Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 146 ｜ Biblical Justice

00:00:00.000 What's up guys? Welcome to Relatable. Thank you guys for tuning in. Today we are going to talk

00:00:07.680 about justice and how Christians should view justice from a biblical perspective.

00:00:15.920 We've talked about this subject a lot. We've talked about the difference between secular

00:00:20.220 social justice and what the Bible has to say about justice. This seems to be a theme that

00:00:25.440 kind of weaves itself through a lot of the different things that we talk about.

00:00:28.960 We've talked about this when we talk about socialism, when we talk about the different

00:00:34.280 things that are happening in the news cycle when it comes to intersectionality, even how

00:00:41.340 the news handles different kinds of people and how they report on different kinds of people,

00:00:45.940 how they see what is just and what is not. And so the question is, do we hold ourselves

00:00:52.100 as Christians to that standard of justice, whatever that is, and that's what we'll talk

00:00:56.300 about or to a biblical standard of justice and what is the difference. And really, one

00:01:01.080 of the big questions is, should Christians care about justice? Should conservative Christians

00:01:06.920 care about justice? There are a lot of people who think that justice is a term that has been

00:01:12.560 completely monopolized by the left. And when someone says justice, we might even kind of turn

00:01:18.600 our brains off just a little bit because we think that they're going to come up with some

00:01:22.780 leftist intersectional argument that we don't agree with. Or when people talk about equity or people

00:01:29.320 talk about equality, people talk about love, inclusion, all of these universally positive terms

00:01:36.020 that have been associated, especially in recent years, to progressivism or to leftism. And so a lot

00:01:45.040 of times conservatives will push away from those things and say, oh, well, no, we're not for that.

00:01:50.660 But really what it should make us do when we hear someone say, I'm for justice, I'm for equality,

00:01:56.360 we should ask the question, what do you mean by that? You'll probably notice with a lot of people

00:02:03.020 who I consider on the social justice left, and we'll talk about kind of what social justice means to a

00:02:09.660 variety of people, that they refuse to define their terms. So they very rarely will tell you what they

00:02:17.520 mean by equality or equity or even reparations or justice. A lot of times, literally, the answer

00:02:25.620 that you will get if you're engaging with someone online is Google it or Google is your friend.

00:02:31.420 And they act very put out or exhausted by the task of having to actually inform you what they're

00:02:38.320 talking about. But in any kind of good faith discussion, any kind of debate or dialogue that

00:02:44.420 we're having about a subject that is as important as justice or equality, we need to be able to define

00:02:51.340 our terms, we need to be able to get on the same page. So when someone that you are engaging with

00:02:56.860 uses a word like justice or equality, it is perfectly acceptable for you to ask what someone

00:03:03.540 means by that. Now, you might get a very defensive response, but that will reveal to you right away that

00:03:08.840 they don't have that much of an argument. Because what we see a lot is that people use these terms

00:03:15.080 that they know are supposed to be, like I said, universally positive. If you are against equality,

00:03:20.600 if you are against justice, if you are against progress or love or inclusion, then of course you're

00:03:26.980 a bad person. You're on the wrong side of history. But you don't get to just use these terms and apply

00:03:32.820 them to whatever you want to apply them to. And then say people who disagree with your application

00:03:38.820 of these positive terms must be bad people. No, I'm going to push you a little bit further than that.

00:03:44.580 And I'm going to make you answer for the terms that you're giving me. I'm not just going to take

00:03:48.280 your definition of justice. We need to agree on what justice looks like. And thankfully for Christians, 1.00

00:03:54.240 we have one standard of justice, and that is the standard of justice that God gives us. Now,

00:03:58.940 how that manifests itself, we might disagree on that. But at the end of the day, as Christians,

00:04:04.140 we go back to the word of God as an errant, and as our source of truth, as our source of wisdom,

00:04:08.560 and Jesus Christ is our source of righteousness. And so through him, we can credibly discern what is

00:04:17.020 righteous and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. We don't do this based on our feelings.

00:04:21.980 We don't do this based on what society tells us is just or unjust. We do this based on God's word.

00:04:28.440 And so before we get into what exactly God's word says about that, let's set this up. Let's get a

00:04:33.940 little bit of context. So like I said, a lot of times justice is a term that is used by the left

00:04:41.600 and that we on the right associate with people on the left. We equate the term justice with being

00:04:47.520 liberal. But of course, that is not true. Liberty and justice for all is a term that the founding

00:04:52.360 fathers obviously held sacred. And it's an idea that is really founded in the Bible.

00:04:57.560 That people should be free from the oppression of tyranny or extortion or oppression in any way,

00:05:04.820 and that they should be treated justly. And when I say oppression in any way, I'm talking primarily

00:05:12.700 what the founders meant, of course, by the government. As Christians, we should care about

00:05:18.220 justice. Of course, we should care about justice. We should care that all people are treated equitably.

