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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Johnathan Hernandez and Gary Schick.
Gary Schick
Well, today's question could be what you might call, kind of a hot topic. But I know it's a question that people are asking. So here it is, "We hear a lot about justice these days. Environmental justice, social justice, et cetera. We know God is a just God.' But how should Christians view our culture's obsession with justice?"
Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, I guess this is a pretty important question within our society today. And I would say that I guess even in Jesus's time, I guess it would be an important question on this. So we look at this, how there's this focus on this social justice platform, I guess that's been really going on for a while. But really started really sparking a lot for us in what, 2020? Around that time we started seeing a lot of more things, I guess, popping off in that sense, moving forward in that social justice form. And so, if we look at this, if we take the Bible seriously, then justice should be a big deal for us. We see it scripturally, he commands in Jeremiah 22:3, "do justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand the oppressor; him who has been robbed." And so we see these scriptures that God is showing, you know, there is justice and He is a just God. We see in Luke 4:18, and this is quoting Isaiah 61, it says, "Jesus declared his mission proclaimed. The good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are being oppressed." Isaiah 1:17 says to seek justice. So this is a strong call. I guess in that sense, in scripture we have to look at those and take them and say, "okay, if we are seeing this call in scripture, how do we see it lived out in that?" If God's calling us to live this justice out, how do we see this happen? And I think if we can look even in the book of Acts, you know, if we look in the church history in that form, we see this happen in the early church as they proclaim the gospel. We see that there was a racial divide happening back in that time with the Jews, the Gentiles, and the Samaritans. We see this racial divide happening and we see that as the early church was proclaiming the gospel, there was a real sense of community starting to be built. And I think if we can look at that for our time now, there is a racial divide that unfortunately does happen within our society. And if we could just get back and say, "you know what? We're going to start proclaiming the gospel. We're going to start walking it out." Not just saying that we proclaim the gospel, actually walking out the gospel. And doing the things that we see in scripture, and start seeing this real community start happening like we've seen in the early church and start seeing people come to Christ. I think this is how we'll see this social justice, that platform, really say, "you know what? Let's just bring this back to scripture." I think for me, some of the problem with the social justice that we see today is, it really starts pitting people against other people. And this is not the justice that we're wanting to see. We're not wanting to see it divide people more. We're wanting to see it bring people together in unity. And I think we're starting to see, at least this is what I'm seeing, is some of these social justice warriors of our day are really pitting our people groups against people groups. And we're seeing more oppression happening than, you know, we should be seeing people that are oppressed, released and freed from these things. And I think unfortunately, we're seeing it where it's really pushing people more into oppression, not uplifting people like it should be. And so I think that's where I'm seeing it from my side. Gosh, if we're wanting to go after social justice, we should be seeing unity not pitting people against people. And so, yeah.
Gary Schick
I think that's an interesting and a good take on it. This world's attempts to achieve justice don't always achieve it. And I think it's in part because it's us working out of our sinful nature trying to move towards something better. Which the goal is good, but if you use sinful means to get there, you're going to continue tofall short of your objective. And I think also, a part of it is some blind spots, which we are reluctant, all of us, to let go of. Each of us have what we might call our hot topics, things that we want to see, areas of justice achieved. But if we're completely honest with ourselves, there are others that others may be fighting for out there we could care less about. And that doesn't mean that those things aren't important to God's heart. Just that maybe, in fact, even the way this question is worded kind of made me think about that. It says, "we know God is a just God, but how should Christians view our culture's obsession with justice?" As if almost to say, "well obviously culture's in the wrong here by being obsessed with it." You know, throughout the Bible, God is just, "period." And He is obsessed with justice in a way that we could only wish we were. One of the great verses, we used to sing it when I was in youth group many, many years ago, from the book of Micah says, "he has shown me, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee. But to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." And I think part of the human problem is, we don't know how to balance justice and mercy. Justice by itself is very important, but very harsh. Mercy by itself can come across as just sort of sweeping things under the rug. You know, kind of like Jesus. Jesus came filled with grace and truth. Truth and justice go hand in hand. Grace and mercy go hand in hand---and love. In our way of approaching life, sometimes we've got justice on one side, mercy on the other. In Christ they don't fight, they kiss. Justice and mercy come together in Him. But exactly what you were saying, in terms of the way, in our sinful selves, we go at this, these things actually tend to conflict. In Christ they come together and even when we pray the Lord's prayer, what are those three words? "Thy kingdom come." Now in part, we're praying for the return of Christ, but we're praying for the King of Kings to come to reign over His kingdom when the kingdoms of this world give way to His ultimate justice and rule. So we are actually to be ambassadors and signposts of that. I just, oh man, I've got several just little quick thoughts that I just want to kind of pop out to the listeners here. One, bear in mind, God's view of justice is at times very different from what the culture promotes as just. But at other times, if we take the Bible seriously, even what the culture is asking for doesn't go far enough. Really, the question is not whether there should be justice in this area, but what is a biblical view of it? What's God's view of it? And biblically, I think three things need to be said. 1. part of our sinfulness, both in the culture and the churches, I've already mentioned, is blind spots. We need God's word to wake us up to areas of injustice that we have grown complacent about. If we ever recognized them to begin with. And one example would be, a hundred years ago this country was divided Christians on both sides over, in part, I know there were other factors, but a big part of it was the issue of slavery. Today it's very hard for a Christian to look back and say, "how could Christians have