Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 19 | Social Justice Isn't Real Justice

Episode Date: July 12, 2018

We'll break down the difference between social justice and actual justice and how Christians seem to be confusing the two.     Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved.

Hello everyone. Welcome to Relatable with Alli Sucky. This is the first time I'm doing a second show in one week, which is really exciting because of you guys. Relatable went from just one podcast every Wednesday to two podcasts a week, one on Tuesday and one on Thursday. And for those of you who subscribe to CRTV.com, which you should definitely do. You also get to see my face while I'm talking, which I know is really exciting. And you get to see how much I talk with my hands, which if you don't know, is really obnesty. obnoxious amount. So that's a really good thing. Thank you guys for listening. I'm really excited to do this even more than I was doing before. Okay. On Tuesday, we talked news. Trump's Supreme Court Pick, Roe v. Wade, the abortion debate, et cetera. But today I want to go the more topical route, which I do pretty regularly on this show. So today we're going to talk about this trend of social justice that is seeping into the Christian church in America. And I am going to make the case for why this is not a good thing. And in fact, I'm biblical.

And at the end, I'm also going to answer one question that one of you sent to me on Instagram. For those of you who are joining this podcast for the first time ever, welcome. This is a show that analyzes relevant topics in politics and culture from a Christian conservative perspective. we also talk theology and if you want a few buzzwords to describe what I believe, I'm a reformed Protestant. So that's what you can expect from me. And today we're kind of talking about all three of those things. So we're talking politics. We are talking culture and we are talking theology a little bit. I've already talked extensively about progressivism in the church, this rides in social justice and this myth that Jesus was some kind of first century Bernie Sanders. And

the ignorance of a lot of my fellow millennials who are latching on to this trend. But I want to talk about social justice again. I already did a whole episode dedicated to this, but this is going to be a little bit different, a little bit more nuanced. I specifically want to talk about the difference between social justice and actual justice because again and again, I see this coming up in Christian conversations and particularly in regards to racial inequality, gender roles, roles, immigration. I promise you that you are going to get something new out of this episode, than past episodes I've done on progressivism and social justice,

because we're going to come from a different angle. So first, in order to have this conversation, we have to actually define social justice. And for that, we can turn to good old-fashioned Google and Wikipedia, which tells us that social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, of opportunities and privileges in society. So under this would include things like racial equality, gender equality, socio-economic equality.

You have probably all heard the term social justice warrior. These are the people who are protesting racism, things like police brutality, the gender wage gap, the income gap between the poor and the rich, immigration policy, things like that. They're typically self-avowed feminist and almost all of them are on the left side at the political aisle. And more often than not, they vote Democrat. And that's because in general, social justice advocates for the government ensuring racial inequality, income inequality, or ensuring that racial inequality, income inequality, gender inequality, et cetera, is actually fixed.

Now, you're probably asking a very smart question at this point. And that question would be, what actually qualifies as justice when it comes to equality. What qualifies is social justice. Some of the issues social justice proponents care about like sexism and racism, they seem really abstract. How do you actually define what justice looks like in those areas? And that's a really good question. But the answer is really complicated because you really can't.

That is a huge problem with social justice, that it doesn't seek actual justice as well. We know it. Thomas Soul writes about this in his book, Quest for Cosmic Justice. I highly recommend it. He describes the push for social justice as actually cosmic justice because it's this ethereal thing that doesn't actually have a grounding in reality, in logic, or earthly justice systems. There's no way to accomplish this kind of social justice or cosmic justice, the elevation of one class of people without putting down another class of people, consequently taking away their justice. Cosmic justice is based on kind of unwritten

rules of who is more oppressed than someone else and who, based on their oppression, should be given more help. So here is the direct quote from Soul. He describes it like this. Cosmic justice is not about the rules of the game. It is about putting particular segment. of society in the position that they would have been but for some undeserved misfortune. This conception of fairness requires that third parties must wield power to control outcomes, overriding rules, standards, or the preferences of other people. The quest for cosmic justice focuses on one segment of the population and disregards the interests of others who nevertheless pay the price for the decision made.

