just can’t trust the bible. (This reflects the use of our constitution. Our rights to religious liberty are always under attack while abortion, as right to privacy, is read into the constitution.)
OK, off my soap box. Great message and great video, Doug.
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