00:05:23.020 We should care that they're treated equally in the eyes of the law, that no one is being

00:05:27.620 discriminated against by the law because of some kind of immutable characteristic, something that

00:05:33.300 they can't control, that the poor are not being exploited, that criminals are being punished,

00:05:38.580 that the innocent are being exonerated, that victims are being listened to, that they are being cared

00:05:44.320 for. We should care about the truth. Therefore, we should care about integrity in our leaders,

00:05:49.640 in our courts, in our businesses. We should care about the abuse of power. We should care about

00:05:55.120 people being treated with decency, with respect, that they are treated as creatures made in the

00:06:01.320 image of God. These are things that Christians should, of course, care about. I personally, some

00:06:07.620 people just with different kinds of personalities that you have and different towards different kinds

00:06:12.900 of upbringings that you have, have different propensities towards something. I have always been

00:06:17.100 someone who has been very concerned with fairness. I have always hated bullies. If there's anything

00:06:21.920 that gets me more, if there's anything that gets me angry or makes me upset or will, you know, just 0.87

00:06:29.800 get me riled up, as we say in the South, it is a bully. It is someone that abuses their power. It is

00:06:36.920 someone who, in my opinion, is so insecure and is so small and so not confident in themselves and

00:06:42.540 their own strength that they have to manipulate or take advantage of someone who is smaller than

00:06:47.420 them. I loathe a bully and I loathe bullying. I will always say something about that. I don't care

00:06:54.680 if it's a partisan issue. I don't care. I loathe bullies. I loathe abuse. Most people loathe abuse.

00:07:03.320 I'm not patting myself on the back for that. But I hate when the disadvantaged or when the small

00:07:09.620 person or when the weak person or when the vulnerable person, the person who is helpless,

00:07:14.240 defenseless, cannot do anything for themselves when they are taken advantage of. I hate it. I

00:07:20.240 have no tolerance for these kinds of people and these kinds of actions whatsoever. And I have always

00:07:25.720 been that way. And as God's people, we are all called to be intolerant towards these people. We are

00:07:32.520 not to have tolerance for people in positions of power who lie, who exploit, who oppress. Proverbs 8,

00:07:39.000 13 says, the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and

00:07:48.080 arrogance in the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. So we are called to hate these things, not

00:07:54.860 only in the lives of other people, not only in the systems that are around us, but also in our own

00:08:01.500 lives. Micah 6, 8, a lot of you probably know this first to do. We are called to do justice, to love

00:08:08.180 mercy and to walk humbly with our God. This means that God is just, that he loves kindness, that he

00:08:17.540 calls us to walk humbly with him. He has always been just. He has always expected and will always

00:08:24.360 expect his people to act justly, to love justice and to execute justice. Now here, listening to all of

00:08:33.840 that, you might have thought, well, you sound like a liberal. This is a lot of what liberals say and

00:08:40.220 liberals might hear what I just, uh, just said and say, great. Okay. Me too. If you care about these

00:08:48.500 things, if you care about the least of these, the way that you just said, if you care about the poor

00:08:52.420 and marginalized way that you just said, uh, then you have to believe in liberal policies. You have to

00:08:57.360 believe in big government. Uh, you have to believe in all of the leftist government programs meant to

00:09:01.980 combat poverty and uplift those on the bottom. You have to buy into our version, the so-called 0.83

00:09:08.020 progressive version of justice, which of course today is labeled a social justice, but this, this,

00:09:15.700 I do not believe. And I certainly don't have to believe in fact, because I believe in the Bible.

00:09:19.900 I cannot believe that, uh, the form of justice that we often see, not always, but often in many cases

00:09:27.300 coming from the left and leftist, uh, so-called progressive Christians, uh, we see is not based

00:09:33.580 on truth and it also squashes freedom. Uh, so here's what I mean. A lot of people, we've talked

00:09:40.920 about this many times. A lot of people on the left view justice as equality of outcome, not equality of

00:09:47.160 opportunity, but equality of outcome. This is something that I, uh, go in depth in on, uh, the

00:09:53.680 socialism episode. So I won't go too in depth here, but basically these people who see equality of

00:10:00.600 outcome as a, as a just thing, as a necessary thing, they see injustice everywhere. They see

00:10:07.000 discrepancy everywhere. They see a difference. So you will often hear them talk about the gender

00:10:13.600 wage gap, for example, as a form of injustice or the wealth gap between whites and the black community

00:10:19.880 as a form of injustice or acceptance rates into a college of certain minorities that may be lower

00:10:26.740 than white people or Asian people. Um, you'll hear them say that is injustice or the fact that even

00:10:32.940 graduation rates that are different between different, uh, races might be a symbol of injustice. 0.95

00:10:39.920 They will look at these discrepancies and automatically see that something is unfair,

00:10:45.600 that those at the top are disadvantaged and that, uh, this is a sign of systemic injustice.

00:10:53.160 But the reality is, the reality is, is that these are not always signs of systemic injustice.

00:10:58.700 They could be, they could be in some cases, but discrepancies in success or wealth or acceptance

00:11:05.080 into college does not, it does not necessarily or automatically point to bias or a lack of fairness.

00:11:13.080 That is lazy thinking. It might very well have to do with choices, with circumstances that are

00:11:20.200 actually within the control of the people who are at the bottom. Um, in a leftist view of fairness and

00:11:26.460 justice, they very rarely see those at the bottom, those who are poor, whatever, disadvantaged, um,

00:11:34.000 as, as products of choices that someone made. Uh, they rather see them usually as victims of a

00:11:41.720 situation that is beyond their control placed there by oppressors who are in power. And so how they

00:11:48.700 typically view things, uh, is we need to give more to those at the bottom and simultaneously we need

00:11:55.520 to push down those that we see at the top. So everyone ends up being at the same place. Uh, this, uh,

00:12:02.060 an example of this is affirmative action. You accept people of a certain race at the expense of 0.91

00:12:07.720 another race wealth redistribution. You take wealth from people at the top, you give it to people at

00:12:12.860 the bottom. It's an attempt, they say to level the playing field, but it's really not even that it's

00:12:18.940 an attempt to accomplish equal outcomes. And even playing fields is a equal opportunity, uh, where

00:12:26.720 those who are better players are still going to win, but that is not really what a lot of leftists

00:12:32.800 won, especially this social justice left. Uh, they want everyone to quote, uh, win no matter what.

