A post I wrote recently
Time for another philosophical post, may be slightly contraversial, I dunno.
We know that you can be into social justice without being religious (lots of people are). The question I attempt to answer here is can you be religious without being into social justice?
A few bible passages to get us started, they’ll be useful later -
Micah 6:8 “He hath shown thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
Matt 25:31-40 (The bit about “I was hungry and you fed me” etc.)
Matt 26:11 “For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.” (This is the story where a woman puts ointment on Jesus’ feet and gets criticised for wasting money).
PART 1
Here’s another question - could two people act in opposite ways and still both be good Christians?
If you say no, you have a bit of a problem, because you basically would have to conclude that half the Christians in the world aren’t good, and then you have to try and figure out which half. Catholics in particular are pretty evenly split about which political parties they vote for. They have different attitudes and actions towards social issues ranging from welfare to asylum seekers to affirmative action. And they are all equally convinced that they are doing the right thing. If you say no, then you have to be ready for a fight.
So does the church prescribe our actions? If you look at the first two passages above, we are commanded to act justly, and then given some examples of just acts. But if the church really wanted all of its people to act in the exact same way, you would think it’d have to be more clear on what that way is. Some people would even argue that the church has changed its own position on various social issues throughout history.
Socrates can help us here. He once asked a bunch of Greek philosophers what the nature of justice was, and whenever they answered, he’d say “you’re just giving me examples of just acts, but not answering what the nature of justice is”. If he had been present during Matt 25:31-40, he probably would have said the same thing to Jesus.
If we don’t know what the nature of justice is, then we can’t have a consistent rule that always works for finding the most just action, and it therefore seems like people could act in contradictory ways to each other and still both be just. One person could be up to date on the latest social theories and implement affirmative action in his workplace, so he’s acting justly. Another person might be unaware of his unconscious biases and think that the best way to keep a level playing field is not to use affirmative action, so he’s acting justly.
The church sometimes prescribes our actions when it comes to sin, but most of these are written in the negative form “thou shalt not ___” - many things are permitted and few are prohibited. You can’t say that a person must be politically active e.g. “to be a good Christian you must actively oppose apartheid” - some Christians might not even know what apartheid is, and others might be opposed to it in their head but not active because they are busy doing other things.
PART 2
Now we get to another question: what’s the point of religion then if it doesn’t require people to work towards social justice?
Benedict 16 wrote an encyclical called Deus Caritas Est (God is Love). Google it if you want to read the whole thing. He says in one part that we always need to work towards justice, but that even if we could achieve it, it would not replace the need for charity. My third passage above, that says we will always have the poor with us, is to make the point that social justice will not be achieved overnight.
To be even asking this question, I’ve been influenced by the modern secular world which is currently on a roll trying to solve social justice ASAP (not that that’s a bad thing). But it means I’ve put the cart before the horse. If religion is more important to me than social justice, then I should be asking how social justice can help religion, not the other way around.
The church does lots of things, like running schools and hospitals, but these are not its main job. Its main job is saving souls (please excuse the cliche). I guess this can make sense if we see that social justice is a long term goal but saving souls is on a timer, one lifetime per soul. Atheists have sometimes criticised the work of Mother Teresa (for example) because while they saw value in her giving people their material needs, they didn’t see any value in her giving people their spiritual needs. Whereas as Christians we must value both.
In conclusion, if you’re Christian and work towards social justice, that’s great. But it doesn’t mean that people who don’t do the same things as you aren’t Christian. And it might frustrate you when people work against you, but you have to be patient in the long term goal of achieving justice, since Micah didn’t tell us “achieve a just result ASAP”, he just told us “act justly”.
