Response to the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel

At a bare minimum, perhaps the statement will help to do away with the Gnostic-like notion that only people of certain ethnicities (or even worse, people of certain ethnicities who agree with the “social justice” advocates’ views) possess the “secret knowledge” that permits them to engage in the discussion and expound upon the Scriptures relating to these topics.

And…

…my hope is that after he’s finished with both series, we can continue the discussion on a foundation of solid biblical truth that has been the hallmark of MacArthur’s ministry for over five decades.

By the way, Thabiti Anyabwile, the person that MacArthur and the Pyromaniacs have called out, has called it a great statement although he probably won’t sign it.

My own frustration at this whole Social Justice kerfuffle is that lack of true listening to each other to really hear what people are saying. MacArthur (and Johnson and Cho) used Thabiti Anyabwili’s article, “We Await Repentance for Assassinating Dr. King,” as his represented belief about repenting of the sins of one’s ancestors, even though Anyabwile clarified that’s not what he meant in a later article. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabiti-anyabwile/he-said-she-…

So by misrepresenting Anyabwile’s position, MacArthur, Johnson, and Cho have set up the strawman argument to bash. This is just one of many logical fallacies (there has also been appeal to motive, slippery slope, guilt by association, and the list goes on) that they have used in their attack on those who see Social Justice as a vital implication of the Gospel. I will not sign it, not because of what it says (the overwhelming majority conforms to what I believe), but because those who created it/promote it created a caricature of what people were actually saying, which borders on slander.

As one person has summed up, “The statement remains in my view a cynical, misguided document that has been pitched by the wrong people, at the wrong time, in the wrong way, and with wrong ideas and understandings in the background.”

By the way, I do not believe that they should not engage in conversation because of their ethnicity or what they believe, but rather their apparent lack of social ethics scholarship from a Biblical perspective (which makes it hard for me to take them seriously) and their borderline-slandering against the those they should have unity with.

…would simply be to note that when someone suggests that “social justice” demands certain action on the part of the church, that the person calling for that simply justify each specific action desired Biblically. With Joel, I am very leery of lumping it all together for the simple reason that some of it is eminently Biblical, some quite debateable, and some contrary to God’s Word.

Joel, I can see how MacArthur and others came to the conclusion they did. Although Thabiti wrote a disclaimer (I am not talking about repenting for the 50’s and 60’s), and he rightly argues that those same kind of sinful attitudes are always potential, he wrote:

Until this country and the church learns to confess its particular sins particularly, we will not overcome the Adamic hostility that infects the human soul and distorts human potential.

When you say a county and the church needs to confess particular sins, it sure sounds like groups to me. If it were individuals within the church and some people in our country, that would be a different story.

So is he clarifying or backtracking? It sounds like at least group repentance to me.

So Adamic sinfulness can now be overcome by the confession of others? Hmmm. I thought it could only be addressed by the new birth, and would continue to remain as a partial problem until we are entirely sanctified in Heaven. Methinks Thabiti, and too many others, are looking for ways to achieve the perfect righteousness that belongs to the eternal kingdom here in this present sin-cursed world. Can’t be done, and humanly defective attempts to achieve what only final redemption will accomplish can only bring additional disappointment.

I do think Thabiti went out way to far in framing his argument that society in general has never repented of the racial hatred of the past. He’s a smart guy, I don’t know why he chose to do so.

However, I do think a valid question to ask is why, when the church has been so vocal about how the sins of abortion, homosexuality, alcohol consumption/drunkenness, divorce, etc. have permeated society, it has been relatively silent (really non-existent) on the issue of racism?

I believe a satisfactory answer to this question would go a long way to satisfy Thabiti.

I think the Statement on Social Justice (and the Bible) is clear that racism is a sin, and that the only thing which can unite people is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which brings freedom from sin, perfect forgiveness and adoption into God’s family to people from every tribe, tongue, people and nation.

Joel, I can see how MacArthur and others came to the conclusion they did. Although Thabiti wrote a disclaimer (I am not talking about repenting for the 50’s and 60’s), and he rightly argues that those same kind of sinful attitudes are always potential, he wrote:

Until this country and the church learns to confess its particular sins particularly, we will not overcome the Adamic hostility that infects the human soul and distorts human potential.

When you say a county and the church needs to confess particular sins, it sure sounds like groups to me. If it were individuals within the church and some people in our country, that would be a different story.

So is he clarifying or backtracking? It sounds like at least group repentance to me.