00:12:40.340 So to do that, to accomplish that, you have to discriminate against, if we're using the metaphor

00:12:45.480 of a playing field, the better players you have to, uh, you have to discriminate against those who you

00:12:51.360 deem are privileged or who already have in your opinion too much. Um, Thomas Sowell calls this cosmic

00:13:00.460 justice in his book that I highly recommend a quest for cosmic justice. He describes what leftists call

00:13:06.340 social justice as cosmic justice, because it is based not on any real tangible calculations of

00:13:14.280 determining who deserves what, or who is in the wrong, but on, uh, some intangible, uh, cosmic subjects,

00:13:22.380 uh, subjective calculations of pushing one side down and lifting the other up in the hopes that this

00:13:28.020 will create equal outcome. Uh, an example of what he gives of this is, uh, so say you have a pizza

00:13:35.580 place and the pizza place decides that they're not going to deliver to a particular neighborhood

00:13:40.280 because the neighborhood is dangerous and delivering a pizza there offers a high risk to your employees.

00:13:47.040 Well, say an activist group hears about this. They decide that that's racist. That's unjust. And they

00:13:52.540 say, uh, you can't discriminate against people in this neighborhood. So they organize a boycott and

00:13:57.600 say, you have to deliver to people in this neighborhood. And they say, this is justice.

00:14:01.980 This is fair. This is equality. Uh, because this neighborhood is now being treated like everyone

00:14:07.720 else. Once you give into the pressures of our boycott, but okay, what is the other side of this

00:14:14.720 equation? What is the other side of this so-called justice? So now the pizza place say they cave into this

00:14:21.300 pressure. The boycott was too much in order to stay open. They said, okay, fine. The pizza place says

00:14:26.360 we're going to deliver to this unsafe neighborhood at the risk, uh, to the employees. And because of this

00:14:33.340 risk, this owner of this pizza place say, it's just, uh, you know, his small business that he built

00:14:38.400 from nothing and now is a somewhat lucrative. Okay. Well, because of this risk, because of the risk

00:14:43.860 that is being offered to my employees, that is being posed on my employees, I need to pay them more.

00:14:48.940 Um, I need to pay them more to keep them here. So they don't all quit, which means if I have to pay

00:14:54.500 my employees more, he says, I either have to charge more for the pizza or I have to fire three

00:15:00.120 employees to make ends meet. I'm going to have to cut costs somewhere in order to keep myself in this

00:15:05.460 business afloat. If I'm going to pay my employees more. So say he decides to charge more for pizza to

00:15:10.920 do that. Not only are the people in this poor dangerous neighborhood, not going to be able to even

00:15:15.620 afford the pizza. Everyone else might also stop buying from his restaurant because they can get

00:15:21.200 cheaper pizza everywhere, uh, or elsewhere. And if he fires three employees, he's not going to, uh,

00:15:29.220 be able to make as many deliveries. And then all of his customer base suffers. And as a result,

00:15:34.460 in either case, uh, his business might have to close. And so now the owner of the pizza shop is out of

00:15:40.920 a job. Now all of his employees, maybe they were poor teens trying to make enough money to pay for

00:15:46.160 their books or even provide for their families. Now they don't have jobs. Why all for the sake of

00:15:52.480 what seemed on the surface by this activist group. This is just an example, by the way, to be the just

00:15:58.160 right thing to do, but this is cosmic justice. It aims for some arbitrary goal of fairness for one group

00:16:05.800 at the expense of another group without even thinking about the cost. Uh, it's the same thing

00:16:12.880 for raising the minimum wage or what, uh, the democratic presidential candidates are now calling

00:16:17.520 living wage. It sounds really good. It sounds like you're advocating for those at the bottom who are

00:16:23.660 being exploited by saying everyone deserves a living wage. And if you argue against that, then in my

00:16:30.120 experience, I can tell you that from, from experience, you will be called an elitist bigot. Uh, they will

00:16:34.720 say, well, why, why don't you believe that the McDonald's, uh, employee deserves to feed her 1.00

00:16:41.260 kids? Why don't you believe that Allie? Uh, they ask these really emotional questions because they

00:16:46.160 don't want to deal with the logic that if you raise the minimum wage, the owner of the business is going

00:16:50.900 to find a way to cut costs so he can still make a profit. And by the way, there's nothing immoral

00:16:56.120 about making a profit. It's actually necessary for the business to keep going for it to be worth it for

00:17:01.020 this person to own this business and actually employ people. Also, very often a business owner

00:17:05.940 is going to go without a profit for a long time or cut his own profits for the sake of his business,

00:17:10.620 but he or she can only do that for so long because she has to feed her family. Um, so if you raise the

00:17:17.000 minimum wage, you're either going to have to fire people or raise the cost of the product. Uh, either 0.70

