Just because it’s the law doesn’t mean it’s upholding justice. In the United States, it is the law of the land that unborn children can be killed at the whim of their mothers, due to the Supreme Court’s Roe v. But not all man-made laws are just - not even close. This begs several questions: Who determines what is just? By what standard do we know what is right or fair? What is due or owed to each one of us? Some may answer that “law” determines what is just. Understood rightly, justice is synonymous with words like “righteousness” and “goodness.” In short, justice is both giving and receiving that which is just. Justice, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the “maintenance of what is just or right by the exercise of authority or power assignment of deserved reward or punishment.” Or we could say that justice is receiving what is due to you as a human being made in the image of God. So, what does “Social Justice” really mean and how is it different from the “Biblical Justice” that Christians should advocate for? To help us answer these questions, let me first define my terms. While many (if not all) Christians who use the term positively may be well-intentioned, the truth is that word, really, that phrase - Social Justice - doesn’t mean what they think it means. Over 30 years later, I regularly have the same reaction when I hear anyone talking about justice in general these days, and particularly when I hear Christians talking about social justice. I do not think it means what you think it means,” quipped Inigo Montoya to Vizzini in the cult classic, homeschooler-beloved movie “The Princess Bride,” arguably one of the most quotable movies from the late 1980s.
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