Salt & Light 3

There has been a lot of controversy lately about the words "Social Justice" recently.  In March of this year (2010) a well known conservative talk-show host told his viewers to run far and fast if they saw these words on their church's website or heard them mentioned from the pulpit.  In the last few days he had some well-known-in-Christian-circles men on his show again denouncing "Social Justice."  He told his viewers that these were code words for communism and government enforced socialism.

At first I was a tad angry.  But after a few deep breaths I remembered that this is a question of semantics, not politics.  The simple explanation to this question is that those who are trying to live out the biblical meaning of "Social Justice", especially young people, are approaching it from a position of helping those who are less fortunate and who need help.  Those who practice "Social Justice" in a modern sense are those who are living out the call in Micah 6:8 to DO justice and LOVE mercy.  This means loving your neighbor, helping the fatherless, orphans and widows.

People who try to politicize "Social Justice" and twist the words to mean something from the past or to repackage old ideas with words they think are hip are quite frankly poseurs.  I, for one, don't want anything to do with them.  They can try to manipulate the words all they want.  But I am going to keep doing justice and loving mercy - talking to people about real issues like water, refugees and education.  I am going to work harder, longer and smarter so that when the political gurus get tired of pushing this agenda and move on to the whatever comes next the real work can go on.  Real people can be helped and real solutions can be found for the most pressing problems in our world today.

Someday my words, thoughts and deeds will be judged. I choose now to put forth truth, salt and light – not political drivel.