We’re in the final half of our final chapter in our thinking about Social Justice and the church. Last week, we were working through what the promoter of that ideology is likely to have caused, and what alternatives we have for dealing with her going forward.
It’s natural to think the thing to do is to “forgive and forget”, as the old axiom goes: we simply note the fault, say, “We forgive you”, and reinvite the contentious “nice lady” into the congregation without further delay. But this would be exceedingly dangerous, even disastrous; for unless her repentance is full, honest and genuine, then the deep motivations that led her to campaign for Social Justice ideology and to trade on the church to do it will remain. So we need to take full and fair inventory of what her faults and motives have really been, assess how complete her awareness of her sin is, and make sure she’s really been freed from what led her into it in the first place.
Knowing whether or not a Social Justice “warrior” can ever repent and be integrated back into the congregation is not so simple. The damage caused by her bitter and envious spirit can be considerable, widespread and lasting. Social Justice ideology has a remarkable similarity to a kind of demon possession: its advocates are often so deeply indoctrinated as to be incurable by normal means. It takes a complete metanoia, a complete transformation of mind, before they can even see how bad what they’ve been doing is. What is never safe to do is to settle for a superficial repentance, a shallow commitment “not to do it again” that leaves the underlying motives intact.
Chapter 7: What to Do With ‘The Nice Lady’ (continued)
Pride
Something else is a concern, too. One of the reasons many people are drawn to Social Justice activism is that it seems to offer them a way of positioning themselves as morally superior. They are, after all, the “Woke” (as they say), and everybody else is sleepwalking. They are the “warriors” of Social Justice, and others are the complacent and “complicit” (to use their word). In taking their political postures, they are posing for others. They are preening themselves as virtuous, and looking down their noses at those they think are not as sensitive as they to injustice or who aren’t sufficiently active to prove their devotion to justice.
This is nothing but fleshly arrogance. This is nothing but pride. Pride is a very serious sin. It matters not that our society indulges it so freely; God finds it repulsive. If the nice lady has been harboring these kinds of attitudes, she is deeply wrong, and out of step with the Lord. She needs to be rebuked for it, and to be brought to a place of humility and repentance. Even while making an elaborate pretence of campaigning for the good, she has again done evil.
So the nice lady may not have been behaving so nicely after all. In her lack of self-awareness, she may have been fomenting bitterness and nurturing pride. She has been brimming with self-righteous enthusiasm, fixated on hunting evil out in every other person and in the church, and utterly indifferent to the evil thriving in herself. Even so, it’s possible all this has been inadvertent — accidental — and when she realizes it, she’ll be ready to repent and do better. As her brothers and sisters in Christ, we owe her that opportunity.
But it’s also possible that she won’t.
Reconciliation Refused
For some other people, Social Justice is a deliberately subversive project: they know they’re undermining the existing order, and they think it’s a very good thing that they are; moreover, they feel quite justified in using even underhanded and dishonest tactics to do it since they believe their own cause to be just. Those people are a different kind of problem. They actively encourage a spirit of bitterness, and thrive on the divisions they cause by ginning it up. They know that’s what they’re doing. A certain malevolence characterizes many of the advocates of Social Justice. What do we do about them?
There is simply no place in the congregation of the Lord’s people for those who do what they are choosing to do. The Bible is very explicit on how evil the things they are doing are. As Jesus put it, “Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be answerable to the court; and whoever says to his brother ‘You good-for-nothing’ shall be answerable to the supreme court; and whoever says ‘You fool’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” Being angry with one’s brothers and sisters in Christ is a very, very serious thing. Slandering them and speaking hatefully about them makes it even worse.
But it gets worse still. Social Justice ideology thrives on divisions. It carves out space for itself by promoting bitterness, envy and anger and sustaining these things indefinitely. Only in an atmosphere racked by accusation, suspicion and guilt does Social Justice do its most effective work, so it continually ratchets them up and perpetuates them.
Manufacturing Racism and Injustice
It does the same with racism, actually. The irony is that the last thing any Social Justice “warrior” wants to see happen is for racism to disappear. It needs racism to serve as the perpetual enemy, the perpetual reason for it to exist and continue to have prestige. Who’s going to follow people who are barking about a problem that has been solved, a wrong that has been set right, and an injustice that was long ago dispatched? So to keep itself relevant, Social Justice has to go looking for causes of dissension along many different lines — racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, Fascism, intolerance, exclusion, discrimination, fat phobia, transphobia, and on, and on, and on. The list of Social Justice’s enemies never ends. If they ever ran out of such things to complain about the most miserable person in the room would be the Social Justice advocate himself (or herself).
