Miscellanies 19: On Social Justice and the Gospel

I have often heard that the gospel is the basis for social justice. The reasoning usually goes something like this:

1. The gospel is Jesus, the ultimate exemplar, saving those who cannot save themselves.
2. Social justice is saving those who cannot save themselves.
3. Therefore social justice is based on the gospel.

The problem with (3) is that (1) is false.

I'm reminded of a book R.C. Sproul wrote not too long ago called Saved from What?. The description reads:

Imagine that you approach someone who has never stepped inside a church or paused long enough on a religious channel to understand what the preacher was shouting about. This is the case for many Americans regarding the question, "Are you saved?" The initial response might be, "Saved from what?" It's a logical reply. Yet too many of us as Christians don't really know how to answer that question--for the ones we are trying to witness to, or for ourselves.

Indeed! The gospel is NOT simply that Jesus saves us. The gospel is that Jesus saves us from something, namely the just wrath of God which is the penalty for our sin. Granted, it is beyond dispute that social justice involves saving those who cannot save themselves. But the question is "From what?" The answer to that question makes all the difference in the world (quite literally).

I submit that social justice involves saving those who cannot save themselves from those who've broken the second table of the moral law by not loving their neighbors as themselves. In other words, social justice is based on the law (in its second use as counted by Calvin) not the gospel. Since God has made his law known, by nature, to all human beings without exception, Christian and pagan individuals have a basis for co-belligerency in this arena, which is a good thing. But it's also the reason for some bad tendencies within the church.

First, I think it is why many Christians who raise the social justice banner find themselves attracted to ecumenism based on confessional minimalism (i.e. reducing visible church unity to a few basic doctrines). Here's the train of thought: If the basis of social justice is the gospel, and we are basically unified with the ______ church on the gospel (after all, who doesn't want to help the helpless?), then we should link arms (read: communions) as co-belligerents. Again, even if a right understanding of the gospel is granted, this is wrongheaded thinking because the gospel is not the basis of social justice. We can unite with other human beings in the cause of social justice regardless of religious affiliation. There is no need to capitulate to ecclesiastical latitudinarianism.

Second, by failing to make the above distinction, Christians who raise the social justice banner fail to see how the church as the church could refrain from social activism without betraying her identity as the place of the gospel. But ironically, the opposite is the case. By failing to make the above distinction the church betrays her identity as the place of the gospel by becoming the place of law enforcement (i.e. the law in its second use). And to add irony to irony, oftentimes the fiercest enforcement that occurs is against those church members who don't seem to be as pumped about law enforcement, at least when judged according to the prevailing enforcers' opinions.

Third, by failing to make the above distinction, some Christians in America unknowingly reduce the religion of the church to a nationalistic moralism, which is more akin to late 18th century deism than biblical Christianity. This only serves to confuse the loyalties of church members, so that some see political affiliation as determinative of Christian spirituality, ironically undermining the same.

So what should we do? First, we should reclaim the Reformed distinction between the law and the gospel, including the classic doctrine of the three uses of the law. Second, we should reclaim the Reformed distinction between the church and the world. Third, we should recognize that these two distinctions are vitally connected to one another.

Only after recognizing these truths will the church be empowered to be what God has called her to be, proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments, and exercising spiritual discipline for the gathering and perfecting (i.e. increasingly loving God with all of oneself) of the elect. Then Christians will be truly empowered to live as good citizens of the world, engaged in issues related to social justice (i.e. loving their neighbors as themselves) in whatever vocation they are called.