00:17:22.780 way people are going to suffer, uh, soon, I guarantee you, if we raise the minimum wage, then all minimum

00:17:31.860 wage jobs, like waiters, hostesses, whoever, uh, are going to be automated because it's going to be too

00:17:40.320 expensive to, uh, pay the minimum wage when the minimum wage is, is raised. There is going to be no more

00:17:47.740 low skill work available, which means that low skill workers will not have job options. Uh, so the

00:17:53.460 reality is, uh, the minimum wage, obviously, and this is getting a little bit off the justice point

00:17:58.460 a little bit, uh, should be set by the market, meaning that you pay someone as little as they're

00:18:03.440 willing to do a job for. So whether that's $5 an hour or $500,000 a year, uh, but no, it is not fair

00:18:10.300 advocates for cosmic justice say to pay a worker at McDonald's less than you pay a secretary or less

00:18:16.920 than you pay a manager, et cetera. So they say, make sure everyone can live off of what they get

00:18:23.260 paid, uh, for working 40 hours a week, no matter what their job is, no matter what the cost is on

00:18:28.880 the other side of the equation. The other side of the equation, like we've said, is that people

00:18:33.720 suffer. People lose their jobs, businesses closed down. So no one actually wins except, except for the

00:18:41.080 people in government, because the people in government now have more people to care for. They can get people

00:18:46.140 to pay more taxes, to pay all the people who are out of jobs and have to depend on welfare.

00:18:51.820 So no one really though, besides bureaucrats wins in that situation. So that is not justice. Another

00:18:58.360 example of this cosmic justice that sounds good on the outside, but ends up poorly for the people who

00:19:04.720 are involved. Uh, district attorney in Dallas, I think I've talked about this before on the podcast

00:19:09.200 recently decided he's not going to prosecute criminals who steal items or steal something of, uh,

00:19:15.560 less than, uh, $750 in value. If it was done for the thief's economic benefit, that is a real story,

00:19:23.100 a real thing that is happening in Dallas. Um, this is done in the name of social justice and the,

00:19:29.780 in the name of helping the poor and the marginalized, but who does it hurt? Uh, it hurts. Well, I think it

00:19:35.040 hurts the thief first of all, because it trains you to be lazy and to be dishonest rather than making

00:19:41.500 money in a way that, uh, demonstrates any kind of integrity, but it also hurts the men and women,

00:19:47.100 probably even the poor men and women who are just trying to get by, who maybe own, uh, their own,

00:19:53.020 their own business, their own shop and $600 or so of their property that is stolen of their money that

00:19:59.720 is stolen is a big deal to them. That's a big deal to them. Uh, it sounds compassionate. It sounds like

00:20:05.020 you're really helping those who are desperate, but you're hurting a lot of people. So social justice,

00:20:09.660 as it is defined, cosmic justice does not equal actual justice. Uh, the same thing with racial

00:20:16.660 reparations, as we've talked about before, it sounds fair to compensate those who have suffered

00:20:21.860 losses from slavery. That sounds like restitution. That sounds like us dealing with our past and,

00:20:27.300 and facing our past sins bravely. Uh, it sounds righteous and humble and just, and maybe even if

00:20:33.740 you're not thinking very hard, biblical, but when you look at the calculation, it doesn't work out.

00:20:39.120 Number one, no one alive today in America is, or has ever been a slave or has owned a slave in the

00:20:45.960 sense that we're talking about in this context. I'm not talking about sex slavery, which is still

00:20:50.540 very much alive today. Unfortunately, I'm talking about the kind of slavery that we had over 200

00:20:54.300 years ago. So it is impossible to say, if you're talking about reparations, white or black, who was

00:20:59.320 actually affected by it? Uh, people who advocate for racial reparations say, well, white people should pay

00:21:05.200 via the government, uh, black people for slavery. Well, not all black people in America today, 0.98

00:21:11.540 uh, had ancestors who were here 200 years ago. And same goes for white people living in America today. 0.80

00:21:18.060 Also, there were black people who own slaves. So what about them? There were native Americans who

00:21:22.040 own slaves. So what about them? What about half black people? What about people who are one fourth 1.00

00:21:26.180 black? What about them? Do they get reparations? Uh, what about black people who are rich? So should a 1.00

00:21:30.940 middle-class family who's struggling to put food on the table, should they be paying, uh, reparations

00:21:35.860 to Barack Obama and to Jay-Z and to Kanye West just because they're black? Like, is that justice? 0.99

00:21:43.380 There are really no answers to these things because the calculation doesn't work because it is cosmic

00:21:48.060 justice. It sounds good. It sounds like you're advocating for the oppressed, but you're not.