So he puts it way better than I could, so we're just going to expound on that. And the main point of what he's saying is social justice is not real actual justice. It is not equity because it demeans one group of people for the sake of another group of people based on some arbitrary objective standard of righteousness. So for example, for a practical example, take illegal immigration. Actual justice says that if you break the law, there are consequences. And in the United States of America, the consequence of crossing the border illegally is deportation and or criminal prosecution. There are ways to cross over illegally. You can seek asylum as a refugee. You can obviously apply for citizenship and wait in line, but crossing illegally has consequences,

both for you, the perpetrator of the crime and also your family if you brought a family with you. But social or cosmic justice advocates, which are who are usually members of the progressive left, hold that the consequences of breaking the law by illegally immigrating are inherently unjust because the people crossing over are according to progressives oppressed and because of their oppression they should be allowed into our country and should not be punished. So their advocacy of legalizing all undocumented immigrants isn't actually based in any idea of actual justice or some other interpretation of legality. It's based on an abstract, obscure, subjective definition of justice that they have deemed superior to actual justice, which would be if you commit a crime,

there is punishment. Actual justice would also consider the flip side to unconditionally allowing all migrants into the country, which is what many on the left are advocating for. Actual justice considers the dangers of human trafficking, of drug smuggling, of the rape and murder that happened at the border of MS-13 gang members infiltrating illegally, of the crimes that are committed by illegal immigrants, of the limited amount of resources we have that are being used by illegal immigrants, the tax dollar is going to support illegal immigrants, things that negatively affect both illegal immigrants themselves and the citizens of this country. There seems to be

no compassion or consideration of the people in America who are negatively affected by illegal immigration. Why is that? Because Americans, we don't have as many oppression points as illegal immigrants do. Americans are viewed by social cosmic justice advocates as inherently privileged and therefore considering our welfare is less important than considering the welfare of illegal immigrants. And honestly, I couldn't even explain or break down the reasoning behind that if I tried. And I highly doubt proponents of that, progressive themselves, would actually be able to either. there is this really complex thing called the social justice equation, or at least I'm going to call it that. And it measures how many points you have based on your country of origin, on your socioeconomic status,

your skin color, your gender, your sexual orientation, your family background, etc. And it considers all of these factors in distributing you your oppression points. So the more of a minority you are, the greater number of oppressor, points you have, which determines three things. A, how much help you should get from the government, B, how much compassion you deserve, and C, how much your opinion actually matters. So, for example, if you can't tell I am a white woman, I am also American, I am a Christian, I was raised by two hardworking, successful parents in the suburbs of Dallas. So I have like maybe one oppression point, maybe. And I get one just because I'm a woman. And as a woman, you know, I've probably been

a victim of misogyny at some point in my life and discrimination. Therefore, I have some legitimacy in the social and political conversation. And the government should be helping me out by ensuring I have absolutely everything a man has, no matter what. But a white male with my exact same upbringing. So my husband, for example, with a very similar upbringing, he has a very similar upbringing. He has my husband has zero oppression points because not only did he live a life of privilege growing up he also according to the left has never faced any unfair treatment at all his whole entire life thus my husband's opinion my dad's opinion my brother's opinions no matter what they've gone through their opinions don't matter and their plights are not considered but

see here's the thing for the black Muslim transgender pansexuals. person who is also an illegal immigrant, by the way, well, he slash she has tons of oppression points, just a plethora of oppression points. The government should be specifically and deliberately helping to make sure that person has all the same everything that everyone else has and should be punishing people who treat that person any differently than anyone else. And that person also has more legitimacy on social and political matters because of his or her oppression. They are like top-tier oppression and therefore social justice advocates assert that their welfare, that person's welfare matters way more than the cisgender straight white male.

Does that make any sense to you? No. Of course it doesn't because it doesn't actually make any sense, period. The mental hoops, the mental gymnastics that you have to actually do, jump through to construct cosmic or social justice. are absolutely, it's absolutely insane. And honestly, they change every day. So for example, there was a pride parade. I think it was in the UK, if I'm remembering correctly, this past weekend. And lesbians who were marching in the parade were protesting the inclusion of trans people in the

movement because they feel like trans people are obscuring lesbian identity. So I'm having a hard time keeping up with what is actually more woke these days. The dealings, legitimizing of trans people for the sake of lesbian visibility or the legitimizing of trans people. I don't know. Does anyone really know? Will anyone ever really agree on that? I don't think so. Probably not. Because progressivism and social justice always eats itself. It does. It's self-contradictory because it's based on an idea of justice that is not real. It's entirely subjective. It is illogical. It identifies people by their assumed oppression and grants them both legitimacy and empathy based on that assumption. It categorizes people by their various levels of victimhood.