Social Justice manufactures injustice. It continually looks for new “intersections” (their word) and combinations of injustice to keep itself going; and when it can’t find stuff easily, Social Justice just makes stuff up. For example, when they cannot find any racist “aggressions”, they move to complaining about “microaggressions”(1). When they cannot find racism, they move to “systemic racism”(2). Or it makes all “white” people guilty by way of “white guilt” and “white privilege”(3), even if they’ve done nothing their whole life but simply wear the skin God gave them.
All of this points betrays a very elaborate attempt on the part of Social Justice advocates to create divisions between people and then to use them to generate followers and prestige. Fortunately, the word of God gives us very explicit warning and instructions as to how the church is to respond to such people:
“Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such people are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.”
“Turn away from them.” Know their motives, and shut them down. They are merely trying to deceive the unsuspecting; don’t let them do it.
Bad to Worse
Don’t think they’ll quit. Paul tells Timothy that such people will “proceed from bad to worse, deceiving — and being deceived themselves”, for these things go hand-in-hand. Likewise, Peter warns:
“But false prophets also appeared among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their indecent behaviour, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”
In the last days, he says, “there will be … false teachers among you.” And “many” will follow them. They will have success, and be celebrated by many people. They will take the opportunity to “exploit” you, meaning literally “make their trade or gain on you”, treating Christians like commodities. But God will judge them.
The church can have no dealings with such people. A person who is devoted to Social Justice ideology and knows they are is simply incompatible with the people of God. They can neither be trusted nor incorporated into the local body without poisoning the whole congregation. They must go.
In our day and age, it’s not fashionable to evict people from the church. It doesn’t feel nice. Nowadays, we are accustomed to think of the church as a sort of infinitely inclusive social club, one put at the service of the community and in theory open to everything and everyone. But it is not. It has never been. There are things the church can tolerate and things it simply should not. In fact, the Head of the Church sharply rebukes churches that become tolerant of simply everything. To Thyatira, He says, “But I have this against you — that you tolerate …”.
What they were tolerating was a false teacher, a woman. No doubt she was a very nice lady. Or at least she seemed to be. She had a following of some considerable size. The church knew she “wasn’t quite right” so to speak, but they had decided to put up with her anyway. They made a few concessions, carved out a little space for her, and let her go on. The Lord said to them that that is enough for him to pull their candlestick and close them down. Very serious. There are things that the church simply should never tolerate.
By now, I hope you can see that Social Justice ideology is one of them. It is, in fact, so different from Christianity that it actually amounts to being a different theology. Whereas the word of God tells us to keep our values on heavenly justice, it tells us that earthly “justice” is all that matters. It tells us that some people are bad just because of the color of their skin or their sex, or who their parents were, or where they live; and it foments not love from brother to brother, but durable hatred and suspicion. It takes no thought for forgiveness, reconciliation or unity among the Lord’s people, but actively works to undermine them. It’s not only permissive of evil, but welcomes all sorts of sins and perversions in the name of “inclusion” or “tolerance”; and it is an aggressive belief system, one bent on taking over congregations and converting them to its own purposes — making them the “merchandise” of its trade.
Out with it. It has no place among us. Give it no quarter and no concession. Rather, embrace the vision God has provided for us.
The Better Way
Let us close with that. Peter writes:
“Since you have purified your souls in obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brothers and sisters, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.”
And Paul writes:
“If there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves.”
As regards justice, he adds, “Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” Contrary to the perpetually-bitter spirit of Social Justice advocacy, he encourages us, “Let’s not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.”
“Do all things without complaining or arguments; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.”
___________________________
(1) Meaning things so small the ordinary person can’t detect them, but which some people still find offensive. See James Lindsay, “Microaggressions” in New Discourses.
(2) Meaning racism that no individual does, but which is “in the system” and can never be removed. See again, Lindsay.
(3) Helen Pluckrose, “White Fragility Training and Freedom of Belief”, in New Discourses.
No comments :
Post a Comment