Unlike “justice” there is no article in the SSJ&G specifically addressing “social justice.” The site, however, has three separate complementary articles on the subject. One is by Samuel Sey and another is by Grace for You’s Darrell Harrison. The last, entitled Social Justice is an Attack on the Sufficiency of Scripture, is by Josh Buice.
Pastor Josh Buice was the organizer of the June 19, 2018 meeting from which came the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. He also edited the expanded Statement (see History and Formation, the last navigation bullet). He’s a pastor and founder of the G3 Conference and G3 Tours. His organization is hosting a controversial social justice panel concurrent with the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention. It is Buice’s article I will engage in this post.
Invoking Luther
Buice begins by comparing the current interest in social justice with Martin Luther’s role in the Reformation, specifically his translation of the Bible into German.
When talking about church history, people often ask what Martin Luther’s great accomplishment was in the work of the Reformation. Some point to his Ninety-Five Theses while others point to how God used him to reintroduce singing into corporate worship. Without a doubt, his greatest accomplishment was the translation of the German Bible. This project unleashed light into a world of darkness and was the fuel of the Protestant Reformation.
Buice does not explain how the people of Luther’s day were bathed in the light of a Word printed in 1534 when the adult literacy rate was only 16 percentin 1550. His sweeping Luther-centric introduction does not itself prove those who are concerned about social justice no longer trust the scriptures, nor does the rest of his article. Rather than proving his conclusion he assumes it and goes from there.
It is a shame he does not engage Luther’s teachings on social ethics, doing justice to one’s neighbor, or ethical behavior toward the poor. W.H. Lazareth, in Christians in Society: Luther, the Bible, and Social Ethics, notes regarding Luther’s two-kingdom theology:
[W]e clearly distinguish this twofold human righteousness that corresponds to the two-fold rule of God within the two kingdoms of redemption and creation: (1) Christian righteousness is the piety generated by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of renewed Christians in the form of faith active in love; (2) civil righteousness is the morality of which all God’s rational creatures are capable—Christians included—in the form of law-abiding social justice. (p. 165)[1]
Indeed, Luther’s opposition to indulgences, mentioned in his 95 Theses[2], was in part connected to how they required money that otherwise could have gone to the poor.
Buice posits that people who advance social justice are not trusting in the Bible to be sufficient for their Christian walk. Rather, social justice advocates, in his estimation, are looking outside scripture for their ideals. He writes:
If we want a picture of true justice, we must look to the Scriptures rather than sociology books.
and
Social justice has a really bad starting point. Rather than beginning in the Word and seeking biblical justice—social justice by its very definition begins in the social environment and imports ideas from sociology, politics, and a wide array of disciplines into the Scriptures.
Mr. Buice, Mr. Luther would like a word.
In another place:
In many ways, the starting point of social justice likewise denies a key hermeneutic that goes beyond the presuppositional apologetic—it actually denies the literal, grammatical, historical approach to biblical interpretation.
The above is a word salad no amount of explanatory dressing can help. I sent it to three PhDs (sans source) and asked if they understood it. One called it “balderdash.” One understood it as “You disagree with me because you have the wrong hermeneutic.” The third responded with laugh-face emojis. It is a Roget’s of theological terms shoehorned into one sentence.
Buice does offer a working definition of social justice that appears to be his own devising. He, in fact, surpasses Phil Johnson in this regard. (Johnson in his explanatory post on Article 3 uses two “typical” definitions for social justice. The first is identical to the listing on Investopedia.com.[3]The second is identical to the one used by the Pachamama Alliance,[4]an organization of indigenous peoples in the Amazon rainforest.) Buice, to his credit, offers this:
What is social justice? In short, it’s a movement that positions itself to aid the oppressed within a group or a society. That could be a society as a whole or a group within a society.
One might rightfully ask, “Who are these oppressed?” Buice gives no examples.
Buice, when writing and speaking, often addresses “intersectionality,” “social justice,” “victimology,” and other sociological concepts as his Horsemen of the Evangelical Apocalypse. Although it should go without saying, here it is anyway: not every concept flown under a “social justice” banner aligns with biblical justice. Plenty of political players appropriate it for their cause, Planned Parenthood is but one example. However, a social justice issue can be biblical even though the pursuer began at a non-biblical starting spot. Common grace and all that. A person does not have to be born-again to conclude that human trafficking is a gross injustice to its victims. The organization Secular Pro-Life does not begin with Psalm 139. And, “social justice” has a long history in Christian usage.