It doesn't look at people as individuals, but instead it lumps people together based on race, based on sexuality, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background. It is patronizing. It reduces a person to the most superficial things about them and says, this is all that matters. And while it's true, it's very true that certain groups of people in this country have faced injustice. There's no doubt about that. Black people were slaves. The Japanese were sent to internment camps.

Women didn't have a right to vote. Native Americans were treated maliciously at one point. But the fact is, that's no longer the case. Now, that's not to say that no injustice exists, but many people believe. And I agree on some of this, for example, that the criminal justice system, unfairly criminalizes nonviolent drug offenses. That might be true. There are instances of police brutality against black people and against white people,

by the way. And of course, racist and sexists exist in this country. They always will. Because guess what, guys, we live in a fallen world. If you haven't noticed that already,

people are stupid, people are sinful. They will always be that way. But the fact of the matter is, we simply do not have a problem with systemic discrimination against minorities in this country. Sexual minorities, gender minorities, whatever it is. We just don't. The stats just aren't there. So, for example, a big sticking point, and I know I don't really have enough oppression points to be talking about this, but that's okay. I'll go for it anyway.

A big sticking point for the social justice crowd is racial inequality. And while I completely adamantly agree that any instance of racism is awful and condemnable, I completely disagree. But I completely disagree with this progressive notion that minorities in America, particularly black people in America, are still suffering from the after effects of slavery and that we as a nation have made no improvement since the civil rights era. That is the argument that they use in social cosmic justice circles, that the government needs to do more to ensure equality for black people. But to cite Thomas Sol again, who, by the way, is African American himself if you

didn't know that. The decline in black employment, the rise in black poverty and the deterioration of the black family didn't start happening until the 1960s. Before that, black people in a lot of ways, like for example, in labor force participation, were a lot better off and doing a lot better than white people. And we don't have to go, and that's before the 1960s. And we don't have to go into all of the possibilities today about why since the 1960s income and quality of life. inequality between whites and blacks has increased since the 1960s. But we're pointing out that if we're going to make a case that our government system has aided in oppressing the black community, then you're going to have to look decades after slavery, a long, a long time after slavery,

after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 even. The facts just don't support that slavery is the reason for racial inequality today. And most people on both sides of the aisle used to know and accept that, going back to the study that I cite all of the time, the Pew study on the growing partisan divide in America, in 1994, when given this statement, blacks who can't get ahead in this country are mostly responsible for their condition. 53% of Democrats agreed and 66% of Republicans agreed.

Now, you would think that by 2017, 23 years later, that both of those numbers would go up. Opportunities abound, wealth abounds. We have a black president for eight years. who constantly highlighted racial discrimination and said that he was going to save the black community. But that didn't happen. I mean, among Republicans it did. That number did rise by 11 points to 77%. But among Democrats, it dropped by 25%. So more than ever, over the past 23 years at least, Democrats believe that black people are not responsible at all for their condition. And the further

irony is that that number changed the most while Barack Obama was president. In fact, that same study shows that Democrats move to the left on almost every issue, immigration, guns, welfare. And most of this happened during Obama's presidency. Obama was really the first president to legitimize social or cosmic justice, to give credence to intersectionality, to highlight racial inequality, victimization, and oppression. This is why people called him the Great Divider. And while I'm sure he didn't intend this. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt there. We grew further apart than ever during his presidency than ever before. And that's not because, primarily because of conservatives. While conservatives stayed about the same on most issues,

Democrats have moved to the left, embracing these abstract social justice ideas that have very little grounding in reality and don't manifest themselves in actual justice. The push for gender equality, for example, is demonstrated. in greater access to abortion or a push for greater access to abortion, free birth control, in closing the gender wage gap. Well, people already have access to free or really cheap birth control, especially if you have Medicaid. Abortion kills another human being, so it's not just and definitely doesn't ensure equality.

The gender wage gap is already closed. It actually just considers factors other than gender. if you look at the closed gender wage gap, like job title, experience, etc. That gap is completely negligible. The uncontrolled wage gap is what people are talking about. That's what progressives and feminist site, the 77 cents on a dollar. But that doesn't take into consideration that women work different jobs and work different hours than men do. Really, all that wage gap tells us is that men and women probably have different priorities and different life choices.

