There’s more than one way to be kind
What is social justice?
The Oxford Dictionary Defines Social justice as:
“Justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.”
A number of years ago I had a heated argument in a Christian forum with a man who said (paraphrasing) “ Social justice has no place in Christian thought.” I was confused, and challenged him. The Bible, in its entirety, is a social model, I argued. The discussion that followed was adversarial and not fruitful.
I took my thoughts offline and discussed it with a friend from my church whose academic thesis in theology had been focussed on social justice. He walked me through some of the key points of difference between the Biblical vision of justice and the new animal of post-modern justice. It was illuminating. My online debate had been heated because we were using different definitions of “social justice”. I went back online and offered an apology to the man I’d argued with, pointing out the differences in our definitions of the terms we were debating. Turns out, we were actually agreeing more than disagreeing. I made a new friend.
Having been called a “fascist” repeatedly for disagreeing with post-modernism, it seems comically ridiculous to have to defend the notion that criticizing one model of justice is no indication of any lack of compassion or concern for the well-being of people.
I’m not an authority in any of the social justice models. There are many. But, it seems helpful to outline a few. I’ll contrast the three I’m most familiar with: the Civil Rights Movement, Biblical Justice and post-modern Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Each has a fundamentally different organizing principle.
The Civil Rights Movement
““I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The central organizing principle of the civil rights movement is: individual character and, as bell hooks reiterated, an ethic of love:
“The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in a love ethic.”
Civil rights activists, whether focussed on the rights of black Americans, women, or gay and lesbian liberties, sought social inclusion, not on the premise of group identities, but on the merits of each individual who is more than the colour of their skin, their sexed body, or their sexuality. The movement was about building relationships of trust and mutual responsibilities to one another.
The gay and lesbian movement made great strides, assuring our wider communities that our inclusion was not a harm. We are not a harm to children. We would not erode the moral fabric of society. We could form loving, healthy partnerships worthy of legal recognition and child-rearing. We have talents, skills, and the moral character to hold positions within organizations and other institutions.
Biblical Justice
Prior to the formation of the early Christian Church, ancient Jewish society had been organized around a temple believed to house God himself behind a curtain. Access to God depended on whether one was “clean” or “unclean”. Only the Holy Priests were granted direct access to the purity of God. Righteous citizens could enter the temple but required the priests to access the Divine. Marginalized people – the “unclean” - could not enter the Temple.
“The Way” of Jesus, was an overturning of this temple system, which he saw as hypocritical and a profane misuse of power. He was tender with the lowly, and harsh with the powerful. He broke the holy legal system repeatedly, whenever he saw the laws used to oppress rather than liberate people. He cared deeply for the widow, the poor, the prostitutes, and the sick. He – his own body – was the new temple, which anyone could directly access. It’s written that at the moment of his death on the cross, the curtain in the temple which divided God from the people, was ripped in two.
The Book of Acts is an account of how the early followers of Jesus organized themselves as a community immediately after Jesus’ death. They shared resources and cared for those on societal margins.
I’ve been drawn to the story of the eunuch in the Book of Acts, since it’s the closest thing to intersex conditions mentioned in scripture. “The eunuch” is described as one who is so either by birth, by choice, or by force. They were men either born infertile or with differences in sex anatomy, or who were voluntarily or forcibly castrated. Their role in society was to guard the harems of the kings, trusted because they were impotent. They had an occupation, but no social status. They were “unclean”.
As the grieving Apostles walked along the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, the first person they encountered was the eunuch who had been on his way back to Ethiopia from Jerusalem to worship. Despite his devotion, he would not have been allowed into the temple. The Apostles he met that day, impressed by his faith, immediately baptized him into the fellowship of Jesus. There was no recorded discussion of his imperfect body. Perfection was no longer a prerequisite for community, nor access to the source of life.
Biblical justice is organized around God. A just society was about facilitating each person’s path towards the wholeness found through a direct relationship with God.
Post-modern Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
“...it's my hypothesis that the individual is not a pre-given entity which is seized on by the exercise of power. The individual, with his identity and characteristics, is the product of a relation of power exercised over bodies, multiplicities, movements, desires, forces.”
― Michel Foucault
For Foucault, societies are structures of oppression designed by the powerful. He was not responsible for Queer Theory, but set the stage for it. His belief was that, though there have always been same-sex acts, there had been no concept of a homosexual personhood prior to its invention by an oppressor, for the sole purpose of oppressing.
The goal of Queering a society then, is the destruction of systems and categories through which individuals are oppressed – in particular, categories of sex and sexual orientation.
“If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.”
― Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
For the Queer Theorist, there is no redemption for the oppressor. There’s no possibility of reconciliation. No apology will ever do. The individual will never be free unless all of society is dismantled and reorganized. Organized into what, exactly, is unclear.
The organizing principle of post-modern social justice, is the exalted, unchallenged voice of the oppressed, based on their royal membership within an oppressed group. Its emphasis is on group identify, making this model starkly different from the Civil Rights Movement.
There is little to no disagreement that people can be oppressed. Homophobia exists. Racism exists. Misogyny exists. We can share a common concern for the wellbeing of others and seek solutions in multiple ways. The assertion by today’s social justice warriors that disagreement over interpretations of oppression, or solutions, is “fascist” is, frankly, an injustice in itself, unnecessarily painting the ideas of others as “bigotry”, and sowing division among those who are equally caring.
Regardless of which model one favours, I call for a return to an ethic of love, and responsibility to one another. Ina free society, ideas must remain debatable.