Victims, victimology, and victimhood
Under the heading Social Justice Allows Victimology to Replace Theology, Buice writes about two people he believes to be playing the “victimology” card. Unlike “social justice,” he does not define “victimology.” Rather, without sighting-in his rhetorical-rifle he fires away first at former college and NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, then Bible teacher Beth Moore. He misses both targets.
Since 1947 “victimology” has been the term used to describe the scientific study of crime victims. It is still recognized today as a subset of criminology. Some, however, have broadened it to include“victimizations occurring in other social, natural, biophysical, and technological relationships…When an individual suffers a loss of property, physical well-being, status, and general maintenance in interaction with the various types of environments composing his/her world.” Victimology is an oft-used Buice trope.
Buice’s use of Kaepernick to exemplify victimology is the dictionary definition of “made out of whole cloth.” It is disconnected from the facts, from bow to stern. Twice in two sentences Buice calls Kaepernick an “unsuccessful” athlete though his six seasons in the NFL (about an average career) followed a stellar college football career andbeing drafted by Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs. Kaepernick won’t make the Hall of Fame, but he was hardly unsuccessful.
Next, commenting on Kaepernick’s well-known public protest, Buice claims the former QB “took a knee as a victimto ‘systemic racism’” (emphasis mine). This post is not a Kaepernick defense, but Buice’s erroneous framing in service to his victimology thesis should be addressed.
According to Ed Reid, Kaepernick’s then-49ers-teammate, they both shared concerns about police brutality which led to him joining the protest Kaepernick started. Reid told the story in a New York Times Op/Ed:
In early 2016, I began paying attention to reports about the incredible number of unarmed black people being killed by the police. The posts on social media deeply disturbed me, but one in particular brought me to tears: the killing of Alton Sterling in my hometown Baton Rouge, La. This could have happened to any of my family members who still live in the area. I felt furious, hurt and hopeless. I wanted to do something, but didn’t know what or how to do it. All I knew for sure is that I wanted it to be as respectful as possible.
A few weeks later, during preseason, my teammate Colin Kaepernick chose to sit on the bench during the national anthem to protest police brutality. To be honest, I didn’t notice at the time, and neither did the news media. It wasn’t until after our third preseason game on Aug. 26, 2016, that his protest gained national attention, and the backlash against him began.
That’s when my faith moved me to take action. I looked to James 2:17, which states, “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” I knew I needed to stand up for what is right.
I approached Colin the Saturday before our next game to discuss how I could get involved with the cause but also how we could make a more powerful and positive impact on the social justice movement. We spoke at length about many of the issues that face our community, including systemic oppression against people of color, police brutality and the criminal justice system. We also discussed how we could use our platform, provided to us by being professional athletes in the N.F.L., to speak for those who are voiceless.
It bears more than a passing mention that neither Kaepernick nor Reid’s motivation had to do with themselves being victims. Reid’s Christian faith—informed by the sufficient Word of God—compelled him to act. Both were speaking for those who have no voice, a motive consistent with and commanded in the sufficient Word of God (see Proverbs 31). To insist Kaepernick, who spoke out for others, was in reality playing the victim card for himself is an unbiblical judgment of his motives.
The reason for Kaepernick’s protest is, in the end, beside the point; support it or don’t. But, Buice’s thesis and framing are dust in the wind. His stated concerns about victimology making inroads into evangelicalism calls loudly into question why he invoked Kaepernick—who is not known as an evangelical—in the first place.
Battling Against Beth
In his next series of paragraphs, Buice criticizes Bible teacher Beth Moore, continuing his victimology/victimhood theme. In a paragraph that begins “There is power in victimhood, and many women have come to recognize that reality,” Buice accuses Moore of having fueled a “sudden surge among women who want to have their voices heard too. More than that, they expect absolute equality of roles and position across denominational lines.”
Leaving aside for a moment that there is zero evidence in the sufficient Bible that women’s concerns should not be heard, nothing in Buice’s denomination prevents a woman from serving in elected denominational office. Moore’s article, A Letter to My Brothers,—cited as evidence— is utterly absent any evidence to that end.
Moore, the well-known Bible-study author, writing in the aftermath of multiple high-profile sexual assault stories in the media—and after going public with her own history of childhood sexual abuse—decried both the “misogyny and dismissiveness” many Christian women have faced from Christian men.
Moore does not suggest victimhood status for all women, but raises a flag for those who are true victims. Is standing in the gap for others a new addition to the works of the flesh? The Apostle Paul would like to know.
