In his important booklet Social Justice: How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel,* E. Calvin Beisner examines the modern concept of social justice and contrasts it to the biblical ideal. What is the biblical ideal? Based on a thorough study of justice as presented in Scripture, Beisner describes justice this way:
Exercising and promoting justice means “rendering (1) impartially and (2) proportionally (3) to everyone his due (4) in accord with the righteous standard of God’s moral law.”
A PDF file of the above graphic is available here.
Go here to access a page that showcases Scripture passages upholding each of these elements.
An example of proportionality would be making a reward fit an individual’s positive contribution or crafting a punishment to fit his or her offense. For example, proportionality recognizes a difference between abuse of another’s property and abuse or violations against another individual. Further, it recognizes a difference between a death caused by accident and premeditated murder.
When one exercises justice according to Scripture, he or she renders “impartially and proportionally to everyone his due in accord with the righteous standard of God’s moral law.”
—Calvin Beisner—
What is social justice? Here is a concise definition.
A PDF file of the above graphic is available here.
Right off the bat, do you see an important way that social justice contrasts to justice? Allie Stuckey expresses it well in the PragerU video “Social Justice Isn’t Justice.” She says, “Justice is getting what you deserve without favor. Social justice is getting what you don’t deserve because you are favored.”
Background: Here is that video.
Despite the noble-sounding rhetoric of the social justice movement, justice and social justice are two very different things.
Remember — God is a just God who cares about and wants his followers to promote justice as He has defined it in His Word, the Bible. Again, as Dr. Beisner states,
When one exercises justice according to the Bible, he or she renders “impartially and proportionally to everyone his due in accord with the righteous standard of God’s moral law.”
Here is another informative video on the social justice movement.
Copyright © 2021 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
Calvin Beisner, Social Justice: How Good Intentions Undermine Justice and Gospel, (Burke, VA and Washington, D.C.: Cornwall Alliance for The Stewardship of Creation, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, 2013), 11.
*You can download this publication here. You can order a revised and updated edition of it here.