Though his words are outrageous, I can appreciate one thing that he said. He pointed out that many Christians do not understand what “social justice” or “economic justice” means. In working on my capstone this semester, I have learned a lot about how “justice” has been interpreted from Aristotle til the present. Granted, I have more questions than answers, but I have learned that the term “social justice” can be quite vague. What is this justice we are called to? Perhaps this is a future series of blog posts that will be filled with yet more questions... Yet in the midst of this all, we are still called to seek justice. We need to know what we mean when we seek to follow what we have been called to as part of God’s kingdom. In fact after writing these words I read an article by John Schmalzbauer (that I do NOT claim to agree with completely) that addressed this very issues.
Stanley Hauerwas’ name is being brought into the discussion as one who does not believe that there should be “social justice,” but for very different reasons. While I am still trying to understand exactly what he means by this, perhaps this quotation will leave a sense of where he is coming from.
“What makes the church ‘radical’…is not that the church leans to the left on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus whereas the world does not. In the churches view, the political left is not noticeably more interesting than the political right, both tend towards solutions that act as if the world has not ended and begun in Jesus. Big words like Peace and Justice, slogans the church adopts under the presumption that, even if people do not know what ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ means, they will know what Peace and Justice means, are words awaiting content. It is Jesus’ story that gives content to our faith, judges any institutional embodiment of our faith, and teaches us to be suspicious of any political slogan that does not need God to make itself credible…Most of our social activism is formed on the presumption that God is superfluous to the formation of a world of peace with justice.” — Stanley Hauerwas
That’s about all I can pull out of this Glenn Beck thing, I don’t even feel like I can address the things he said – to think that the gospel deals with only souls, and is separated from the present-age is too ridiculous too imagine. Yet history has shown that pendulum can easily swing either way on the popular interpretation of the gospel. Is there anyone who has taken him seriously?
Stephen Colbert had some interesting things to say
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Glenn Beck Attacks Social Justice - James Martin | ||||
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Check out the “million Christians for social justice” on the sojourners website.
It is fascinating watching the discussion go on – “to do social justice” or not to…
Is it a questions of semantics or is it something bigger?
2 more thoughts:
but i think he has an interesting point, justine. i mean, we do let things that ring of justice into our churches that do not proclaim the Gospel-and void of the gospel, it is nothing.
i do think that our view of social justice is different than his, but i do think we have to be weary of those who seek justice and there is no Christ in the midst.
(i'm trying to be eloquent; maybe we just need another meal-date ;))
I tried to be eloquent too- in this that we feel strongly about maybe this is harder without a lot of thought :)
I get what you are saying - that if our view of justice is not based on the message of the gospel than it is nothing. This can be a very vague conversation, like Hauerwas points out... so I think we need to define what exactly we are talking about when we mean justice. I think I may post some blogs on this soon...
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