InterVarsity Press has published the Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World (Bridgeleader Books), by Mae Cannon, executive pastor of Hillside Covenant Church, located in Walnut Creek, California.
With a foreward by Dr. John Perkins, Mae Elise Cannon provides a comprehensive resource for Christians like you who are committed to social justice. She presents biblical rationale for justice and explains a variety of Christian approaches to doing justice. Tracing the history of Christians in social engagement, she lifts out role models and examples from the Great Awakenings to the civil rights movement. A wide-ranging catalog of topics and issues give background info about justice issues at home and abroad, including:
- sex trafficking
- domestic violence
- living wage initiatives
- debt relief
- environmental stewardship
- bioethics, and much, much more
This handbook includes dozens of practical exercises for taking action, as well as profiles of key figures and movements like William Wilberforce, the Salvation Army and Bono, highlighting how Christians and churches can make a difference. Also included are spiritual practices and resources to help us move from immobility to advocacy.
Mae Elise Cannon is the executive pastor of Hillside Covenant Church located in Walnut Creek, California. She previously served as director of development and transformation for extension ministries at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. She holds an M.Div. From North Park Theological Seminary, an M.B.A. from North Park University’s School of Business and Nonprofit Management, and an M.A. in bioethics from Trinity International University.
Cannon is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). She is also the chair of The Mosaic Center board for the Pacific Southwest Conference in the ECC. She is completing her doctoral studies at the University of California-Davis where she is studying U.S. history and the role of the church in the history of social reform.
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Thanks for the link, Wendy, but I don’t think an op-ed in the WSJ by Podhoretz on the political fecklessness of American Jewry is the best commentary on biblical Christianity in these matters.
Let’s instead look at your supposition of “rationality” from which you attempt to create an unassailable fortress from which to critique “mystical” faith perspectives in the public square as if your own position is religiously neutral with respect important stuff like origin, truth, purpose, justice, and the good life. Are you trying to tell us that your faith commitment in radical individualist ideals is merely an outcome of “rational” thought and not rooted in your heart? Or is it all in your head? Please tell us what in this individualistic worldview makes collectivism “evil” if the only judge can be amoral, value-free rational thinking? Indeed, the leap of faith one would have to make to equate rational thinking solely with the precepts of Ayn Rand is breathtaking, don’t you think?
Also, pertinent to the notion of rational v. mystical thinking, I am curious whether in your worldview “truth” or “facticity” is based on innate ideas that are true for all men in all times and places, or is certainty in “facts” only derived from and validated by scientific method? Big Difference. Both not so good at describing reality. Apparently not even “settled science!”
Meanwhile, even atheists now recognize that only Christianity with its historic traditions of human rights, justice, and democracy is able to stem the onslaught of Islam throughout Europe.
Additional insights into the correlation of the Judeo-Christian tradition with modern liberalism can be found at:
From Norm Podhoretz:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574402591116901498.html
From Larry Greenfield:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/liberal_jews_and_the_legacy_of.html
The elevation of mysticism over the rational, and the collective over the individual, are inherent in the Judeo-Christian traditions. Followers accept religious teachings “on faith” and, as a result, commonly fail to examine the philosophical roots of their beliefs. The widespread lack of scrutiny and rational examination of religious beliefs by adherents is the reason why most are unaware of the premise on which their core beliefs are based.
Nonetheless, even cursory examination of Christian, Catholic and Jewish faith communities in the U.S. — whether identified as so-called “right” or the “left” — reveals submission to the collectivist agenda pursued “for the greater good.”
Richard, There is an entire chapter in “Social Justice Hanbook” dedicated to addressing the very question that you pose – what is “social justice” – how may it be defined and understood? and what does the Bible have to say about it? Justice is an absolutely necessary component of a free society. I believe that all people should have equality of opportunity and access to resources – but I do not think that necessitates equality of outcome. It is important to remember that individual responsibility plays a significant role in the outcomes of life.
“Social Justice” is not a well defined term. Wikipedia states:
Social justice is a term, generally applied by the left, to describe a society with a greater degree of economic egalitarianism through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution, policies aimed toward achieving that which developmental economists refer to as equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.
I believe the term is used in both Catholic and Jewish teaching, but I do not know the details.
It is also a piller of the Green Party.
“Social Justice” is too vague a term to either support or oppose without further clarification.
Bless you. Thank you.
Wendy, how is your argument different form ACORN ready to defend any individual entrepreneur wanting to set up a whore house full of enslaved women who were kidnapped from foreign countries and drugged into submission.
Lumping all Christian traditions that address social issues as collectivist and therefore evil completely ignores countless instances where the impact of just the Catholic doctrines of Solidarity and Subsidiarity, for example, helped the Polish people stand against a tyrant, as well as place authority at its most local level, also against imperial or Federalist tyrants.
To say nothing of the Christian prohibition against preemptive war.
Yes there are social gospel messages that throw the baby Jesus out with the bathwater; but there are also traditions that recognize social boundaries and rule of law that encourage a wide variety of communities to work together both outside as well as within government’s task to reward good and punish evil.
As you suggest, not all social structures and activity find their authority or root in an over reaching state. Yet, in contrast, can one really argue as you do that the only good in society can only be derived simply from hermetically sealed sovereign individuals, who are all laws unto themselves, bound only by contracts? Is that what the good life and just society is?
I think not.
This is the problem and dialectical tension at the root of classical secular liberalism. Does one use the BIG state to make men free from evil men or nature, or does one— like you, or even the ACLU—suggest that the sovereignty of the individual is tantamount and ought to be free from all authority but their own.
It appears your argument identifies more internal problems with your own ideology than Mae Cannon’s.
This book is an example of the fundamental conflict between Christianity and advocates of freedom, individualism and capitalism. Because Christianity promotes a collectivist model, it directly conflicts with rational thought, economic freedom and individualism. American founders maintained that man is endowed with freedom by his creator, not the state. However, the modern Christian church frequently promotes social policy to limit individual freedom through use of state power.
Rational thinkers maintain that capitalism is the most moral economic system and collectivism is immoral because it enslaves productive members of society by confiscating private property – via force – in support of “the collective.” Rationalists hold that collectivism is both immoral and destructive to economic growth and social advancement.
“Social justice” is synonymous with collectivism or socialism. American Christian and Catholic churches have long been active promoters of collectivist thought, as this book illustrates. Does “social justice” lead to a better world? History has taught us that the answer to this question is an emphatic NO!
Those who believe in individual liberty, private property and economic freedom will reject social justice-oriented “practical exercises for taking action” and, instead, pursue individual excellence, capitalism and freedom from the tyrannical, soul-crushing influence of the state in the lives of individuals.
Ayn Rand put it this way:
“The right of a nation to determine its own form of government does not include the right to establish a slave society (that is, to legalize the enslavement of some men by others). There is no such thing as “the right to enslave.” …It does not matter, in this context, whether a nation was enslaved by force, like Soviet Russia, or by vote, like Nazi Germany. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote . . . .”