I didn't realize until this evening that it's been well over two months since my last post. Life seems to shuffle right along -- and so many other obligations take the place of blogging these days.
That said, here's what's been running through my mind this week.
The American presidential election is finally, and graciously, upon us. That means so many of my social justice friends have been posting social justice things all over social media.
And they wonder why I don't join in the chorus.
One of my struggles with Christian social justice warriors is how
they relate social justice to the gospel. This is a difficult issue to
raise, as 99% of the time I'm in agreement with the public calls for
social justice on a variety of issues. What concerns me, however, is the
path we walk in the church toward those calls.
One of my I'm-not-a-progressive-Christian-for-just-this-reason
criticisms of progressive Christianity is how it equates social justice
with the gospel, collapsing the gospel into the container of social
justice with no remainder.
Many
progressive Christians use Jesus as the means to reach social justice
ends. We call and act for social justice because of Jesus. And that's
true. But the temptation here is that, when Jesus is reduced to being
the reason or means toward a greater end, Jesus becomes
instrumentalized, treated as a tool, and as a tool superfluous and
discardable. Because in the end it's only the end that matters, not how
you get there.
Now of course, progressive
Christians can object to this. As long as we're working for social
justice these theological quibbles can be deemed irrelevant. And even worse,
raising these quibbles is likely a reflection of my privilege. I literally don't have any skin in the fight for racial social justice or gender social justice. I'm already privileged. So saying progressive Christians may be headed down the track in the wrong way is easy to do from the cheap seat that I occupy.
Perhaps that's true,
but I'm going to stand my ground on this one. For reasons I've learned
from the incarcerated and the homeless. The gospel is much bigger than
social justice, though social justice is a huge, urgent part of the
kingdom's business with the world. Thus my constant chatter in my church
when sharing with our SJW members that social justice is a means
toward the kingdom, not the other way around. This looks like a subtle
distinction and ordering, but the two are regularly flipped. And it's
critical to get the ordering right to keep social justice from falling
into idolatry. God's coming Kingdom is the only place where we will achieve the justice and reconciliation that is at the heart of the gospel. That kingdom comes in Jesus Christ, not because we've fought hard to build the kingdom here, now.
When all you have is a
hammer, everything looks like a nail. Social justice is a hammer. Social justice warriors are sure they're building the kingdom. Thing is: The
gospel is the entire toolbox, the building materials, the blueprint, the
workers, the architect, and the people living harmoniously in the house
together.