On Social Justice

I don't follow Glenn Beck. I did pick up, however, that he made some pretty harsh statements about churches that ascribe to the pursuit of "social justice."

First, of course, we need to define the term. Beck probably caught so much heat because he failed to properly do just that.

I've heard the term used quite a bit, and in some quite different ways. Generally, though, it's meant to encompass things that ordinary "justice" doesn't cover. If you ask Google to define social justice, you get three relevant results, the last of which I think best approximates the contemporary use of the term: "The fair distribution of advantages, assets, and benefits among all members of a society."

See what I mean? Most people wouldn't say that the fact that person A has more money or a better education than person B is inherently unjust; unfair, maybe. However, if a person ascribes to this definition of social justice, they'd do just that.


Roger Ebert, as quoted on Obama's Organizing for America website, blogged:

"What is social justice, anyway? I think it involves civil rights and liberties. It involves a trial in a fair legal system. It involves freedom of speech and the practice, or non-practice, of religion. It involves a living wage and decent working conditions. As my father often repeated, "A fair day's work for a fair day's pay."

See what he did there? Ebert took issues that actually involved justice (right to speak without encroachment, practice religion without encroachment, be free from imprisonment unless you've been found guilty in a fair trial) and lumped them together with an issue of fairness with regard to material possessions and comforts (a "living wage" and "decent" working conditions).

Now let me back up a little bit; when I talk about "justice", I'm talking about the kind of justice that scripture gives us the right to demand of others.

Think about it this way; God tells you to do all that you've agreed to do. He also makes provision for people and their leaders to enforce contracts. If you agree to pay your neighbor a sum of money for completing some work, and then fail to follow up, you've committed an injustice towards that neighbor and before God. Scripture provides for the other members of society to take action to correct the injustice towards the neighbor, but you still need to ask God's forgiveness for the sin you've committed to deal with your sin before God.

With a purely "social justice" issue, however, things are different. If your needy neighbor asks you for a gift of your property, God has commanded you to oblige him and give him what he needs. If you fail to give him your property, you've disobeyed God just a surely as in the first scenario. However, God didn't give the members of society the right to enforce this mandate. Christ told us to give of our property lots of times; never once did he give us a general mandate to compel others to give of their property. He told his followers to give of their own to feed widows and orphans; he didn't tell them to demand that Rome tax the wealthy and use that money to feed widows and orphans.

The pursuit of "social justice" isn't a problem at all if it merely involves the conviction that you should give of your own to help those less materially blessed than you. That's an absolutely correct philosophy, albeit a misapplication of the word "justice" in view of its generally accepted meaning. Where it deviates from both scripture and classical liberalism, though, is when it is applied politically through the use of force. Forced charity isn't charity at all, and it isn't obedience to God's commands.

Here's a question you should ask anyone who ascribes to the political philosophy of social justice: Why do we need to stick the word "social" justice in there at all? Why can't we simply pursue justice?

The real answer is that "social justice" and "justice" are completely different concepts. If person A has more money or a better education than person B it may be because person A stole the money, or inherited it from someone who oppressed person B's parents, or it could simply be because he worked harder or is smarter than person B, or because he just got lucky in a stock market pick. The first two possibilities are issues of actual justice; the latter are simply issues of material inequity, not justice at all.