00:21:53.760 There is no way to tell who has really been affected. So this is not based on truth. It doesn't

00:21:57.980 meet the bar for biblical justice because of that. Uh, that is the problem of basing our idea of

00:22:03.900 justice and fairness, uh, not on what is true or what is real or what is tangible or actual or logical

00:22:10.180 or direct, but on what feels good. Uh, so let's bring this back to Christianity because I know it seems 1.00

00:22:16.680 like we took a little detour, but we needed to explain that because so often the religious left

00:22:21.700 monopolize this idea of equality and justice. And they put these definitions on justice that aren't

00:22:26.780 actually biblical. So I want to bring it back. Biblical justice, as we've talked about is not

00:22:32.520 based on what feels good, which is by nature biased, but what is good, which is by nature

00:22:38.660 unbiased. Uh, here's how Leviticus 19 15 defines a one form of injustice. You shall do no injustice in

00:22:48.100 court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness, you shall judge

00:22:54.600 your neighbor. So you do not show partiality to the poor. You don't show deference to the rich,

00:23:00.680 but in righteousness, we judge our neighbor in a court. Uh, righteousness means honesty, integrity,

00:23:09.100 uh, equity truth. Uh, we can deduce from this verse that showing partiality to the poor then,

00:23:16.220 or deferring to the powerful is unrighteous according to God's word. And that showing impartiality

00:23:23.220 or being unbiased is righteous and is therefore just, that's what this verse tells us. And this

00:23:29.720 is not a decontextualized verse. Uh, if you are impartial or unbiased, that means you are objective.

00:23:36.580 Objectivity means weighing the facts at hand, looking at the evidence and deciding a verdict

00:23:41.820 based on that. Uh, James two talks about not showing preference to the rich person in favor of

00:23:47.560 dishonoring the poor, uh, which is confirmation of that Leviticus verse, one part of the Leviticus

00:23:53.700 verse. And then James goes on to say in verses eight, uh, through nine in James two, if you really

00:24:00.180 fulfill the Royal law, according to scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You are doing

00:24:06.220 well, but if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

00:24:12.800 Uh, there is a reason the personification of justice, lady justice, uh, is blindfolded. Uh, 0.55

00:24:20.520 she has a scale in her hand, but she cannot see. This is a very, a biblical depiction of what it

00:24:26.060 means to judge righteously. She is not showing favoritism based on appearance, based on demographic,

00:24:32.020 based on socioeconomic status. She is blind to these things. Instead, she is weighing the facts on a

00:24:38.260 scale. So even though today's brand of social justice, uh, looks through the lens of intersectionality,

00:24:46.520 the lens of which group is traditionally more oppressed than the other group based on their skin

00:24:51.240 color, religion, or whatever it is, biblical justice, biblical justice is different. It looks at things

00:24:57.560 based on the facts of the case based on truth. Uh, that is one meaning of the word justice, uh, that we

00:25:05.720 see in the Bible justice in dealing with crime and punishment, the Hebrew word for that. I'm totally

00:25:10.440 going to botch. This is, is Mishpat M I S H P A T. I'm sorry. I don't know how to pronounce my Hebrew 1.00

00:25:18.840 very well. And it's, uh, occurs in various forms over 200 times in the Hebrew old Testament. Uh,

00:25:25.780 its most basic meaning is to treat people equitably. It means acquitting or punishing

00:25:30.540 every person on the merits of the case, uh, regardless of race and regardless of social

00:25:36.920 status. Uh, anyone who does the same wrong should be given the same penalty. Um, but there is another

00:25:44.160 kind of justice included, uh, in this term in the old Testament that means giving people their due. So

00:25:49.660 recognizing people's rights, uh, the things that they are actually entitled to as human beings made

00:25:55.280 in the image of God, showing them the care and the dignity that they deserve. Um, justice used to

00:26:01.860 punish wrongdoing and justice used to recognize people's rights should be true for both the

00:26:07.320 government and for us as individuals. Uh, we treat everyone with the same honor, with the same respect,

00:26:13.380 no matter how important in the eyes of the world they are. Uh, this is something that we believe the

00:26:19.340 government should do and that we should do. So where this is not happening in the government,

00:26:25.020 that is where Christians have traditionally and should speak up. Uh, when we recognize that the 1.00

00:26:30.060 government is violating human rights by treating them with partiality or cruelty. And that means that

00:26:36.500 the justice, uh, that means that, uh, justice is not being executed in the way that we believe that it

00:26:42.960 should be righteously and biblically. That is where, uh, we stand up. And that is very often that

00:26:48.760 very often means that some of the issues that Christians stand up for are bipartisan or that

00:26:55.220 we stand against are bipartisan. That means, for example, that we care about abortion, uh, both in

00:27:01.420 a legal and a personal sense. So yes, we fight against legislation that strips the personhood from

00:27:07.320 an unborn child. And personally, we help the mothers who are in crisis. We volunteer at pregnancy

00:27:12.480 centers. We donate money. We help with the adoption process, whatever we need to do. Uh, that means,

00:27:20.440 yes, that we care about the children at the border. Now, this does not mean we have to be for open

00:27:25.880 borders. In fact, in my view, caring for kids at the border means strong border policy. It means

00:27:30.880 disincentivizing illegal crossings, making sure that both border patrol and ICE are being supported and

00:27:36.480 held accountable by the way, of course, held accountable, but they're also being supported so that they can

00:27:41.660 ensure justice is being executed towards bad actors, towards drug cartels, human traffickers,

00:27:47.400 and also so these children that are crossing can be cared for well. Um, it also means that we

00:27:54.340 advocate for humane treatment for the children and their families. This again, can be done through

00:27:59.380 legislation. It can be done through a politicians, ensuring these people are treated with dignity,

00:28:03.260 a dignity, and it can be done personally. There are organizations that give aid to people at the

00:28:08.220 border. There are organizations who are on the ground in countries where these people are coming

00:28:12.520 from, teaching these people skills for trade, sharing the gospel, teaching them leadership skills

