Stopping the ‘social justice’ creep into the church

Church in Montbovon, Switzerland Credit: keepps/Flickr/Creative Commons

A number of evangelicals have recently organized to oppose the growing intrusion of “social justice” into evangelical churches.

The group has issued a Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel where they are expressing their concerns about this philosophy that is becoming increasing popular in the secular world and is now making its way into the Christian one.

In their statement, they say:

“We are deeply concerned that values borrowed from secular culture are currently undermining Scripture in the areas of race and ethnicity, manhood and womanhood, and human sexuality,” declares the statement.”

At this point, over 4,500 Christian leaders have signed the petition.

I remember a couple of years back during testimony time at the church we were attending, a woman came to the front and expressed how the church needs to become concerned about “social justice” and the unfairness in the world.

It seemed so spiritual, but is it?

The problem is that this social justice push is trying to reinterpret the Bible. The Bible speaks often of justice, but now where does it speak of “social” justice. Since adjectives are used to redefine nouns, when you add “social” to justice you no longer have pure justice but rather some form of hybrid.

For example, provided that a person has gotten their money legally the Bible does not have a problem with wealth, but social justice warriors do. And when it came to dispensing justice, the Bible is also clear that there must not be any favoritism:

¹⁵‘You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly. (Leviticus 19:15 NASV)

This verse tells us that we are not to show partiality to the poor or the rich because that would be an injustice. It would be easy to favor the poor in such disputes because the other person is so rich. Equally we are not to favor the rich, because this is equally wrong.

Favoring one over the other is tainted justice.

Now if we are honest the world is unfair, but is every unfairness an expression of injustice?

Those on the “social justice” side would almost certainly say “yes.” They argue that groups of people are being oppressed by those in power. One of the classic examples that is used is the pay gap between women and men .

Despite years of pushing for equality between men and women in the workforce there is still a pay gap between the sexes that social justice warriors say is a sign of patriarchal oppression.

However, is this an indicator of a “social injustice” or rather does it reflect the different choices and interests of men and women?

There is no difference in intelligence between sexes. For example, in high school girls do equally well in math and sciences as the boys.

However, when they leave high school women often do not pursue high paying careers based on these subjects. Women are more interested in fields that involved interactions with people such as teachers and the medical field that tend to pay less. An American study showed that women dominate professions such as teaching and nursing making up 80% of the workforce.

Meanwhile boys enter the higher paying STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math).

Tweet by former Google employee James Damore on comments made by YouTube CEO Susan Wojicicki

Susan Wojicicki, the CEO of YouTube recently stated in an interview on mashable.com that the reason only 20% of Google’s’ tech force is female is because women don’t find “geeky male industries” very interesting.

These are choices that the sexes are making based on their personal interests. Obviously, some women do pursue these fields, but most don’t. Women and men are different and there is nothing wrong with that.

As well women are more interested in raising a family. A YouGov poll conducted by The Economist revealed that between 44 to 75% of women had either reduced the number of hours they worked or found less demanding jobs when they had children at home. In comparison the same poll showed that only 13% to 37% of men made a similar decision.

Such decisions not only immediately impacted their salaries, but as well affected their career development once they returned to the work force.

Another of the reasons is that women tend to have a more rational view of life. They do not live to work, but rather work so they can enjoy life. As a result, they are often not willing to work 80 hours a week usually needed to push ahead in a high-level career. Men on the other hand are quite willing to make that type of sacrifice and die of a heart attack at 65.

I remember when my wife got a very significant salary increase at work. As a result, she had a higher hourly rate than I was earning. Of course, when that happened as the man of the house, I was already counting the money. However, she was looking at this as an opportunity to cut back the amount of hours she worked, while still maintaining the same income.

There are about 20 factors affecting why women earn less than men and yes one of the reasons is discrimination against women, but it only makes up a very small percentage of the difference with 96% of the difference due to personal choices and interests of the sexes.

Despite the views of the social justice warriors, the progressives and radical left, men and women are biologically and psychologically different.