Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth Study Guide

A Guide to 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice

Thaddeus J. Williams

• Verlag: Zondervan Academic
• Jahr: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780310142577
• Thema: Theology & Religion
• Thema: Religion

Enacting social justice is essential to the Christian faith. But the Bible's call to seek justice is not a call to superficial activism. True justice requires biblical wisdom and communal discernment.

Maybe you're frustrated with a version of Christianity that doesn't seem to take justice seriously. Perhaps you've witnessed the rise of ideologies that brand themselves as 'social justice, ' but you have a sense that something is off about them. Maybe you have a hunch that God offers a better way to do justice than what's offered by the snarky memes on our news feeds.

In this 14-session, video-based study guide, teacher and lecturer Thaddeus Williams furthers the case he made in his book, taking study groups and individuals deeper into complex question of how to pursue a path of justice without compromising the truth of the gospel.

Participants will watch video segments (DVD/streaming video sold separately), hear from a diverse range of experts, interact in group discussions, and answer personal reflection questions to discover what the Bible and the example of Jesus have to teach us about justice.

Williams confronts religious and political tribalism and challenges participants to discover a compelling vision of justice for all God's image-bearers that offers hopeful answers to life's biggest questions and a way forward.

Sessions Include:

• What is Social Justice
• The God Question
• The Imago Question
• The Idolatry Question
• The Collective Question
• The Splintering Question
• The Fruit Question
• The Disparity Question
• The Color Question
• The Gospel Question
• The Tunnel Vision Question
• The Suffering Question
• The Standpoint Question
• Conclusion

Session 1

What Is “Social Justice”?

Open in prayer. Play the video “Confronting Injustice—Introduction.”

Word

After watching the short introduction video, let’s begin our time together in the Word of God. Open with prayer, then have volunteers read the following four passages aloud:

What does the LORD require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up speedily. . . .

If you pour yourself out for the hungry

and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in darkness

and your gloom be as the noonday. (Isaiah 58:8, 10)

He judged the cause of the poor and needy;

then it was well.

Is not this to know me?

declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 22:16)

When you spread out your hands,

I will hide my eyes from you;

even though you make many prayers,

I will not listen;

your hands are full of blood. . . .

Cease to do evil,

learn to do good;

seek justice,

correct oppression;

bring justice to the fatherless,

plead the widow’s cause. (Isaiah 1:15–17)

Welcome

According to the inspired passages we just read, God does not suggest, he commands that we do justice. Doing justice brings a brightness and blessing into our lives. Defending the cause of the poor and needy is what it means to know God. Apathy toward the oppressed can actually hinder our prayers. In short, God takes justice seriously, and so should we.

But what about so-called social justice? Combining the word social with the word justice is a bit like dropping Mentos into a bottle of soda. It can be highly explosive. Though the term was originally coined by an Italian priest named Luigi Taparelli in the nineteenth century, it has since taken on new meanings, often meanings that stand in contradiction to the historic Christian faith. Journalist Jonah Goldberg shares, “I put on my prospector’s helmet and mined the literature for an agreed-upon definition of social justice. What I found was one deposit after another of fool’s gold. From labor unions to countless universities to gay rights groups to even the American Nazi Party, everyone insisted they were champions of social justice.”¹

When groups like Antifa, which sees physical violence against those who think differently as “both ethically justifiable and strategically effective,” and groups like the American Nazi Party both claim the moniker of “social justice,” then as Christians across the spectrum, we can certainly agree on one thing: Certain ideologies branding themselves as “social justice” are a far cry from the kind of justice God calls us to in the pages of Scripture. It is our Christian duty to both expose such doomed ideologies and also embody a more beautiful and compelling and biblical justice before the watching world. In this section we will draw some important distinctions that will help us to do precisely that.

Watch

Play session 1, “What Is ‘Social Justice’?” As you watch, use the outline below to follow along and take notes on key insights.

• People mean very different things by the term social justice. What does the Bible say?

[Your Response Here]

• God does not suggest, he commands that we do justice.

Jeremiah 22:3

Micah 6:8

Isaiah 58:6

[Your Response Here]

• Doing justice will bring blessing into our lives.

Isaiah 58:8, 10

[Your Response Here]

• Doing justice is what it means to know God.

Jeremiah 22:16

[Your Response Here]

• Apathy toward the oppressed can sever our connection with God.

Isaiah 1:15–17

Jeremiah 7:5

[Your Response Here]

• God’s command to truly execute justice presupposes that there are ways to execute justice that we think are helpful but are actually hurtful.

[Your Response Here]

• There’s a big difference between what we might call “Social Justice A” and “Social Justice B” (think A for “awesome” and B for “bad” if it helps you remember).

[Your Response Here]

• Historic examples of Social Justice A include the following:

◦ Ancient brothers and sisters rescued and adopted the precious little image-bearers who had been discarded like trash, often simply for being female, at the dumps outside many Roman cities.²

◦ Our Christians brothers and sisters throughout history built more hospitals and orphanages to serve the suffering than any other movement in history, while offering a robust framework for human rights and human sexuality that has brought freedom and dignity to millions.³

◦ Christians brought skyrocketing literacy rates around the world, even introducing written languages into cultures that had none and spearheading linguistic breakthroughs in modern English, French, and German.

◦ Christians through history inspired universities into existence, including St. Andrews, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, and many more, along with sparking the scientific revolution under the conviction that science exists “to the glory of God and the benefit of the human race.”⁴

◦ Sophie Scholl’s White Rose Society, along with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s and the Confessing Church’s resistance movement worked to subvert Hitler’s Third Reich.

◦ William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect worked tirelessly to topple slavery in the UK, as did Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and others in the US. Christians led the movement to abolish slavery not only in America and the United Kingdom but also in India, Africa, Brazil, the Ottoman Empire, and South America.⁵

• Believers practicing Social Justice A and serving their communities aren’t mere relics of the past.

◦ Practicing Christians in the US outpace all other groups in providing food to the poor, donating clothing and furniture to the poor, praying for the poor, and giving personal time to serve the poor in their communities, according to a 2018 study.⁶

◦ A dozen faith communities around Philadelphia generated $50,577,098 in economic benefit to their neighborhoods in a single year.⁷

◦ Christian communities today excel in adoption, foster parenting, fighting human trafficking, and community development.

• The Newman effect: “So you’re saying . . .”

[Your Response Here]

Wrestle

To better internalize and act on what you just watched, choose three of the five questions below to wrestle through as a group.

1 Write down the top two or three insights you gained from this session, and briefly share one with the group.

[Your...