Scot McKnight with a good response for Glen Beck and his lunacy in reference to "social justice". He just simply cites some good Bible verses that should be the starting point, not cultural baggage about politics and right wing agendas.
In light of what God has done we do.
14 comments:
What was Beck's point? What was the context?
This is silly. Jesus speaks of a personal responsibility to the poor and oppressed. The fact that some people cannot discern between personal responsibility to charity and government forced confiscation of private resources to redistribute under threat of jail is baffling to me.
People need to wake up and realize that charity is measured by how much YOU give, not how much you force the government to take from someone else and give.
The inability of some people to make this distinction is, frankly, scary.
Those are terrible verses to support his point.
Sife,
I'm not sure you get the point. I know of no churches that desire to align themselves with the gov. in some sort of left wing conspiracy for Obama-like wealth distribution. Beck is a fear monger. He does so so he can get paid. Don't believe the hype.
z
Why are those terrible verse and what do you think his point is?
Christians and churches were talking about social justice way before Obama took office and they'll be talking about it way after he leaves. There is no "code language" going on. At least not in any of the circles I run in.
They are bad verses for the reasons I point out. Specifically, they call people to make individual charity a part of their Christianity.
There is no commonly understood meaning of "social justice" which does not involve the allocation of tax dollars to a particular cause. From "the right to health care" to "national aid to _____" to "We need to have more ________ programs for _______".
Ask anyone who advoates "social justice" what they mean. You'll get a litany of government "programs" not individuals and churches doing charitable work. That's the basis for nationalized healthcare, and a host of other programs.
Ask someone who supports social justice and frequently uses that term what they mean by it.
Glen Beck is an idiot for many, many reasons. I will have no part of him. The fact that he knows what people are advocating by using the phrase "social justice" is not one of them.
You're also correct that "social justice" (again, as defined as forced wealth transfer) has been around a lot longer than Obama. This has very little to do with him, and more with an ideology that says that because Jesus commanded us as individuals to give to the poor that we must therefore accept any government transfer of wealth in the name of "helping people".
To support this, here is the wikipedia (hardly a right wing site) entry for "social justice":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice
You'll see throughout:
"living wage"
"progressive taxation"
"income redistribution"
"Some tenets of social justice have been adopted by those on the left of the political spectrum."
"property redistribution"
Social justice in the context of our modern usage of it absolutely centers on a political philosophy of forced wealth redistribution.
Perhaps we are just quibbling over definitions but I don't know any Christian who uses the words "social justice" and means anything other than Christians pursuing generosity towards the poor in light of the Gospel. I have NEVER had a talk about these matters or posted on these matters on this blog and meant anything having to do with politics.
I agree, and that's a good point. The problem is that when you (we) talk about "social justice" we mean one thing (like you do, and it's perfectly acceptable) and when others use it it means something completely different. We have to be careful because to many people, when they see us using this secular (and VERY politicized) word, they hear one thing, when we mean somthing completely different.
Here, Glen Beck is referring to the political use of that word to push for government transfers of wealth, and the author of the piece responded by saying that we have an obligation to help poor people. Clearly the author knew what Beck was talking about, and chose to respond with the verses he did.
What I'd be interested to know is how that particular author comes down on this. Is he advocating social justice as its used in public policy and on college campuses, or is he advocating the kind of social justice that you're talking about?
That's why it's great to have these discussions (disagreements even) in public. It's a good thing.
"but I don't know any Christian who uses the words "social justice" and means anything other than Christians pursuing generosity towards the poor in light of the Gospel."
- That's what I'm not sure about though. Remember the debate during the election on all the Christian blogs about Obama? It all centered on "well, yeah he's for abortion, but he wants to HELP PEOPLE and that's what we're supposed to do and it makes me feel so warm and fuzzy!"
So, I do think that many Christians (especially prevalent among the the "emergent" ones) confuse individual charity with support for government programs. I've heard talk of Christians supporting this health care proposal because "well, shouldn't we want to help people get health care? Isn't that what Jesus would want?" I read that on Christian blogs (not this one) all the time.
Sorry for typing so much. I care about this :)
Here's just one of many I found:
http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2009/08/moral-imperative-of-health-care-reform.html
Read the post then the comments. I could find literally hundreds more claiming that our Christianity demands the "social justice" of "health care for all".
Thunder Dan,
I don't doubt that there are Christians that feel like it is their moral obligation to support BO and have gov. forced wealth distrbution, but all I am advocating for is that if we are going to use the term "social justice" we should really seek to define what we mean. Beck didn't do that, but rather made a unilateral claim (which all those guys do, again, hype is what gets them paid and keeps them on the air) and there are many other ways to understand this concept Biblically. Just define terms and then the conversation and move forward with some actual clarity.
z
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