What is Justice?
Fragments from a book in progress
As mentioned before, I’ve been working on a book project with Dr. George Grant. The working title is: Let the God of Orphanages Answer! Reformational Justice in a Revolutionary Age. Here are some fragments. I’d love to get everyone’s reactions and feedback. It’s easier to modify a book before it’s published!
Why this book?
Recent years have witnessed a growing divide in Christian circles on the issue of social justice. The reluctance of some conservative Christians to discuss the issue has driven many who care deeply about issues of justice into “progressive” or decidedly non-evangelical directions. For many, “social justice” is something that is inextricably linked to the radical “liberal” or “progressive” movements of our time. This book will not attempt to untangle all the knots of contemporary polemics but will rather present portraits of Christians in the past who engaged social challenges without abandoning orthodoxy.
The goal is to help ground contemporary debates in the wisdom of the past. Current Christian discussions about social justice tend to be both reactionary and/or partisan. Looking to the past helps to liberate us from the “tyranny of the present,” and provide a more substantive theological and ecclesiastical grounding for dialogue and action on this important issue. This book will contrast the approaches of “Reformational” justice to the aims and tactics of “Revolutionary” justice with the hope that Christians today will be encouraged to pursue the work of Reformational justice, inspired by heroes of the faith.
What’s up with the title?
It comes from the famed preacher of Victorian England, Charles Spurgeon. In 1870, a renowned doubter accosted Spurgeon on a London thoroughfare and challenged the authenticity of his faith. Spurgeon answered the man by pointing out the failure of the secularists in mounting practical and consistent programs to help the needy thousands of the city. In contrast, he pointed to the multitudinous works of compassion that had sprung from faith in Christ: Whitefield’s mission, Mueller’s orphanage, Jamison’s hospice, Chalmer’s poor school, Bernado’s shelter, Welch’s job corps, and Martin’s hospital. He then closed the conversation by paraphrasing the victorious cry of Elijah, boisterously asserting, “The God who answereth by orphanages, let Him be God!”
In other words, the works of mercy and ministry that Christians have always done, throughout history, offer proof that something supernatural is going on. People don’t normally do these types of things. Slavery, infanticide, sexual promiscuity, and unjust wars are normal. The logic of the Gospel works against all of these. The book presents portraits of what Timothy Paul Jones has called “ecclesial apologetics.”
What is justice?
It is vital to distinguish and differentiate Biblical, Reformational justice from Radical, Revolutionary justice. Justice is rooted in the character of God. So, our ultimate standard of justice is God’s character, as revealed in the Scriptures. But God has revealed himself progressively, throughout history. In the Old Covenant, God stressed his unity in the face of rampant polytheism. In the New Covenant, God’s Triunity is more clearly revealed (although there were echoes of it throughout the Old Testament). In the same way, although God’s character does not change, his revealed Law stresses different aspects of Justice in different stages of covenantal history. This is a vexed arena of Biblical interpretation, and we are not attempting a complete solution for the thorny issues involved. For our purposes, it is not necessary to do so. We are presenting “portraits” of Christians pursuing works of justice and mercy. We don’t have to define these terms exhaustively to know what they are. As Justice Potter Steward was reputed to have said when the Supreme Court was considering the definition of pornography: “I know it when I see it.”[1]
What, then, is “justice”? Justice is giving everything and everyone their due. This includes giving worship and obedience to God (Ps. 95:6; Rev. 4:11; 1 Pt. 2:9; Matt. 4:10) and respecting and guarding the lives of people, since they bear God’s image (Gen. 9:6). It includes a husband providing for his wife (Ex. 21:10) and for his family (1 Tim. 5:8), and it means that a married man and woman fulfill each other’s sexual needs (1 Cor. 7:3-5). It includes the duty of fathers to lead in the education of their children (Dt. 6:4-9; Eph. 6:4). It means that rulers should not oppress their people (Jer. 22:3; Prov. 16:12), and that subjects or citizens should obey their rulers (Ro. 13:1-7; 1 Pt. 2:13-17). It also means that, at times, rulers must be disobeyed, because we owe an ultimate obedience to God (Acts 5:29). It also means respecting the natural design of God’s creation. It means not destroying the environment (Dt. 20:19) and treating animals humanely (Prov. 12:10). In that paragraph, we are sure to have offended just about everyone, so it will be necessary to conduct a whirlwind tour of some of the highlights of the Bible’s teaching on justice.
[1] Apparently, the now (in)famous quote may have come from Potter’s clerk, Alan Novak. https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-LB-4558
Looking forward to seeing this published! I’ve found Peter Gentry’s work on “justice” in Isaiah to be helpful in this regard, alongside the works of Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio which are well-grounded in the Thomistic natural law tradition. According to Gentry, in the Prophets, justice enacted by humans toward humans entails treating one another in genuinely human ways, as articulated in God’s covenant, by which God reveals how to live in right relationship with him and how to engage with one another as fellow bearers of God’s image (see “Isaiah and Social Justice,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 12, no. 1 [Spring 2013]: 12-13). Combined with Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio’s presentation of giustizia sociale as the constant and perpetual will to render to each his right, social justice thus refers to “the treatment of every human being in a genuinely human way by perpetually willing to render to every person his or her due”—a definition that differs radically from the dominant and destructive 21st-c. definitions of “social justice.” See Thomas Behr, Social Justice and Subsidiarity (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press).