The Myth Conception of Social Justice
By Dr. Ted Baehr, Publisher
We’ve all heard that he who forgets history is doomed to repeat it. The news media, in its addiction to the new, often forgets history.
When I get asked if I CAN ONLY IMAGINE was the first successful Christian movie, I have to remind them about KING OF KINGS in the 1920s, which had more conversions around the world than any other movie. This doesn’t include movies like BEN-HUR, QUO VADIS, A MAN CALLED PETER, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, and many others, but I notice most people don’t want to hear that because they want new news.
Now, everyone’s on the social justice bandwagon.
So that we understand the consequences of this bandwagon, this term was bandied about by Lenin and Stalin, especially during the Russian Revolution, and resulted in millions of deaths in concentration camps and in the private killing rooms of the KGB, which were built with slanted floors so that the blood would quickly disappear.
This bandwagon also led to the student revolutions of May 4, 1919, throughout China. That revolution led directly to Mao and again the killing of millions of people.
An interesting part about these revolutions for social justice can be found in Taiping Rebellion in China in the 1850 and 1860s. The zealous revolutionaries in that movement got perhaps 100 million people to support them with their commitment to communal living and aestheticism, but the revolutionaries changed rapidly when they occupied the Imperial Palace and suddenly the leaders started wearing imperial robes and keeping concubines while their followers were still adhering to radical aestheticism, including forsaking sexual contact. Of course, almost a century later, Mao became famous for his lechery where he would go to dance halls, pick out the prettiest girl, and, if he wasn’t pleased, the consequences would be awful. His proletarian Marxist aestheticism stopped with the solidification of his power.
One of the fallacies of social justice is the either/or thinking that stereotypes people as “always.” The May 4 revolutionary students all over China thought that the Confucian bureaucrats were “always” oppressive. Lenin included in his list of “always oppressive” the intellectuals, which the pseudo-intellectuals of today often forget. Now, white male historical figures are being portrayed as always bad, and other groups are being portrayed as always good no matter how despicable, criminal or destructive their activities are.
When I made movies in South Africa during the apartheid wars, I worked with many different unique groups such as the Zulu who saw the Xhosa (“Ko-za”) as always bad. The Xhosa saw the Zulu as always bad, the wealth Indians (from India), who saw the other two as always bad, and things didn’t get much better after the bad group was replaced by the so-called good guys.
God has a wonderful answer to all this. His answer avoids the fallacy of either/or in His Word, the Bible, which tells us: first that we’re created in His image (so we can respond to His Holy Spirit; and, second, that we are fallen and possessed of some of the worst destructive qualities because of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life (1 John 2:16) (so we need to let Him free us from our bondage to all our sins of commission and omission). By the way, the image of God is love, and so we can love he wants us to have the fruit of His Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.
So, we are both/and, just as Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man, and since we’re both/and, there’s that spark of the Image of God that God’s Holy Spirit uses to call us out of the darkness and into the Light of His Good News, where He can set us free and give us a better life.
I know this personally, and I know this from His Word Written, and every day now and throughout history we encounter and read about people being delivered by the power of God’s loving grace.
Social Justice is attracting a lot of money and a lot of support these days, but it won’t solve the problems intrinsic in the very condition of men and women. However, Jesus will, if we just turn toward Him and ask for His more abundant life.
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