Some of us have been having some heated debates with regard to "social justice." It was triggered by discussion of Eric Metaxis' great book, Bonhoeffer. In particular, our (really, I should say my) heatedness came from hearing Glen Beck, again, demean churches that talk about "social justice."
Granted, I do think some of this confusion is generated by semantics. But I do think it's a good thing to talk about this, and once again, to reclaim our heritage. We could rather use the term "biblical justice" or "biblical social justice," but we need to be careful there too - lest we sound like we're advocating a Rushdoony vision for ordering our society (you can check him out).
I got Tim Keller's Generous Justice for Christmas...
Justice is Right Relationships
We must have a strong concern for the poor, but there is more to the Biblical idea of justice than that. We get more insight when we consider a second Hebrew word that can be translated as "being just," though it is usually translated as "being righteous." The word is tzadeqah, and it refers to a life of right relationships. Bible scholar Alec Motyer difines "righteous" as those "right with God and therefore committed to putting right all other relationships in life."
This means, then, that Biblical righteousness is inevitably "social," because it is about relationships. When most modern people see the word "righteousness" in the Bible, they tend to think of it in terms of private morality, such as sexual chastity or diligence in prayer and Bible study. But in the Bible tzadeqah refers to day-to-day living in which a person conducts all relationships in family and society with fairness, generosity, and equity. It is not surprising, then, to discover that tzadeqah and mishpat are brought together scores of times in the Bible...
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