Some practical applications

So, having swum through Scripture, let’s ask some questions about “social justice.”

In what way is it unjust that some are rich and some are poor? It’s not unjust legally, contractually, or commutatively, as long as bribery or cheating – abusing power or weighting the scales – have not occurred. It is injustice when individuals or institutions structure life and society to push people away from faith in God and toward lies. For example, many children who have grown up without dads yearn for a Father in heaven but find it difficult to have faith in one – so structures that make fatherlessness more likely are socially unjust.

To come out of poverty, children of poor parents need a good education, so when they have no choice but to go to a rotten public school, that's social injustice – which is magnified by the sad fact that children who don’t learn how to read may never have the opportunity to gain or increase their faith by reading the Bible.

When governments take taxpayers' money and discriminate against effective, strongly Biblical programs that help widows and orphans, that's social injustice. When prisoners are merely warehoused and God’s declaration of liberty for the captives never reaches them, that's social injustice. When corporations use their wealth to gain power and then leverage that to gain more power, that is unjust.

The Bible teaches that families are crucial, so anything that weakens families – whether no-fault divorce laws, tax codes that penalize marriage, government workforce or educational programs that discourage marriage, high taxes that push husbands to take second jobs or wives to take fulltime jobs when they would rather work part-time and care for their families – reduces justice. Justice begins in the family, which is not merely a haven in a heartless world: It can and should be a bit of heaven, a greenhouse of personal justice.

Family heads also bear primary responsibility for the material well-being of family members. Families are not merely private institutions: Their failure has public costs, since a lack of justice within a marriage leads to divorce and increased power for the state. Every family breakdown leads to an increase in the size of children’s protective services. It costs the state tens of thousands of dollars to attempt to create a family-type environment for a child – and at great expense it does it poorly. When personal justice isn’t present, “social justice” is a catch-up attempt.

The Bible also equates justice with personal generosity, as in Psalm 112:5, “It is well with the man who deals generously and lends; who conducts his affairs with justice.” The just person is the merciful person, as God is both just and merciful. Coercive redistribution reduces the amount of justice in the world by removing the option of voluntary action: The ultimate form of government coercion, Communism, does not allow a person to deal generously and lend.

Justice in relationships

The New Testament, particularly in two epistles, Ephesians (5:22-6:9) and Colossians (3:18 to 4:1), emphasizes that justice is advanced when people act righteously toward one another in three significant relationships.

For example, if more employees are intent on “rendering service with a good will as to the Lord,” and if more employers honor those employees instead of treating them like machines or beasts of burden, we will hear fewer demands to obtain “social justice” through governmental power. When most employers in a particular city consider their companies’ long-term prospects more important than a push for immediate but temporary gains, justice can underlie employee relations in that city, and the influence of righteous employers can melt the hearts of others tempted to act unjustly toward their employees.

The Bible teaches that husbands are to love their wives so much that their wives joyfully submit to such love – I know “submit” is a bad word, but in the Biblical context it is somewhat like submitting to chocolate. When most husbands and wives in a particular neighborhood consider righteous treatment of each other more important than transient desires, justice suffuses most marriages in that neighborhood, and that picture of concord may melt the hearts of those who would otherwise head toward divorce.

When most parents in a particular neighborhood consider their children’s long-term welfare more important than their own transient satisfactions, justice underlies parent-child interactions in that neighborhood, and that righteous influence may melt the hearts of those who would otherwise act unjustly toward their children.

The great injustice

If we understand the common statement of children, “It’s not fair,” as a plea for justice, let’s ask: Is any injustice greater than that visited on a child whose chances of disaster are so much higher than those of a child in an intact family? This great injustice of the past 45 years deepened alongside the largest attempt to redistribute income ever seen: Beginning with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in 1965, governmental officials distributed trillions of dollars to the poor or to entities claiming to help the poor.

As attempts to bring about “social justice” by governmental action flourished over the next three decades, the number of children born out of wedlock soared to 40% overall and 72% among African-Americans. We do not know the extent to which increases in welfare led many fathers to drop out when it became apparent that their perseverance no longer made much economic difference to their children’s welfare? We do know that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to lie in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison – so if welfare expansion had even half the effect that Charles Murray, George Gilder, Robert Rector and others say it has, this country has committed grave social injustice in the name of social justice.

