Is Social Justice Biblical? A Theological Deep Dive.

A common misperception among Christians is that biblical justice is different than social justice.  Many assume they're worlds apart — that social justice is a modern, political idea, and biblical justice is something else entirely.  But what if the Bible offers a vision of justice that's more compelling, more ancient, and more transformative than we've realized?  The path to understanding it isn't through a political manifesto, but through a single, profound Hebrew word: ‘mishpat’.  Getting a handle on that one word can change everything.

The Hebrew word for justice is mishpat.  It can refer to retributive justice, where we as individuals pay for the consequences of our actions.  Yet most often in the Bible, mishpat refers to restorative justice.  It means going a step further, actually seeking out vulnerable people who are being taken advantage of and helping them.  But mishpat involves much more.  It means taking steps to advocate for the vulnerable and changing social structures to prevent injustice.

Social justice, then, would not only be a biblical concept but would be a subset of biblical justice.

Claiming that we need only “biblical justice” and not “social justice” is a category error.  Biblical justice includes all forms of God-ordained justice, including the rectifying justice that belongs to the government (what we’d call public or legal justice) as well as justice between individuals (what could be called inter-individual justice) and justice involving organizations and groups (what we’d call social justice).

Whether we use the term or not, Christians are engaged in social justice when we advocate for issues such as abortion, racial reconciliation, religious liberty, and sex trafficking.  We engage in social justice whenever we seek moral reform of our society in a way that ensures every person is treated with dignity and given their due. As Mark Tooley says,

“Christians and churches definitely should advocate social justice in the sense that ever sinful society needs constant moral reform.  The church’s chief tool in this advocacy is the gospel itself. Redeemed humanity is likelier to care about justice than unregenerate humanity.  But even the redeemed need an ethical framework for social renewal. And even the non-redeemed can be enlisted in good causes with appeals to conscience, natural law and self-interest.”

A valid Christian political witness for social justice starts with the premise that all persons are created in God’s image.  It also understands that the state is not the church but has a very different vocation, having been divinely ordained primarily to uphold order and restrain the wicked.  Social justice should not equate all societal improvement with legislation, regulation and other coercive state action.

Instead, Christian social justice understands that most of society is not the state and includes a wide assortment of important actors, including the family, the church, other religions, businesses, philanthropies and charities, trade associations, civic groups and other human groupings, each of which ideally contributes to human order and happiness.

Social justice seeks especially to protect the vulnerable, including the very young, the very old, the unborn, the terminally ill, the disabled, the poor and the unpopular.  Social justice also seeks to energize the able and the powerful towards virtue, thrift and industry.  It shouldn’t seek to deconstruct but to build.  Social justice must also safeguard essential liberties rooted in human dignity and God’s character such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and protection of property.

What are some concerns that Christian critics have with the social justice movement?  One criticism is that social justice advocates focus on racial disparities, suggesting that equal outcomes is the objective, which isn’t a biblical objective.  It is true that the Bible doesn’t teach equal individual outcomes but the Bible does teach fairness, and the presence of significant racial disparities indicates potential fairness issues that warrant attention.  An example from Acts 6 illustrates how perceptions of ethnic disparities prompted action from the Apostles in addressing distribution concerns.

Another expressed concern is that social justice advocates urge dismantling the structural issues that are causing racial disparities instead of preaching the gospel.  The prevailing belief is that combating racism necessitates spreading the gospel and changing individuals' hearts. However, a different viewpoint emerges from Acts 6, where the Apostles faced ethnic inequalities. Their response did not center on preaching against the sin of favoritism.

We relied heavily on material from the Gospel Coalition for this post.