Glen Beck has created quite a firestorm by linking "Social Justice" to socialism, Marxism, Communism and even Nazism last week. In the process, Beck suggested Christians should flee from Churches where "social justice" is preached. This caused Jim Wallis of Sojourners to blast Beck and start a campaign to get Christians to write to Beck proclaiming themselves to be "Social Justice" Christians.
It was, and is, quite a mess. I don’t watch Beck much, but I happened to see a Beck broadcast on Tuesday March 23 where he took on Wallis. One particular quote included in the broadcast was a radio interview where Jim Wallis was asked if he was speaking of "wealth redistribution". Wallis’ response included the words "Absolutely...that's what the gospel is all about". Beck had found, it seemed, the smoking gun and went on to link Wallis to forced government redistribution of wealth. As it turns out, Wallis' comment in context was not necessarily about government seizure of property to pass it along to the poor, but was about voluntary involvement of the rich with the poor, voluntarism Beck admitted in his program was an acceptable understanding of the gospel and a good thing. Which is not to defend Wallis, only to acknowledge Beck's quote of Wallis was not what it seemed.
My impressions, watching Beck, were that he was imprecise in his reasoning and much too loose with his quotes. While there may be a line that can be drawn from the various liberation theologies Wallis has sympathized with to Marxist ideologies, Beck tended to make a lot of jumps from dot to dot to draw that line. In that regard Beck is an easy guy to discredit. Not using the full context of Wallis' quote is poor documentation and unfair, even if Wallis’ politics are quite far to the left. And such imprecision unfortunately plays into the hand of genuine leftists by giving them vivid examples of mistreatment and false accusations to bash the right with.
Unfortunately in our media saturated sound-bite culture, it is difficult to get people to listen to extended evidential argumentation for a point of view, so folks like Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity make a living by serving up short, truncated snippetts to make their case, usually with a lot of vigor and urgency to rile us up and keep us watching – ratings matter. Olberman, Maddow and Michael Moore are less successful and less honest on the left. Reminds me of how much I miss the old "Firing Line" program where William Buckley could quietly engage in real, detailed debate with George McGovern with no need of flashy graphics, shouting matches and provocative teasers.
Here's the question though. Is "social justice" a bad thing or a good thing? Should Christians flee "social justice" churches?
My take is simple. Words have meanings and implications. While individuals may be fuzzy about their usage of words out of linguistic laziness, I think the words still matter. And here's the problem with "social justice" as a term.
The first word "social" implies that this issue of "justice" is at the level of society. Whatever is "unjust" about the particular issues social justice advocates are concerned with is caused at the level of "social structures". Those who want to correct the unjust social structures do have a tendency to look to government solutions to “systemic inequities”. And whether or not all social justice advocates would describe themselves as socialist or Marxist, the whole notion of "unjust social structures" does dovetail very well with Marxist ideology, which was probably the point Beck was trying to make, however poorly and clumsily.
The second word – “justice” - may be even more troublesome. Equating the plight of the poor with "justice" carries the implication that the poor are poor primarily because they have been wronged in some way, oppressed by someone. I am not naive. Certainly there are slum lords who commit crimes against their poorer tenants by not living up to agreements or violating legal requirements. Certainly there are loan sharks, dishonest bankers, unscrupulous businessmen who take advantage of the misfortune of others. Many such activities should rightly be described as crimes and should fall under the category of “injustice”. And the way to deal with those injustices is on a case by case basis. The individuals who are wronged should have recourse to seek justice against the individuals who wronged them. Society has to regulate bad behavior by law and enforcement. That is a social matter, and that is a justice matter.
But the lurking implication of "social injustice" is that the poor are always by definition oppressed and that the rich (by definition anyone who is not poor) are by definition oppressors. "Justice" moves away from "party A seeks justice for the wrong committed by party B", to "group A seeks general reparations against group B" under the assumption that all in group B are by definition oppressors. In that sense, capitalism is itself an "unjust social structure" that needs to be remedied by a systemic change. Indeed, Jim Wallis’ magazine “Sojourners” was once named the “Post-American”.
This does play directly into the hands of the ideological left, including the socialist and Marxist line of thought. I do see a strong strain of class-warfare rhetoric in the ideas of the religious left, seeking collective justice for collective sins - independent of the actual guilt or innocence of the individuals in group B or the actual victimization of the individuals in group A. If the sins are collective in nature, then the remedy can be collective, as Glen Beck suggested, stealing from the rich oppressors en masse and distributing it to the poor victims as a class.
While Glen Beck's presentation on Tuesday was bombastic, poorly sourced, and imprecisely reasoned, his general point was, I fear, valid. Those who might favor a Marxist worldview have and still do use God-talk to play on Christian instincts of morality. If it is immoral for the rich to oppress the poor, then systemic change can be justified as a remedy - government intervention can be called for. Ideas that are at least consistent with socialist agendas can be implemented through an appeal to social justice – and those who are simply wanting to help the poor can be unwitting supporters of far left political agendas.
So, yes, if I see a church making a particular appeal to "social justice" as a cause, I do immediately have to wonder, what is the definition of social justice? How does 'social' justice differ from regular justice? What are the particular injustices society has committed? What are the remedies for injustices committed by a society? How am I as an individual implicated in the injustice committed by the society? And if the answers to those questions suggest "collectivism", that is a church I would not support.
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