00:28:17.300 and entrepreneurship. Uh, so real biblical justice in this case, in the case of immigration, just to

00:28:23.120 kind of add, uh, not a caveat, but just a little aside here does not simply mean that everyone who

00:28:30.340 wants to come in comes in. That is not an example of justice because again, this is a type of secular 0.96

00:28:36.380 social justice that sounds good and compassionate, but the other side of the equation is that people

00:28:41.220 are incentivized to cross illegally, putting children and especially girls who stand a very

00:28:45.380 high chance of being raped and sexually assaulted when they're crossing the border at risk. Uh, it

00:28:50.280 creates overflow for border patrol. So humane, individualized, compassionate care for those who

00:28:56.160 are detained becomes impossible. It also means that there will be criminals who are allowed through

00:29:00.740 and the consequences of that both on immigrant and non-immigrant communities in the United States

00:29:06.280 is obviously detrimental, not to mention. It means that we essentially no longer have borders,

00:29:11.180 which means we're no longer a sovereign country, which means that we can no longer enforce our

00:29:15.020 laws and protect our people. So justice in the case of kids at the border, we show compassion to

00:29:21.020 them. We do what we can. We make sure that they are treated humanely, but does that, that does not

00:29:25.260 mean that we don't have laws. That does not mean that we don't have borders. So as Christians,

00:29:29.200 when it comes to not just this, but all things, we have to be thoughtful. We cannot just choose the

00:29:34.140 most emotional option. Now, sometimes it might be an emotional option, um, in the sense that

00:29:39.320 sometimes there might be emotion attached to it, but what's important is that we use truth, that we

00:29:45.400 use logic, that we, uh, use our discernment. We have to consider both sides of the equation. Uh,

00:29:51.460 we have to consider what is true. We have to consider what is righteous. We have to be impartial,

00:29:56.480 uh, for the example of abortion. If we look at both sides of the equation, we say, okay,

00:30:02.240 we've got an unborn child here. We've got maybe a teen mom who is poor and she's not ready to have 1.00

00:30:08.280 a child. We look at both sides of the equation and we say, okay, this baby, if they are born,

00:30:12.840 they could have a really hard life. This mom isn't ready to be a child. It's pretty easy to see 1.00

00:30:17.920 who takes the cake in that side of the equation. It's either dismember the unborn child 0.83

00:30:22.380 or the mom has a hard life. Okay. Well, I don't think that having a hard life either for the child

00:30:28.160 or the mom justifies the taking of a physical life. And plus, of course, there are other options

00:30:33.760 like adoption. And so we're thoughtful about those things. Doesn't mean that we forget about the

00:30:38.380 mother. It doesn't mean that we don't take care of the mother when she's in need. It doesn't mean

00:30:41.760 that we abandon her. Of course not, but it does mean that we weigh both sides and we say, okay,

00:30:47.040 the physical life of a child is always going to trump the non-physical aspects of this and the

00:30:53.280 non-life-threatening aspects of the abortion issue. So this also means that Christians care

00:31:01.680 about justice. This means that we care about what happens in the criminal justice system. For example,

00:31:06.600 you probably know about the infamous crack versus coke crackdown, pun intended there, 0.97

00:31:11.460 where those who had crack were given far harsher sentences than those who possessed just cocaine.

00:31:18.000 Now, there's a lot to this story. There's a lot of history here. There's a lot of context here that

00:31:21.800 we don't really have an opportunity to get into right now. But crack was disproportionately possessed

00:31:28.060 and sold by black people. There was no real reason for the distinction in sentencing between

00:31:32.800 crack and cocaine. And this is often seen as a liberal issue. This is often brought up as

00:31:38.400 as a liberal, I don't want to just say talking point because that sounds trivializing, but as a

00:31:43.520 liberal point about how systemic racism has manifested itself in various ways throughout our

00:31:48.580 history. But this particular instance should not just be a liberal issue because this was not justice.

00:31:55.720 As far as we can see, this was not justice to have this kind of disproportionate, disparate

00:32:00.560 sentencing for crack versus cocaine, because that is not based on reality. That appears arbitrary.

00:32:06.020 So Christians should not be for arbitrary applications of justice or arbitrary applications

00:32:11.520 of sentencing. We should be for equal application of punishment for breaking the law. And it doesn't

00:32:17.300 seem like that happened in that case. And so we should care about that. This means that we care about

00:32:21.820 what happens in our prisons. In April, there was a report that absolutely broke my heart about a woman 0.55

00:32:27.800 who had special needs or who had who had mental disabilities in Broward County, Florida. She was

00:32:36.280 in prison for drug charges. She went to prison in March and they knew that she was very pregnant at

00:32:42.320 the time. She went into labor in April and she was reportedly screaming out for help. She reportedly said

00:32:49.040 that she was having contractions, that she was bleeding. And the police on guard said, oh, yeah,

00:32:55.480 we called the doctor, but the doctor didn't show up and the guards did not offer to help her. And so

00:33:01.120 she was laying there, writhing in pain, screaming. Anyone, I haven't given birth yet as I'm recording

00:33:07.200 this podcast, but I can imagine how painful it is. Any of you who have given birth, especially any of

00:33:12.680 you who have had any sort of traumatic births, know how terrible this probably was. She had no help.