ever been on the side of that?" But they were complacent in their culture. They found verses to back up what they wanted to say and just close their eyes hard to others. You've got to take the whole council of God in a sense that civil war should never have happened. Christians should have been able to come together and say, "you know what? This is hard, but God's word says, "and therefore we must," as opposed to going the direction we did. Another thing is to acknowledge, you know, we hear a lot today, a lot of it came, you're right, a lot of it got going in the 2020. It wasn't just covid that hit that year. We hear a lot about culture wars. I heard an interesting take on that recently. Culture wars, the person defined as this, a culture war is a theological war where one side identifies it as theological about what God says, and the other side doesn't see that. But it's still about that. You know, it's very interesting. In the culture wars, the secular liberal left, they are using, I guess I want to say Christian values without calling them Christian. So often in calling us our attention to this and this and this. Whereas Christians are saying, "and God's word says." And so it is. It's a cultural, it's actually somewhat of a theological war, in which one side doesn't acknowledge that God is part of the equation. And so that is part of what creates the conflict there. And then third, while we are not called to fix the culture, we are called as Christians to be a prophetic voice within the culture. And even to live out higher values than the culture, and in all areas, not just one or two. For example, it seems like over the course of my life, there were a time when Christians kind of stood up for many things, and more and more we have, maybe it's kind of a stereotype, but Christians have been sort of stereotyped as one issue. People, it's all about abortion. That's all or nothing, and nothing else matters. Well, obviously abortion does matter. And I'll be honest, that has cast my vote more than once. That issue, right there. But it doesn't mean that other issues don't matter. For example, I think the question brought up the question of the environment. Whether you believe in global warming or not, I mean, the world is kind of hot this summer for whatever reason. Doesn't really change what our answers should be to the question, "did God make this world?" And we do our best to take care of it, whether that scientific theory is true or complete hogwash.
Gary Schick
Should Christians be not only leading the way to say all life is valuable, which we should, but should we also be leading the way to a cleaner, safer, healthier environment in our planet? I mean, do Christians want the oceans filled with plastic? I don't think so. And yet, I have heard Christians say, "well, it's all going to burn up. Who cares?" I mean, that is not a Christian perspective. God said, "here's this world, you take care of it until, basically, until I come back," it is what we're going to pass on to our kids and grandkids. It shouldn't be either or, it should all matter to us. But from a Christian perspective, fourth---actually my three turned into six---fourth, I think it's important that Christians stand for the right things in the right way. Sometimes we become so passionate about our causes that we forget that human souls are often at stake, the people we are arguing with. And that's where there is, I think, what's the most important thing here? The issues are always important. Of course they are, they affect people. But it's the people that matter the most. Jesus died for souls. And sometimes when I get pretty wound up about an issue, whatever it is, I tend to demonize the people on the other side. I think we all do. And no, those are souls that we need to reach for Christ. And so yes, we need to, I think, draw the line and make clear our stand and make clear why we stand there. But I think it's also a good idea for Christians too, and this is my next point, and to look for some common ground. Not every issue does have to be us versus them. Christians can stand the ground and be sowers of peace, not division. The Bible calls us to that. That's part of, "thy kingdom come." It's a kingdom of peace. And then sixth and last, I think we need to bathe everything in prayer. Even as Christians, we've read our Bibles, we know what the Bible says about this, so here we are ready to go to---no. We need to ask God to show us His solution. How do we bridge this gap? Is there some place that we can build together? Is there a way through this that we haven't thought of yet? Even if we agree with the scientists, here's an issue in our world, there's still one thing that we can bring to the table that they can't. "God, give them insight," whether we're talking about cancer or whatever it is, we should be bathing everything in prayer and every conversation in prayer and every relationship in prayer. And then God's picture of justice, I think really will be done. He looks, I believe, for a world where people are in harmony, first with Himself, then one another, and then the environment they live in, until He comes for us. So Jonathan, anything more you want to add?
Jonathan Hernandez
No, I think you had some great points there. Definitely, things for us to really think about in those areas. And so I think the last thing is, for me, a lot of times when we are raising our kids, let's make sure that we're raising them with that biblical view of things. I think that's where we're seeing a lot of things going astray. Are we going to be committed to God or are we going to just show up to church, but we want to live a worldly worldview instead of what God has shown us scripturally.
Gary Schick
And I think news broadcasts or a topic that comes up at school, those can be great conversations at home. Say, "oh, that's interesting. What does the Bible say about this?" And so, sometimes we will get on board with what the secular culture is saying and say, "you know what? They've actually gotten ahold of something that's right here in the Bible," because all truth is God's truth. Other times we're going to say, "You know, isn't it interesting how the world is looking for a just outcome, but how that's contrary to God's word?" And look at where that will, if they got their way, where that would actually take us. And what that would actually result in. And for example, well the two we've brought up, we could say, "oh, there's a person who doesn't know the Lord and yet they're caring an awful lot about the world God created." What are some responses, as Christians, we could add to that? Or take the issue of abortion, say, "well, it's really interesting. They're talking about a woman's rights, which obviously there's some truth there, but aren't they forgetting about the person that woman is carrying in her body and that that child has rights to?" And so if the world gets their way there, what does that lead to? The loss of that child's life. So we just need to keep going back to the Bible and affirm what's there to be affirmed. Call it when it's going too far, and absolutely draw the line when it's going totally counter to God. It may use all the right words, but if it's going in the wrong direction, how do we know? What's our compass? "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Not what I want, not what sounds good to me or feels good to me or is most comfortable to me. But what does God's word say?