Affirmative action is an example of social or cosmic justice, giving an upper hand to one group of people based on an arbitrary standard of injustice and discriminating against another group of people because you have subjectively decided that they don't deserve the same shot. This is not actually a fair equation. It is not actually just. It is based on some abstract view of right and wrong based on illogical ideas. Also, the push for fully validating complete and total separation. of sex and gender despite the fact, despite the fact that biology, the sociology, anthropology, all the ologies tell us that the vast majority of the time, sex determines your gender. But we are told by the left that we must acknowledge the differentiation between sex and gender

because transgender people are a minority and as such, they have lots of oppression points. So we have to bow down to them as people who don't have any oppression points. Again, social justice is not based in reality. It is not based on actual justice. It is based on this idea of intersectionality, the oppression Olympics. Some call it neo-Marxism, class warfare. It does not have a logical basis. So when I hear Christians in particular talking about the importance of social justice,

I'm like, well, let's clarify this. What do you actually mean? Because all justice really is social. So if by fighting for social justice, they just mean pleading the cause for those who are truly being treated unjustly like women who are being sex trafficked, for example, then I would say, well, that's just justice. And that's great. God is a God of justice. And fighting for actual justice is a duty of Christians. God has a lot to say in the Bible about the poor, about the powerless, about the sojourner, the victim, the lonely, the widow.

There is no doubt that we are to push for and enact justice as followers of Christ. But what I'm finding is that many Christians who say they're fighting for social justice are actually fighting for cosmic justice, just like everyone on the left. They are seeking, they are seeking to use these incalculable, complex, illogical equations to decide what's just and what's not. They're jumping on everything progressives are open borders, egalitarianism, intersectionality, racial reconciliation. And listen, I'm not saying every single facet of all of these things are bad,

but we would be wise to recognize where they're actually coming from. and what they actually mean and pause to consider whether or not Christians who are jumping on this bandwagon are considering if they're fighting for actual justice or leftist cosmic justice. I am for empathy for the immigrant, but I also recognize the danger of illegal immigration and recognize that we have to secure the border to protect the lives of immigrants and our own. I am for having conversations about repairing our immigration system, sorting out the backlog of immigration cases streamlining the process for people to be granted asylum, to get work permits, or to come here legally. Also, I've said in the past, I think the most Christ-like thing to do once an

illegal immigrant is here is to love them, to serve them, to help them find a way to stay here legally. Definitely not to ostracize them. But jumping on the open borders train, the amnesty train, without considering the repercussions of that for people in our own country, to me is not wise. and it's also not compassionate. It's not actual justice. I'm also adamantly against racism and discrimination, like I've said so many times. Apparently you have to say that explicitly these days. Racism, white supremacy, all of it is antithetical to the gospel. It has no place in the body of Christ. But I am also not for this idea of racial reparations, which I heard spouted at the MLK50 conference earlier this year, which I see implied on the gospel coalition site, which I still love some of their articles, but

come on, we know they're getting more progressive. By certain, it's some of their writers. But I'm seeing this particularly also in female Christianity. This idea of racial reparations, it means that white people should make up for the injustice of their ancestors committed via slavery, Jim Crow, etc. And again, it categorizes people by their supposed oppression based on the color of their skin and points fingers at people for sins that they didn't commit. Now, we should all condemn racism.

We should call out real examples of inequality. quality when they actually do exist. But to pretend racial reconciliation is the preeminent issue of our time and that the top priority of God distract, that it's the top priority of God, it actually distracts us from the true gospel, which says, in Christ there is not slave, nor free, nor male, nor female, Jew, nor Greek. Jesus did not come to reconcile the races to each other. He came to reconcile all races to himself. And it is that God. And it is that God, that changes our hearts towards people that don't look like or think the way that we do. It is that message that unifies us and eradicates hate, not the message that all white people

should feel guilty for racism and take a backseat while all minorities take the reins. That's not going to help things. It's not going to help to make diversity the number one qualification for a healthy church, which is absolutely the trend right now. Diversity is a good, beautiful thing, but it is not an indication of the health of a church. I don't think that meets any definition of actual justice, and I don't see that exemplified in the Bible either. I am against misogyny and sexism. I'm a woman. I talked about Paige Patterson on a previous episode, former head of the SBC and his horrible treatment of women, and how wrong that was. I sure as heck,

don't like to be patronized. So I think that we should call out condescension and discrimination against women within the body of Christ. But the answer to misogyny and sexism within the church is not egalitarianism, which is the current push. Egalitarianism is this idea that men and women should have the same roles in the church and a marriage. And I'm sorry, but that's not biblical. So that's definitely not God's idea of justice.

