Social Justice

HOT POTATOES: The Bible Speaks to Controversial Topics

Message #5: “Social Justice”

How Should Christians Think About Approaches to Social Justice?

Christians must believe in justice for . (Micah 6:8)

In Scripture, there is no social justice; there is only justice. (Ps. 72:12-14)

Eventually, God will create a place where justice will be and . (Is. 65:17)

The Bible does not address systems of racism; it addresses racism, because the root of the problem is not the system, but the . (James 2:1; Gen. 1:27; Zech. 7:10; Jn. 7:24)

Understanding the World’s Terms

Hegemony: “One dominant social class imposing its ideology on the rest of society.”

Whiteness: “A set of normative privileges granted to white-skinned individuals and groups which is ‘invisible’ to those privileged by it.”

White Privilege: “A series of unearned advantages that accrue to white people. Because of their ‘whiteness.’”

White Supremacy: “Any belief, behavior, or system that supports, promotes, or enhances privilege.’”

White Complicity: “White people, through the practices of whiteness and by benefiting from white privilege, contribute to the maintenance of systemic racial injustice.’”

White equilibrium: “The belief system that allows white people to remain comfortably ignorant.”

White fragility: “The inability and unwillingness of white people to talk about race due to the grip that whiteness, white supremacy, white privilege, white complicity, and white equilibrium exert on them (knowingly or unknowingly).”

Critical Race Theory: “The view that the law and legal institutions are inherently racist and that race itself, instead of being biologically grounded and natural, is a socially constructed concept that is used by white people to further their economic and political interests at the expense of people of color.”

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has two primary claims…

1. Everyone can be divided into two groups. Those power and those .
2. Those with power are the . Those who don’t have power are always by them.

CRT says your determines which category you fall into.

Intersectionality is how you one’s level of oppression, based on how many of these groups you identify with.

• The more groups you identify with, the more oppressed you are.
• The degree to which you are oppressed determines your level of moral .
• The more oppressed someone is, the less moral they have. So, as your oppressed status goes up, you moral authority goes up, but your moral responsibility goes down.

CRT and Intersectionality are incompatible with the Christian view of:

1. (Col. 3:10)
2. (I Jn. 3:4; II Tim. 3:16; Rom. 5:12; Acts 10:34-35)
3. (Acts 4:12)

When the world’s prescriptions run to God’s Word, there’s never any lasting .