A New Christian Perspective on Justice?

In February 2008, the Washington Post reported that the next generation of evangelicals will crusade for a different type of justice than the Religious Right of the 1980s; rather than focusing on abortion and homosexuality, they will identify the environment, HIV/AIDS, poverty, and human rights violations as top Christian concerns.¹ Indeed, a growing body of literature proclaims a new era in evangelical activism.² For instance, Sojourners founder Jim Wallis declared in a recent book, “[E]vangelicals are deserting the Religious Right in droves, especially among a new generation of pastors and young people. The evangelical social agenda is now much broader and deeper.”³ In response to such rhetoric, thoughtful believers must ask whether its claims are true and whether the emerging view is a positive development.

Surveys suggest that the demise of pro-family values among evangelicals is greatly exaggerated. According to one poll, 70% say that ending abortion is important and nearly 50% oppose same-sex marriage.⁴ Still, evangelicals are broadening their political concerns. A full 60% identify themselves as part of a political movement interested more in “protecting the environment, tackling HIV/AIDS, alleviating poverty and promoting human rights and less on abortion and homosexuality.”⁵ This movement gains inspiration from the writings of Wallis and such fellow “Red Letter Christians”⁶ as sociologist Tony Campolo, Ronald Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, and emerging church leader Brian McLaren, men who rightly remind the Church that genuine, individual regeneration results in concern for a more just society, including matters like global hunger relief and the avoidance of unjust wars.⁷

Still, believers ought not to embrace this new perspective uncritically, for its leaders marginalize key Scripture at several points. Some have essentially adopted the old “social gospel” perspective, where the cause of eternal salvation pales in comparison with fighting the ills of this world. Some, such as McLaren, attack orthodoxy itself. For instance, he suggests that belief in Christ’s second coming undermines efforts to establish justice on earth. “[M]any of us have been increasingly critical in recent years of popular American eschatology in general, and conventional views of hell in particular. Simply put, if we believe that God will ultimately enforce his will by forceful domination, and will eternally torture all who resist that domination, then torture and domination become not only permissible but in some way godly.”⁸ (By this absurd logic, McLaren should also deny God’s judgment on Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11 because it would entitle churches to execute their dishonest members. And, he almost makes the lost sound noble for “resisting the domination” of God.)

Furthermore, the “Red Letter Christians” can miss the whole counsel of God with their focus on Jesus’ sayings in the Gospels. For instance, Sider argues from texts such as Matthew 25,⁹ that God is partial toward the poor and that justice requires a measure of economic leveling in society.¹⁰ Yet Proverbs teaches repeatedly that some poverty is the result of laziness or immorality and is best alleviated by demanding responsible living.¹¹ And, of course, to, in effect, assign secondary status to Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation is to miss the point that only after Christ’s ascent were the fuller implications of the gospel revealed.

When “progressive” Christians imply that one must choose between fighting abortion and homosexuality on the one hand and championing causes like the environment and poverty relief on the other hand,¹² they present a false dichotomy; the Lord demands that His children speak to all of those issues. But, one has to consider priorities in a nation such as America, where abortion takes over one million innocent lives a year¹³ and starvation takes none, apart from eating disorders such as anorexia.

Of course, these concerns do not cancel out the helpful contributions of these critics. If someone confuses prosperity with righteousness or despoils the environment with the conviction that Christ will return soon anyway,¹⁴ it is time for a prophetic word of rebuke. But believers should scrutinize the latest political trends and remember that the newest emphasis is not necessarily the best.¹⁵

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