And I definitely don't think that we need to be jumping on the whole reproductive rights thing as Christians. And you all know how I feel about that. abortion goes against everything God is and stands for. So I think that argument goes without saying. So I just want to issue a word of warning to Christians who claim to also be social justice advocates. Does your definition of justice match God's definition of justice or any logical definition of justice, which inherently would be God's definition of justice since that's the only

valid one that actually exists? Or are you just advocating for big government to sort of. swoop in as a savior to people you assume are oppressed based on some baseless idea handed to you by progressives. Christian social justice activists have good intentions, I'm sure. God does call us to love and clothe the sojourner. God calls us to help the orphan and the widow. God calls us to take care of the poor.

God calls us to judge without partiality. I believe he hates racism and discrimination. He hates mistreatment of women or anyone. These are all true biblical principles. But number one, these are things. he calls us to do, not simply the government. And number two, these things aren't social cosmic justice. This is actual justice, actual compassion, actual empathy. The justice that God calls us to is to comfort the oppressed. But he doesn't call us to devalue everyone who doesn't share the

same oppression. That's not real justice. That's not real equity. That is not equality. Now, for example, I'm a hardcore pro-life advocate. That means that I believe in pushing for legislation and supporting court decisions that restrict access to abortion while simultaneously dedicating my own personal time to volunteering to serving women and helping to make abortion unnecessary and unthinkable. So I am not saying that we shouldn't push for humane policies or fight for justice. As I've said, we should. What I am saying is that we need to examine whether or not the things that we are advocating for are truly about justice or are they just part of the progressive agenda that demonizes

straight white people and uplifts all minorities. I just don't find justification for that in the Bible. Okay, that's it for now. That's my take on that. Like I said, I've just seen a lot of conversations about social justice coming from Christians that I know in other ways have good theology and I just think that we need some clarity on that.

I'm sure I'll do another episode on it because people are talking about it more and more. It seems like. Okay, now I'm going to answer a listener question sent to me via Instagram. I got a question about Deuteronomy 230, I think, or was it 320? No, I don't remember. But it was about Deuteronomy. And it was about basically the hardening of people's hearts.

This passage was about King Cihon, but we also see God harden the heart of Pharaoh. So what I would recommend, and this person had a question about that. So the obvious question is, how can God harden someone's heart, but then hold them responsible for the actions that they take. How can, for example, he, if you believe in predestination, how can he predestined people to go to heaven or to go to hell to be saved or to be unsaved and still be a just God that holds people responsible for the actions that they take? So I do encourage everyone to read Romans 9 through 11 if you haven't already. A Romans 9 addresses this very explicitly and even addresses some of the logical questions that we have.

God very clearly does predestined and choose people based on nothing that they've done. Romans 9 says, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. And this was before they were born. It talks about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart through really no effort of Pharaoh besides what he did after that. God absolutely chooses people before they were born and without any merit of their own.

So this is where the confusion lies. And the best way I can explain it is through something. called concurrence. It's a, it's a regular term, but it's also used theologically. And concurrence is the idea that two things can happen at one time, even if they don't make sense. So those two things that it can happen, if God hardened someone's harder, he ordained something to happen, is that God is in complete control. He is actively involved in everything. He ordains everything. There is nothing that happens that is beyond his control. And simultaneously, human beings still have a will to make real choices and their choices do have real consequences.

They're still held responsible for their actions and their actions are punishable. We have to believe that both of these things are true because God is all powerful, but we know that there are real consequences to actions, both temporary consequences and eternal consequences for what we choose to do. but we also have to realize that as we make these real choices that have real consequences, that nothing we do is actually outside of God's control. So I can't completely make sense of it. And I think that's why it's considered a mystery of our faith.

But the Bible tells us that both things are true. And so because of that, we kind of just have to reconcile through faith that that's reality, simply because God says that it is. So I hope that helps a little bit. I just realized that that's really similar to the question that I answered last week about why God allows bad things to happen. So if you're curious about that, you should go listen to that. Anyway, that's all for now. Make sure that you leave me a review if you want to or send me an email if you have constructive criticism.

Definitely subscribe to CRTV.com if you haven't already. You can use my code Allie 20 to get a discount. Follow me on social media if you so choose. If you don't want to, that's totally fine. Anyway, I'll see you guys next week. Bye.