by Monique Duson
“You have a very ‘unique’ way of seeing the world.” That was Krista’s polite way of telling me she thought my views about life and people were strange, at best, and, at worst, blatantly heretical. I didn’t care. For every question she asked, I had a social-justice answer. But she wanted an answer from Scripture, used in context (that part always annoyed me!). In the way I saw the world, all of Krista’s questions and pushback were simply confirmation of her whiteness. Thankfully, I didn’t stay that way.
My journey away from social justice began with reading the Scriptures. (It included many other things, but it started with Scripture.) If I wanted to know how God handles the topic of social justice, I had to read His word – really read His word – and more than just the few verses I knew on the topic. Since then, Scripture has become my foundation for thinking about race, justice (not social justice, just justice), and unity. It wasn’t easy getting there, but it was worth it. Looking back, I learned pivotal lessons.
Here are four lessons that I wish I could share with every Christian social justice warrior.
1) Reading the Bible in context matters.
It’s not just social justice warriors who are susceptible to cherry-picking and taking Scripture out of context; every Christ follower must learn to properly read the Scriptures in context The only way to understand what the text truly says is to read all of it. I used to think that if I found a verse that was “good,” one that I liked or that directly spoke to something I cared about, then that became the Bible verse for me. And since it is in the Bible, I reasoned, it’s the word of God. And who is anyone to question God’s word? Using no more than ten verses, I built theologies for salvation, the poor, justice, and my pro-choice views. I later found out I was wrong.
Learning to read the Bible in context was frustrating. I had learned to view it through the lens of the people who were alive when the text was written, rather than through the lens of an American in 2019. This took a lot of time … and I still get it wrong at times!
“That’s anachronistic!” Krista blurted that out to me one day when I was making my case for some misplaced Scripture reference. She was trying to tell me that I was being chronologically inconsistent – I was applying my 2019 American ways of thinking about a subject (probably race) into Scriptures that were written over 1000 years before, into a culture that knew nothing of my culture or my ideas on race. If I wanted to read and understand the Scriptures accurately, I had to read them the way someone of that time would have read them. From there, I could derive a proper application.
2) Social justice-focused my eyes on the wrong problem.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1)
In youth group, I learned that I was a sinner needing freedom through repentance and salvation. In university, I learned that racist systems of slavery, segregation, and wealth disparities – built to keep black people on the margins – needed to be acknowledged and torn down to free others from our modern-day slavery of poverty, inequities, and the power and privilege allocated to white people. As a Christian passionate about social justice, I wanted people to be free.
When I began reading the Bible in context, its themes continuously pointed out that something was wrong with the world, but it wasn’t primarily systems; it was sin and the wickedness of man’s heart. It was our need for freedom from the slavery of sin. Yet, the social justice way to freedom focuses more on someone’s physical or environmental conditions. It didn’t consider the condition of the heart or how participating in sin can lead those considered marginalized to unfortunate and disparate circumstances in the first place.
Although it is true that racism in America disproportionately impacted people of color, social justice ideology misses the mark in two important ways:
t focuses on systems and not sinners.
It turns individuals into victims due largely to their social location (their identity or place in society: race, age, sex, class, etc.)
Social justice ideology ignores how sinful choices, at times, can contribute to one’s own poverty and destruction in ways that are significantly more destructive than the original racist system.
As I viewed social ills in light of the Scripture in context, it became clear to me that America’s (and the world’s) greatest problem is the brokenness in hearts that are separated from God, not systems of racism and wealth disparities. We can’t address the latter without addressing the former.
3) The “racial reconciliation” of social justice mocks the unifying work completed by Christ on the cross.
“Races don’t reconcile; hearts do.” I was doing a live podcast discussing racial reconciliation, and Virgil Walker, co-host of “Just Thinking” podcast posted those words in the comments. It was an epiphany! If race really is a social construct (a fiction that we all participate in) and there is only one human race, then how can races reconcile? I’m sure viewers could see my head spinning. But if racial reconciliation was the wrong goal, what was the right one?
I re-read 2 Corinthians 5 – in context! This is the chapter many racial reconciliation proponents use to defend the idea of racial reconciliation. This time I didn’t just fly to verse 18; I read the whole chapter. There was nothing in there about race! The ministry of reconciliation is a message we’ve been given: a message that a way has been made for sinners to be reconciled back to God. Reconciliation in this context is not a message for blacks and whites to come together and air grievances. 2 Corinthians 5 refers to the salvific work completed in Christ, and, although it doesn’t say it here, that completed work includes our unity.
When we shift the focus of 2 Corinthians 5 from God’s salvific work to that of whites and blacks being reconciled, we mock the unifying work completed by Christ on the cross. It is Christ's work that secures our unity with God and with man. Racial reconciliation attempts to create a reconciling work, but that work has no power outside of the workman continually puts into it. The supernatural reconciling power of Christ brings man back to God and unites believers as family.
4) Forgiveness pays a greater debt than reparations ever can.
The current cultural conversation on reparations is divisive and exhausting. My reasoning for including a point on forgiveness and reparations is to highlight the difference between social justice rhetoric and the language of Scripture. Social justice ideology advocates for reparations to black Americans as a step to restore dignity and acknowledge the past injustices done to a group of people. Scripture calls us to “keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.” (1Pet.4:8) In context, Peter is not encouraging Christians to overlook sin or allow blatant repeated sin to continue, but rather to love those who may sin against you; love is shown through forgiveness. When we place this verse within the large chunk of the text, it’s important to realize that Peter is instructing readers on how to live for God amidst suffering – very real suffering. His instruction was to love. I can only imagine that he chose these words because of the time he’d spent with Christ, who said, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matt. 5:44) Social justice demands repayment for wrongs; it argues that there can be no true unity until payment has been made. Scripture instructs Christians differently. Whether we are dealing with wrongs committed by other believers or by those who blatantly hate us and oppose our faith, we are called to forgive in the same manner in which Christ forgave us. Forgiveness pays a debt that no amount of money ever can: freedom from bitterness and obedience to God.
These are just a few of the many lessons I’ve learned in the past few years. (I could only jot down a few, or this would quickly become a book chapter!) I pray for others who have been influenced by social justice ideology, that they would grasp these lessons as well.