Some may think that spiritual change is inconsequential, but picture a man in his 20s who, regarding women, is mainly interested in the thrill of the chase. If he doesn’t realize that long-range satisfactions are more important and fulfilling than a series of seductions, his lack of personal justice may lead to the furthering of social injustice either by abortion or by leaving children without fathers.” But how will he stop grasping, apart from realizing something about his nature and the nature of God?

Strong religious and civic organizations are also venues for the development, provision, and teaching of justice. When governmental expansion (and the taxation that pays for it) reduces the scope of civil society, officials most likely are hindering the growth of justice. As early as the 1930s the pattern was evident to observers, and recent research has confirmed it: Governmental welfare expansion reduces the provision of help by church and civic associations. (To put it simply, bad charity drives out good.)

Can government do anything helpful regarding “social justice”? Sure. Government does have a role in promoting the general welfare, and this was the original thrust of compassionate conservatism: Make government-owned buildings and land available to religious and civic organizations. Get rid of governmental measures that hinder the growth of personal justice. Before adding a law or regulation, ask the critical question: Does this measure strengthen and promote the family and the little platoons of civil society, or undermine them?

The main vehicle for increased justice, though, is a free market system. Given our sinful natures, few of us want to be just, but we will be if we can help ourselves in the process. Free markets provide the opportunity for willing buyers and sellers to merge altruism and selfishness. James Madison noted in Federalist 51 that “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” and the same could be said about markets – but since we are not, we are more likely to treat others fairly when we have selfish reasons to do so. Economic growth through free markets is the best poverty-fighter. So what if the plane has first-class and coach sections? All will get where they want to go at the same time, unless someone storms the cockpit and the plane crashes.

In conclusion, the Bible shows how God acts justly to us and we in turn are to the act justly to others. Justice comes when weights and measures are honest, when judges give preference neither to the rich nor the poor when those with land allow the poor to glean in their fields, and when those who lend do not deprive a poor man of the cloak that will keep him warm at night.

But there’s more: From this study I’ve learned that the purpose of justice is to increase righteousness and faith. Justice should help us to understand more about God, and “justice” that inhibits faith cannot be just. Anything that points us away from God is lying about the nature of the universe by suggesting that we can have satisfaction apart from God who loves us. C.S. Lewis put it well: “Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.” Proponents of “social justice” aim at earth, but the justice of the Bible aims at heaven.

The Bible teaches that justice and its brothers, righteousness and faithfulness, are words to be used in relation to God. Since “religion” comes from the Old French word religare, to bind (same root as ligament), Christianity is an unusual religion. Most religions emphasize binding to a set of rules; Christianity emphasizes bonding into a relationship with Christ. Most religions are exchange religions: “I do this for Shiva, he will give me a son.” But the apostle Paul emphasized love for God: “We make it our aim to please Him” (2 Cor. 5:9). Righteousness increases love for God: The Christian emphasis is on making a loved one happy, not making a deal.

To make God happy, Christians especially should deal justly with each other, as did Jesus: the Gospels largely described how He dealt with those around him, not how he harangued millions. In a cacophonous world Christians should speak calmly, recognizing that we like others are sinners. Such justice, person by person, family by family, can change a society – and without that personal embrace, “social justice” may make things worse. An educated person devoted to evil is more dangerous than a dumb devil. A selfish rich person can do more damage than a selfish poor person.

Christianity emphasizes relationships, so righteous justice could also be called relational justice. For example, God established in the Garden of Eden the concept of a husband and a wife clinging together: It is therefore unjust for a husband to abandon his wife. Justice flows from God. Christ, as Colossians 1: 17, 19-20 teaches, “is before all things, and in him all things hold together… in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” All things include social justice.

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Part 1 in the series: Social Justice vs. Righteousness

Part 2 in the series: Justice as Righteousness

Part 3 in the series: Justice, Righteousness, and Faith

Dr. Olasky is Editor-in-Chief of World magazine, Provost of The King’s College, New York City, and a Fellow of The Wilberforce Forum.

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