I recently was able to finish up Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth. I have been meaning to read this for several months. Unfortunately I had a stack of other books to get through first. Added to that fact, by the time I would get to bed to read for a little while, I was so exhausted I feel asleep within about two pages of reading. Clearly, it took me a while to get through the book! (:=
But finally, I read through it and found it to be a worthwhile read. I liked how it simply laid out the two kinds of social justice in the culture. As many of us know, definitions are crucial. The same words may be coming out of our mouths, but they may be perceived to mean completely different things. It all depends on who’s listening and who’s speaking.
Babylon Bee skit
A hilarious example of this is the popular mantra of “My body, my choice” turned into a satirical short video by the Babylon Bee. I would highly encourage you to stop and watch it – it’s less than 3 minutes. The point of the video is that these two women are literally saying the same thing. But clearly they are not communicating with one another, since neither one understands what the other means. We run into the same issues with “Social Justice.”
Justice
Obviously, we (as in Believers) all want justice in all its forms for everyone, Believers and Non-Believers alike. However, what that actually looks like and how it’s defined and lived out couldn’t be more different. It all depends on your worldview. Here is how the author, Thaddeus Williams, describes it: there is Social Justice A, which leans more on a Biblical Worldview, while Social Justice B leans more on a Secular Worldview.
The book goes through 12 questions, with various personal stories associated with each of those questions. Honestly, that was the part of the book that I most enjoyed – the personal stories. One question in particular, Chapter 6 – “Does our vision of social justice replace love, peace, and patience with suspicion, division, and rage?” – I could really relate to. The personal story was written by a woman also by the name of Michelle. She had grown up in a midwestern town where there was very little ethnic diversity. Although she was fully American, people would constantly ask her where she was from. As you can imagine, that would be hard to grow up in that kind of environment.
High School
For me, it wasn’t as much rage and frustration, as much as a constant internal struggle with being different. At that time, I was not OK with that. In high school, I was one of a handful of minorities. And I was pretty much the only one with crazy curly hair. Kids can be mean. I’ll leave it at that. But every once in a while, I kind stranger in the mall would comment, “You have beautiful hair!” It was both a curse and a blessing. But either way, it was a constant reminder that I wasn’t like the other girls with their perfectly feathered hair that was coiffed ever so cutely on their heads. Mine was just a bush of bangs. Not even kidding (I have pictures to prove it). I tried, but my disobedient hair won out every time.
If you’re curious, no, I never learned to feather my hair (the late 80’s were rough). But I praise God for His grace! I can now appreciate how other people can have lots of different hair styles with their straight hair! Although personally, my hairstyle has stayed pretty much the same for the last 20 years (straightening my hair would take well over an hour), I’m OK with that! Curly hair has its pluses and minuses. So does everything. I’m at peace with that. God’s creativity is beautiful and incredible. Even with respect to hair!
The point is, we can talk a lot about things in theory. But I loved how the personal life stories brought perspective and depth to all of the questions.
And the point is…
At the end of the day, we could try our best to argue our way to try and convince others of the merits of our position, whether that’s Social Justice A or any other topic for that matter! Some will be convinced given the arguments even without the Bible (ex: there are pro-life atheists and gays against grooming), but there’s nothing like the Word of God that softens hearts as well as the Holy Spirit that convicts our spirits. Only the LORD can convict us when we’re wrong and when we’re choosing not to act in truly Biblical holiness and righteousness.
Appendix
In addition, I wanted to mention that the Appendix goes over several other hot button topics from a Biblical Worldview, such as abortion, capitalism, and sexuality (to name a few). I also found these chapters interesting and the arguments helpful to clarify a Biblical Worldview.
So would you recommend?
If you have questions on Social Justice, or you’re just starting to wade into the crazy waters of being a Christian Apologist for Biblical Social Justice, I would highly recommend this book. It’s easy to understand, and clearly teases out many of the current arguments you either may have to answer to, or that you yourself may need clarification on.
