Which Injustice Matters Most?

Many people today - as has always been the case throughout history - place a great deal of significance on politics. And politics has always been, and will always be, an arena of contest. Who gets to make the laws? This becomes a question that everyone thinks they have the "right" answer to. Being so persuaded that they are right, they work to ensure that their "team" gets to make the laws, because the laws they will make will lead to justice and equity.

Christians often become utter fools when they attempt to forcefully enter politics. Why? Because one or a small handful of issues often occupy the debate. And when we contend against the other side on a particular issue, we lose the focus on what really matters - justice - and get distracted by what doesn't: winning the contest. At some point justice ceases to matter, but only defeating the other guy. That's what happens in contests, in arguments, in debates, in fights. And then you up end losing the forest for the trees and become fools.

For example, let's take an issue that is near and dear to every Christian's heart: abortion. Though it shouldn't be the case, it seems to escape nearly everyone's notice that the right and the left are really talking past each other on this issue.

My next sentence will probably offend you immensely, whoever you are. Both sides in the debate are concerned about upholding justice as they understand it. However, both sides are only looking at one aspect of justice, to the detriment and neglect of others.

The right cares only that abortion is murder. A woman that has an abortion has sacrificed her child on the altar of convenience. She has performed a monstrous deed, and this deed should be illegal. This is perhaps the most basic building block of common realm, common grace justice: the state, from at least the time of Noah, is called to punish murder with the death penalty. God said to Noah, "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." 

I can't help pointing out here that although Christians say they are on God's side because they are arguing against abortion, no one ever argues that abortion should be illegal AND that the penalty for breaking this law should be death. I don't see any right leaning activists in states where there is no death penalty protesting its lack. Already we see that Christians are picking and choosing which injustice they care about - but just wait - we have only just begun.

How does the right view the pro-abortion left? As unrepentant murderers, nothing more. While it's true that those who are in favor of abortion have fundamentally failed to uphold God's prohibition against murder, and in a seriously grievous way, this isn't the ENTIRE truth.

I don't believe I have EVER in my entire life heard a pro-abortion activist argue that it's ok to kill babies. In fact, pro-abortion activists tend to point to the plight of the single mother, who got knocked up by her boyfriend, who has now abandoned her to raise their child by herself.

So the right focuses on the injustice of the mother murdering her baby, and the left focuses on the injustice of the man abandoning his child and its mother. Neither one has a full-orbed understanding of the injustice of the situation.

Or for another example: gay marriage. Lots of Christians think they are nobly standing up to injustice by standing up for the sanctity of marriage by standing against gay marriage. And boy, they sure do shout loudly about it.

And yet, many of those people who are supposedly warriors for marriage are...ironically...divorced. Or maybe they're a pastor or an elder at a church where divorce isn't exactly approved, but they don't discipline the members who get divorced either. But if they really stood up for the sanctity of marriage, when someone in their congregation got divorced, they'd insist that they reconcile or else whoever refused to reconcile be excommunicated!

So instead of actually caring about the law of God, they like to APPEAR to care about the law of God by shouting loudly and making a big scene, just like the Pharisees, but they don't actually do anything to combat sin.

And if you care about the fact that the 2008 economic crisis was brought about in large part by the extreme greed of folks on Wall Street and predatory lenders, then most Christians will accuse you of being a socialist and a liberal, implying that you're actually secretly a communist (and thus an enemy of the United States) and soft on abortion and gay marriage. Because, as any modern American evangelical knows, Jesus was a capitalist, and the US Federal Republic is the only biblical form of government. After all, capitalism is the only way to ensure the state isn't stealing from anyone. Capitalism promotes justice in a way that no other system of government can. Right?

But while they're SO concerned with economic justice for those who "work hard" and "earn" all that money, they're NOT concerned with economic justice for those who are poor and exploited. They aren't really concerned about economic justice. They want to justify their greed.

Well, you say, that's quite the accusation. But have you any proof? Yes, I have.

It's a debatable point that Christians must give 10% of their income to the church. Many people argue that that's a law for Israel, and not the New Testament church. Obviously, some laws were unique to Israel, and those have ceased for the church in the new covenant. But 10% predates Israel. Abraham gave a tithe to Melchizadek. 10% may have been republished in the Mosaic covenant, but this is moral law, not ceremonial law.

But what if I can't afford 10%? Well, while the New Testament NEVER says you MUST give 10%, it actually encourages much more: selling all you have, giving ALL the money to the church, giving out of poverty and the like. There's no support for being stingy with the church in the New Testament.

But if you're truly poverty ridden, I hope you're speaking to your deacons and asking for help. Probably too proud to do that, huh? Does your church even HAVE deacons whose job is to collect money for the poor in the congregation?

So actually, you can argue that the Bible continues to command Christians to give at LEAST 10%, except perhaps in extreme situations in which that's not possible, in which case the Bible commands deacons to intervene and provide. And yet, all these Christians, who are so concerned about economic justice ignore these things.

There's much outrage about socialism and Obamacare and high taxes, but where's the outrage at the fact that almost all churches everywhere average 3% of their congregations' income collected in tithes and offerings? It's less than half of what churches are supposed to collect. 

And where's the outrage at the pastor on food stamps? The recent seminary graduate with 100 GRAND in debt from going to seminary who nevertheless can't get a call to anything other than a tiny church plant with a salary of 30k a year because every church despises his youth, despite what Paul said to Timothy? Where's the outrage at the unemployed licentiate searching for a call who has to move into his parents' basement, filling pulpit for $100 a week?

You call that economic justice? You don't CARE about justice!

You know what you care about? I'll tell you what you care about. You care about LOOKING good. You care about LOOKING like you care about justice. The truth is, you couldn't care LESS about justice or the law of God. And you DON'T care about ANYONE other than yourself.

What you care about is justifying your smug, judgmental self righteousness by screaming loudly about the injustice du jour. You don't care about justice. You don't care about the law of God.

If you did, you would look in the mirror. If you did, you would stop screaming about everyone ELSE's sins and be more concerned with repenting of your OWN sins, of which there are many.

You are hypocrites, Christians! You are just like the Pharisees of Jesus' day, to whom he said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you give a tithe of mint and dill and cumin, but you have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! ...Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."

By your smug self righteousness, you shut the doors to the kingdom of heaven in peoples' faces. Yours is the GREATEST evil. YOU are why Jesus hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes - because these people are LESS SINFUL THAN YOU.

If there is one injustice that God cares about more than the others it is this: the hypocrisy of those who claim the name of Christ. It is upon the religious leaders of his day - upon the confessing church leaders - that Jesus pronounced his seven-fold woe in Matt 23, quoted in part above. This seven-fold woe culminates in him proclaiming them guilty of all the blood of all the martyred prophets throughout history. Jesus understood that their smug self righteousness was what would lead them to crucify the Son of God.

I don't envy you on judgment day, hypocritical Christian. FYI: the fact that you married someone of the opposite sex, lost your virginity on your wedding night and never had an abortion will not save you. Your abstaining from alcohol, tobacco and drugs will not save you. Your refusal to say certain four letter words or tell dirty jokes will not save you. Your righteousness is like used toilet paper to God. Worthless, disgusting, worthy only of being flushed down the toilet.