00:33:19.360 She was forced to birth this baby on her own in what I guess was hours and hours of labor because

00:33:25.700 labor typically lasts a long time. It's not typically like this 30 minute thing. And so maybe the guards

00:33:30.580 didn't see. No, I'm sure she was screaming. I'm sure she was in terrible pain. I'm sure she was

00:33:36.880 absolutely miserable. And she delivered this baby. And only when a guard saw her with her newborn did 0.97

00:33:43.340 they call the doctor and the doctor came in with the nurse to check if she was okay. Now we only have

00:33:49.360 but as far as we know from the facts of this case, that is wrong. That is wrong. That is unjust.

00:33:55.380 This was oppression. This is heartbreaking. They could have offered help, but because she was a

00:34:00.940 criminal, because she was poor, because she was powerless, because she didn't, they probably didn't 0.99

00:34:06.480 think this was ever going to get out. They did not offer the help that they would have for other

00:34:11.000 people that they would have wanted themselves. Uh, this is wrong. Christian should want justice to be 1.00

00:34:16.260 done here. We should want accountability. We should want someone to be punished for this.

00:34:20.940 Um, there is an internal investigation going on right now, and that should make us glad. And we

00:34:25.700 should be praying that justice is served here. We should be praying for the people in our prisons.

00:34:29.900 There is no excuse for that unless there is some big part of the story that we just don't know.

00:34:35.220 There's no excuse for that. Her life matters to us. Her baby's life matters to us. And she should be

00:34:42.020 treated with dignity and respect, just like anyone else. Um, the reality that every person,

00:34:48.360 every single person on earth, no matter how young, no matter how old, no matter how capable,

00:34:53.480 no matter how disabled, no matter how rich, no matter how poor, everyone is made in the image of God.

00:34:59.400 That gives us a desire for justice, for people to be treated fairly. The reality that God is a

00:35:07.240 righteous God and hates evil gives us his children, his saints, his chosen ones, his co-laborers,

00:35:15.040 a desire for justice. We care about the weak. We care about the oppressed. This is precisely why

00:35:21.800 Christians like Wilberforce led the way for the abolition of slavery. This is precisely why 0.95

00:35:26.840 Christians like Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom resisted the Nazis. This is precisely why Christians 1.00

00:35:32.580 fought against Jim Crow. That is precisely why Christians fight against abortion. And any Christian, 0.95

00:35:37.660 any Christian who advocates for, um, or so-called Christian advocates for some form of oppression 0.70

00:35:43.940 in the name of the Bible, saying that the Bible justifies whatever oppression they're advocating

00:35:49.700 for is wrong. And so you'll often hear the argument, well, Christians, uh, used the Bible to justify 0.81

00:35:55.980 slavery, to justify segregation, to justify whatever kind of injustice. Well, those Christians, 1.00

00:36:03.260 those so-called Christians, those churchgoers were wrong. They were wrong because that's not what the 0.98

00:36:08.280 Bible says. That doesn't say anything about the wrongness of Christianity that says something wrong

00:36:13.040 about the people who call themselves Christians. Christianity does not justify oppression. It does not

00:36:18.480 justify injustice. In fact, it speaks loudly against those things and calls Christians to 1.00

00:36:24.560 fight against them both legislatively in a way that is thoughtful and truthful, by the way,

00:36:29.520 not just latching on to big government programs that take away people's freedom and don't actually help

00:36:34.660 anyone, um, and personally ourselves. And so when we look at Christians throughout history,

00:36:42.060 Christians, gospel believing, gospel preaching Christians, they have been on the front lines against

00:36:47.680 injustice. Uh, that is why we fight things like abortion. So any, uh, anyone who says, well, the

00:36:57.160 Bible doesn't say anything about abortion or the Bible, uh, maybe even condones abortion. You've got 0.70

00:37:02.460 some crazy people saying that, and they're saying that in the name of Christianity, know that they are

00:37:08.800 wrong, that God cares about the least of these, that God, uh, knit us together in our mother's womb,

00:37:13.920 that he created, uh, gestation, that he created fetal development, that he created, how life was made,

00:37:21.100 how life is developed. He cares. He cares about that. Uh, we do not, as Christians, look to show

00:37:28.080 unfair favoritism to the poor. We do not look to demonize the rich and the powerful. We view people

00:37:34.300 as individuals. That's what distinguishes us between, uh, you know, the social justice advocates and,

00:37:41.520 uh, that's what distinguishes us, uh, distinguishes us. Sorry, I got tongue tied between us and them.

00:37:46.620 Uh, we do not see people as members of groups. We see people as individuals. We do not assign people

00:37:52.460 oppression points based on their immutable characteristics and judge their guilt or

00:37:56.580 innocence from there. That is not righteous. That is not just. So it is not just for a Christian 1.00

00:38:02.260 to say that all black people, all minorities, all immigrants are disadvantaged and all white people

00:38:08.500 are privileged. That is not Christian. That is not biblical. It is wrong to say that all cops are

00:38:14.660 bad. That is not biblical. We view people as individuals and we view their cases based on the

00:38:21.200 facts at hand, based on truth. Uh, we care also about freedom from tyranny, which also leads to, uh,

00:38:29.300 tyranny also leads to the devaluation of life. We believe in the freedom of speech. So the gospel can be

00:38:35.480 shared without fear of punishment. We believe in freedom of religion. So people can worship without

00:38:39.120 fear of punishment. Of course, we know that without these things, the gospel is still going to, uh,

00:38:43.980 spread. And of course we know that without these things, the church is still going to stand strong,

00:38:48.540 but we should believe in these things because these things lead without these things, without freedom

00:38:53.420 of speech, without freedom of religion, that leads to oppression, which leads to human suffering,

00:38:56.760 which is unjust. Uh, this means when it comes to cases about things like discrimination,

00:39:02.300 we are careful not to jump to the most emotional option. Freedom is important. Uh, if you look at

00:39:09.680 the case with Jack Phillips, the cake baker out of Colorado, who, uh, said out of his religious

00:39:16.420 convictions that he was not going to bake a cake for a gay couple for their wedding, he would bake 0.89

00:39:21.720 them another kind of cake, uh, but not a wedding cake because that violated his personal conscience.

