Posted on 03/17/2010 9:02:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When Glenn Beck urged Christians to leave churches that preach social justice, he allowed himself to be tripped up by conventional buzzwords of the campus Left. In plain English, “social justice” is a goal of all churches and refers to helping the poor and seeking equality. As a code word, it refers to a controversial package of goals including political redistribution of wealth, gay marriage, and a campaign against “institutional racism,” “classism,” “ableism,” and “heterosexism.” Beck was wildly off base linking “social justice” (of either form) to Communism and Nazism, but he was correct to note that the term is often used as a code.
In the words of Peter Wood, head of the National Association of Scholars, “The campus left learned with its promotion of the concept of ‘diversity’ the advantages of packaging hard-core ideology in bland, feel-good terminology.” “Social justice” is one of several terms — others include “dispositions,” “sustainability,” and “cultural competence” — that has been given in-group meanings by the wordsmiths of the cultural Left.
In 2002, for example, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) issued new guidelines requiring education departments that listed social justice as a goal to “include some measure of a candidate’s commitment to social justice” when evaluating the “dispositions” of their students. As soon became clear, this provided education schools a back-door method of ensuring ideological conformity among their students.
At Brooklyn College, Washington State, and Alaska-Fairbanks — all public institutions covered by the First Amendment — students were punished for voicing opinions that differed from those of the faculty. At Washington State, where the college of education tried to expel a student for his conservative opinions, the dean was asked whether Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia could pass a disposition test at the school. “I’m not sure how to answer that,” she replied.
Eventually, NCATE clarified its wording a bit. Sounding very much like Jim Wallis teeing off against Glenn Beck, NCATE protested the attack on the words “social justice,” saying, “To most Americans the phrase social justice is positive and connotes values associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition.” The problem is that even in its mildest form, the insistence on dedication to social justice puts schools in a position of judging the acceptability of students’ political and social opinions.
Other fashionable buzzwords include “secure livelihoods” and “strong economies,” which seem to refer to redistribution of wealth, not economic development to create new wealth. (Few of the words are precisely defined, but used in context, they convey the general idea.) “Cultural competence” may sound like it would refer to knowledge of different cultures. But it really means the acceptance of multicultural ideology and cultural relativism.
The most potent of the current buzzwords is “sustainability,” which ties traditional environmentalism to the entire left-wing agenda. As Wood says, hundreds of campuses now have sustainability officers, courses that promote the ideology, and most ominously “co-curricular programs run through student life and residence halls to ‘educate’ students about their mistaken ‘worldviews’ and bring them aboard this new ideological ark.” Kathleen Kerr, who ran an astonishing all-out indoctrination program in the residential halls of the University of Delaware (students were all expected to accuse themselves of racism, for example), admitted in a speech that “the social-justice aspects of sustainability education” included lessons on “environmental racism” “domestic partnerships,” and “gender equity.” We are far from tree-hugging here.
The apparently harmless lingo of the Left can’t be taken at face value. It needs an English translation.
— John Leo is editor of Minding the Campus, a website of the Manhattan Institute.
There is no biblical reference to having the government steal from one person to give to another. What the bible does advocate is that we give out of the abundance that God has given to us. And charatable giving always increases when taxes are lowered and decreases when taxes are raised
“If you donate $100 to the Salvation Army, most of it will actually be used to help people.”
True, you’d might not be so excited to help some of these “needing people” if you saw a lot of them. At Christmas, I volunteered at the Salvation Army for their present give away.
The place was filled with rude people talking on their blue tooth phones who drove up in their Cadillac Escalades and women carrying $1000 purses.
Many of these people will claim they have 8 children.
I think I’d rather the $90 to go to a lazy government buerocrat.
This social justice movement looks for the government to be the answer, not Christ, his followers and the underprivileged themselves to provide for peoples needs!! Also, these churches preach this garbage exclusively and never go near the preaching of the actual gospel. All the good works in the world are empty if congregants do not receive Christ as savior.
“Social justice” usually refers to the notion that it is somehow “unjust” that someone who works gets paid and someone who doesn’t work, doesn’t.
There is a difference between leaving a church, and leaving the faith. A church is a building, a group of people who worship together. If the values of an invidiual church depart from that of scripture, it is likely worth finding another church.
In most cases, “social justice” is a euphemism for socialism ... and it is as corrupting within the church as is the “prosperity gospel”. “Social justice” churches tend to preach as if Christ was a community organizer, a peacenik, a groovy guy who wore robes and sandals, had long flowy hair, and preached free love. It is a distortion of the gospel for political ends.
SnakeDoc
Great thread. Thanks to every poster. HOORAY Glenn Beck!
While I agree with Beck about leaving churches that preach social justice, I also strongly urge them to leave any group that doesn’t teach historic Christian Trinitarianism.
They aren’t really Christian.
Learn the lesson of Joseph and the Hebrews. Joseph helped Pharaoh plunder the people to help the people through a crisis, to take their property, to move them into cities, and to make them serfs, paying Pharaoh to take care of them, and Joseph’s great grandchildren became Pharaoh’s slaves. That kind of social justice will turn us into slaves too. The principles of good government are embodied in the ten commandments and the golden rule, beginning with thou shall not use government to steal from others, as you would not have others stealing from you.
Thanks for not keeping this confined to the “religion” forums.
I don’t like to respond there, because it feels like trolling.
Here, these socialist churches can be held in the light and viewed for their actions.
I agree. "Justice" is a legal term... it's an ominous sign when a movement intending to impose legal ramifications on social norms. As for churches having always been about social justice, I have to say, I'm surprised. I thought they were about salvation.
intending = intends ... I didn’t follow through on my edit. Oops.
Jim Wallis servers another Master. Time to call these monsters for who and what they are.
It’s been some time since the majority of our churches have fallen under the sway of the Gramscian long march through the institutions. They are corrupt, and should be treated as such. Make your own arrangement with your Creator. Lose the corrupt middlemen.
I recall Walter Williams offering a $1,000 bounty for anyone who can coherently define “social justice.” I doubt it has been claimed.
At my church they had a couple speak for about 10 minutes after mass about “social teaching” and they invited parishoners to go to the donut social where they had a booth. I checked it out and saw a few books penned by Jim Wallis (Commie/heretic). I knew to walk away when I saw that and many others did too when they saw those books. I was there for about 40 minutes and looked like they drew very few people to talk them and the auditorium was packed. Most people in our parish are very kind, generous people and recognized this heresy for what is.
He is a commie.
He’s worse. He is a monster, using the trappings of religion to sell slavery and submission to tyranny.
“Beware of false prophets who come to you as wolves in sheep’s clothing!”
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