🧵Yet more (pt. 3) thinking about “social justice” and the Christian:
Sometimes when conservative evangelicals hear talk of “social justice,” they fear what is being proposed is some new big govt program.
This may be the case; it may not.
Sometimes when conservative evangelicals hear talk of “social justice,” they fear what is being proposed is some new big govt program.
This may be the case; it may not.
Some injustices may require a new law in order to remedy them. Some injustices might be caused by the law or some govt program, and so solving for that injustice might require less govt.
But an important point to keep in mind is that *every* social system is a govt program.
But an important point to keep in mind is that *every* social system is a govt program.
There is a tendency to think that free market capitalism isn’t a govt program, that it’s the natural state of things, and that every other social:economic system involves govt interference in the free market. But the “free market”is *not* the natural state of things. Anarchy is.
The “free market” is a govt creation. In order for the free market to exist, the govt must first recognize property rights and contract rights. Without govt recognition of those legal rights, you would have a system of “might makes right,” not a free market system.
In the US, we take that “free market” as a given. But it’s not. We made choices as a society that made a “free market” possible. We could have made different choices. The question is whether the social/economic system that resulted from our societal choices is just.
I’m not saying that the free market is or isn’t just. I’m saying that, as Christians, we need to ask the question whether it is. The answer may be yes, it may be no, or it may be partially yes and partially no.
We could say the same about a criminal justice system. The system we have is the result of particular choices we as a society made over time. Different societies today have entirely different systems and other societies have similar systems by with some differences.
Again, the question is whether our particular criminal justice system is, at this moment in time, just as Scripture defines justice. As with our economic system, the answer may be yes, it may be no, or it may be partially yes and partially no.
The point is we need to ask.
The point is we need to ask.
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