00:39:26.760 And Colorado said, too bad. You're going to have to bake this cake. Of course, he was sued by

00:39:32.960 the gay couple and it went to the Supreme court. The Supreme court said, no, you don't have to bake

00:39:38.600 a wedding cake for gay people. Now the Supreme court decision on that didn't actually do that much

00:39:44.000 for religious liberty. That's kind of besides the point. But the fact of the matter is Christians 0.97

00:39:48.540 on that side of the case, uh, we should care about religious liberty because the couple has the 0.99

00:39:54.980 still to go anywhere they want and get the cake that they want made. But Christians are called to 1.00

00:40:01.660 follow God's law first. And that's what this person was doing. And we should advocate for a government

00:40:06.220 that allows us to follow God's law and to not have to violate it because otherwise we're going to be

00:40:13.360 forced to by a tyrannical government. That's not justice. Uh, so here's the most important factor

00:40:19.280 here. Here's what we're going to end on, uh, that you often will not hear that you often will not

00:40:27.520 hear from those who claim to be Christian social justice advocates. Uh, the way to spread true 1.00

00:40:34.240 justice, true advocacy, true peace is not through legislative changes. Uh, it's not even through

00:40:41.460 cultural changes. It is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Uh, those who are dishonest,

00:40:47.800 those who are, uh, who oppress those who dehumanize the unborn, who exploit the poor, 0.57

00:40:53.860 who didn't, who do not enact proper justice do so for one reason. They don't know God.

00:41:01.300 Uh, Ephesians 4, 17 through 24. Now this I say, and I testify in the Lord that you must no longer

00:41:08.740 walk as the Gentiles or non-Christians do, uh, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in 1.00

00:41:15.220 their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them

00:41:19.700 due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality,

00:41:25.660 greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ,

00:41:31.380 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off

00:41:35.940 your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and

00:41:41.100 to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of

00:41:46.600 God and true righteousness and holiness. So there is a difference between those who know God and those

00:41:53.900 who do not. Those who know God, those who are, uh, those who do not know God, those who are not in

00:41:59.580 Christ are darkened in their understanding. They are ignorant. They are alienated from the life of God. 1.00

00:42:05.080 Their hearts are hardened. They are callous. They give into sensuality, to greed, to impurity.

00:42:10.560 Uh, that is not true for those who are in Christ. We are to put off those things which belong to our

00:42:16.600 old selves, to be made new, to be like God in righteousness and in holiness. And I would say,

00:42:23.160 if I can be so bold to extend that, to say injustice and in sacredness and rightness and in being set

00:42:29.480 apart. Now, this doesn't mean that there aren't, uh, moral people who are not Christians in the sense that

00:42:34.840 there are people who follow God's moral law without calling themselves Christians. That is a gift of 1.00

00:42:40.220 common grace that is extended to all people, that all people can know God's moral law, follow it, and

00:42:46.080 still, uh, come across as biblically minded or moral people. There are people like that, but essentially,

00:42:54.160 but essentially the people who, uh, who practice these kinds of atrocities that we've been talking about

00:43:00.680 do so because they don't know God and no one is righteous really apart from Christ. Uh, it is the

00:43:08.820 gospel that changes lives. It is the gospel that ensures real justice and encourages real justice.

00:43:14.520 We cannot separate justice from the gospel. You very rarely will hear someone who is a part of the

00:43:21.080 social justice, even religious left also say that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only

00:43:27.080 life and that no one comes to the father except through him. Why? Because they've adopted this

00:43:31.040 social gospel, uh, liberation theology thing that says, basically the only thing that we need to do

00:43:37.460 is not tell people about Jesus, but just to make sure that they are loosed from their, uh, earthly

00:43:43.360 chains, whatever that is. They see everything through that lens of the oppressed versus the oppressor, but

00:43:49.500 that's not biblical. Our most important calling, our highest calling,

00:43:53.400 is the sharing of the gospel of the love of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ came to die to save

00:44:00.240 sinners, that he rose again three days later, conquering sin and death. That is the thing that

00:44:05.400 changes hearts. That changes the world. And no matter what happens with our government, no matter what

00:44:10.320 happens with our society and our culture, we preach the gospel no matter what. So that's where I'm going

00:44:16.980 to end it today. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Uh, if you do like this podcast, please leave me a

00:44:22.600 five-star review on iTunes. And if you don't subscribe to my channel, Allie Beth Stuckey on

00:44:28.540 YouTube, do that. And feel free to follow me on social media as well. And I'll see you guys soon.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 05, 2019

Ep 146 ｜ Biblical Justice

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