Moore tells of her own experiences:
[In] early October 2016 surfaced attitudes among some key Christian leaders that smacked of misogyny, objectification and astonishing disesteem of women and it spread like wildfire. It was just the beginning. I came face to face with one of the most demoralizing realizations of my adult life: Scripture was not the reason for the colossal disregard and disrespect of women among many of these men. It was only the excuse. Sin was the reason. Ungodliness.
This is where I cry foul and not for my own sake. Most of my life is behind me. I do so for sake of my gender, for the sake of our sisters in Christ and for the sake of other female leaders who will be faced with similar challenges. I do so for the sake of my brothers because Christlikeness is at stake and many of you are in positions to foster Christlikeness in your sons and in the men under your influence. The dignity with which Christ treated women in the Gospels is fiercely beautiful and it was not conditional upon their understanding their place.
About a year ago I had an opportunity to meet a theologian I’d long respected. I’d read virtually every book he’d written. I’d looked so forward to getting to share a meal with him and talk theology. The instant I met him, he looked me up and down, smiled approvingly and said, “You are better looking than _________________________________.” He didn’t leave it blank. He filled it in with the name of another woman Bible teacher.
These examples may seem fairly benign in light of recent scandals of sexual abuse and assault coming to light but the attitudes are growing from the same dangerously malignant root. Many women have experienced horrific abuses within the power structures of our Christian world. Being any part of shaping misogynistic attitudes, whether or not they result in criminal behaviors, is sinful and harmful and produces terrible fruit. It also paints us continually as weak-willed women and seductresses. I think I can speak for many of us when I say we are neither interested in reducing or seducing our brothers.
Inexplicably, Buice does not address the sinful, lustful comment of the theologian/author; that fellow got a free pass. Nor does Buice disprove Moore’s claim of abuses of power existing within denominational, ecclesial, or business structures that claim Christ’s name. Nor does he have a single word of complaint about the prideful, self-elevating behavior Moore describes in the Christian leaders she’s encountered over the years—behavior not uncommon. One is left wondering whether Buice believes her to be lying, or considers her deceived, or whether he thinks she was describing Walter Mitty-like flights of imagination.
Buice then pivots to an article by Thabiti Anyabwile, the result of which, he surmises, is that “a new wave of ‘women empowerment’ and ‘women equality’ was fueled. It was one more example of how to use victimhood as a means of moving forward into greater success.” Except no one is using victimhood for career advancement. Beth Moore is a bazillion-selling author; she hardly needed manufactured victimhood for “greater success.”
Actual victims exist. You can read their testimonies. They have spoken out. Buice is simply wrong.
Finally, sisters and brothers
If Buice had limited his concerns to a secular version of justice that ignores God’s word in toto, then we might find common ground. But, he doesn’t, so I can’t. Reid obeyed God’s word and Moore has been teaching it for decades. They didn’t draw their conclusions from intersectionality, victimhood, cultural Marxism, or the lingering effects of Woodstock. They are, in fact, closer to Luther and Calvin on social justice than they are to Adorno, Horkheimer, or Union Theological Seminary. For all Buice’s talk of the sufficient word of God (here and on Twitter) its application to justice escapes him almost completely. This is clear in this paragraph near the end of his article:
Social Justice claims to run to the aid of the oppressed and the victims of discrimination, racism, and other evils of society. What Christian doesn’t want to help the oppressed? What Christian wants to turn their back upon the evils of discrimination and racism? The problem with the social justice movement is that it leads to oppression rather than liberation. Social justice fuels the idea of victim status while promoting false ideas of systemic racism and systemic oppression of women within evangelicalism.
Anyone in today’s America who claims to support biblical justice yet can only create space for abortion and religious freedom under their banner has about as much place in the justice conversation as a self-proclaimed gardener who brings grocery store lettuce to a farmers market. “Social justice” might not be the best phrase, but given the Death Valley-like barrenness of biblical justice examples advanced by the SSJ&G, it beats hands-down not raising one’s voice for all those who are disposed and voiceless while finding endless time and boundless energy to criticize those who do.
[1]Lazareth quote taken from Martin Luther’s Contributions to Public Ethics Today.
[2]See numbers 42, 43, 45 for instance.
[3] “Social justice is a political and philosophical concept which holds that all people should have equal access to wealth, health, well-being, justice and opportunity.”
[4]“Social justice is the equal access to wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.”
