Many influential Evangelicals have claimed that social justice is a form of cultural Marxism. Therefore, as they have argued unpersuasively, social justice is incomparable with the Gospel and biblical notion of justice. They have called upon other Christian thinkers not to integrate social justice in their theological vocabulary and hermeneutical reasoning.
The Christians on the other side of the debate maintain that social justice is a natural outcome of the Gospel, whose basic interconnected premise and logical reasoning entail a dual Christian commitment in public: (1) the proclamation of Jesus as cosmic Lord and Jesus as the salvific hope for all people, and (2) the deeds of the Gospel resulting in rigorous Christian social activism and Christian participation in society to eradicate its injustices, evils, and all forms of social ills and oppressive systems and structures.
This matter continues to divide the Church. I believe that faithful Christians should not be quick to separate the intricate and necessary relationship between divine justice and social justice. While God’s method of effecting justice in society may differ than the human action in obtaining justice, the God of the Bible is for justice in all its redemptive and transformative sense.
The Case Against Exclusive Hermeneutics
There are five major problems leading to this “exclusive hermeneutics,” from the pen of those who reject the intimate rapport between the Gospel and God’s clarion call to his people to practice and promote justice in society.
1. These thinkers are reading Scriptures from the perspective of the dominant class while ignoring the God of the Bible who always sides with the weak, the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the oppressed. These are not cultural Marxist terms. Karl Marx did not invent those cultural concepts and linguistic terms; they are found in the original Hebrew and Greek Texts of the Bible. Moreover, when one considers the predicament of America’s enormous poor populations and the world’s poor populations, one should inquire about the nature of established human systems, structures, organizations, and powers that hinder human flourishing and generate the inhumane practices and living conditions of the global poor.
2. These Christian thinkers are bad cultural exegetes and terrible interpreters of the God who despises injustice, abuse, and oppression of any manifestation or form. This is due to their negligence of being good students of American history and global history and the wide economic and educational gap that separates the rich and the poor, the privileged and the disenfranchised, the oppressed and the oppressor.
3. Many Christians have either not studied Marxism or if they have read him, they have interpreted him poorly. It is important to read Marx’s own works, not a few articles and commentaries about his ideas.
4. Some of these Christians have not studied American History from the lens of the Native Americans, whose European-inflicted suffering and pain is immeasurable; the enslaved Africans, who were brought to the United States and the Americas involuntarily and whose labor was freely exploited and gained; and from the viewpoint of America’s contemporary economically-disadvantaged populations, whose collective story and shared experiences are often disenfranchised and silenced in America’s theological metanarrative and Sunday morning sermons.
To only read and consider American History from the lens of those in the seat of power and influence is detrimental to Christian witness in the public sphere. It is also certainly not compatible with the God of the Exodus and Liberator of the Hebrew slaves. This deliberate dodging reinforces the problem of telling a monolithic American story/history (and Christian story/history in America and in the world) that defines the whole of the American experience, while intentionally erasing the complex experiences and lives of those in the margins and silencing the voice of America’s minority populations.
5. Many Christians spend a lot of time reading theology books written from the worldview and vantage point of White American and European Male scholars. This demographic is not the guardian of truth and the divine revelation. No one has a monopoly on Biblical interpretation or theological hermeneutics.
The White Male American-European theological experience does not define the global and intricate experiences of other Christians in the world. It is not the telos of Biblical hermeneutics. This practice of “theological-hermeneutical exclusion” has made these Christian thinkers insensitive to the plight of the world’s poor, a group that characterizes a large population of Christians. The Christians with this theological preference need to move from their terrain of theological comfort to explore the writings and ideas of Brown and Black theologians and Biblical scholars.
Deep Roots
Finally, I must also say that this current debate among Christians on the meaning of the Gospel and Social justice has deep roots in theological education and ethical instructions at the seminary level. The curriculum of America’s theological seminaries and divinity schools, especially those of the Evangelical tradition, is “white,” “European,” “male,” and “intellectually exclusive.” Unfortunately, these phenomena are also representative in the faculty-student body. The issue of theological and human representation in theological education has tremendous implications on race relations in churches, the effectiveness of the Gospel in culture, and social justice conversations among Christian thinkers and leaders.
Part two of this article will be published on Wednesday, April 17th 2019.