My point is that Thabiti wasn’t saying that we need to repent of our ancestors sins the way that Johnson and Cho said he was in several posts in Pyromaniacs and MacArthur’s recent post on Social Justice. They made a strawman argument plain and simple and either deliberately or unintentionally misrepresented Thabiti and need to be called out on it. Whether he meant current group repentance is another issue and needs to be debated or whomever (hopefully without any more border-line slanderous fallacies by MacArthur, Johnson, and Cho).

So Adamic sinfulness can now be overcome by the confession of others?

So you actually think he is denying the essentialness of the new birth? Do you think that he is emphasizing works as part of our salvation when it comes to racism? You might want to be careful not to extrapolate one line from an article but rather look at his entire body of works (articles and sermons) that he has written.

Now I’m going to admit that there are some portions of “social justice” that we can let slide, but in some others—race is a great example—we’ve got some “institutional patterns” that we ought to recognize and make extra effort to overcome. We need to remember the roots of the SBC, the reason BJU lost its tax exemption, and the like. A little bit of outreach in terms of culture might go over well as well.

Calling it “collective repentance” is probably unfortunate, but when you start to recognize the mistakes of the past, you’re also far more likely to figure out the mistakes you’re making today.

When we began homeschooling in 1990, I refused to use Bob Jones curriculum because they forbade interracial dating and were out to keep the races separate.

While they were separating from others over this and that, some of us were separating from them, although they never were aware of it (I don’t think). Moody, where I went to school, was looked down upon by some because they made great efforts to educate African-American Christians in both their main day school — and quite heavily in their night school. They had a legacy of Black teachers. I think it is ridiculous to use the catchall “the church.” I would prefer to know “which church?”

Some churches and institutions made great efforts at social uplift.

So am I somehow responsible for the thinking perpetrated at Bob Jones back when? No.

[Joel Shaffer]

…even though Anyabwile clarified that’s not what he meant in a later article. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabiti-anyabwile/he-said-she-s…

He may have given an attempt to clarify when he tried to explain this statement away:

“My white neighbors and Christian brethren can start by at least saying their parents and grandparents and this country are complicit in murdering a man who only preached love and justice.”

But it was not at all believable. If he really meant that some were complicit, he should have said so. He was either extremely careless formulating it this way, or it was what he intended. Either way, his “clarification” of this statement was condescending, and it’s clear he wasn’t apologizing for saying it.

I can try to read the other things he said, some of which were helpful, but when you know his thoughts on a statement like this, it’s entirely too easy to ignore the good things he’s trying to get across. You know, many of us would like to learn how we can avoid things that were clearly wrong in the past, so we don’t commit them ourselves, but speaking for myself, I will definitely be listening to others who aren’t so inflammatory rather than subjecting myself to a constant diet of statements like the one I quoted. IMO, statements like the MacArthur one are much more what we need. You don’t have to sign it. I haven’t decided myself. I do know I lean much closer that way than to the evangelical SJWs.

You know, many of us would like to learn how we can avoid things that were clearly wrong in the past, so we don’t commit them ourselves, but speaking for myself, I will definitely be listening to others who aren’t so inflammatory rather than subjecting myself to a constant diet of statements like the one I quoted. IMO, statements like the MacArthur one are much more what we need. You don’t have to sign it. I haven’t decided myself. I do know I lean much closer that way than to the evangelical SJWs.

So Dave, are you fine with MacArthur, Cho, Johnson’s and others inflammatory rhetoric who were the initial creators of this document and their continual pattern of misrepresenting statements on their blogs, their guilt-by association rhetoric with accusations of critical race theory, cultural Marxism, and Intersectionality, accusations of having a pragmatic motive (to be accepted by the culture and/or bring in more people in the church), and accusations of the inevitable slippery slope towards a social gospel?

Even your rhetoric, calling them evangelical social justice warriors, has shown your negative bias towards some of the most evangelistic, church planting people that I’ve gotten to know. Eric Mason (who is about to release his book “Woke Church”) has been constantly criticized by many of the signers, pastors Epiphany Fellowship and they are all about spreading the gospel and forming local churches (have started 4 churches in the past 7 years and will be starting 3 more soon) https://epiphanyfellowship.org/connect/church-plants/ They are also very passionate about Social Justice as a vital implication of the gospel and have received unwarranted criticism for it by signers of the document. Thabiti is far from being a social justice warrior. As to his complicit statement, I am not as positive as you are when it comes to white Christians back in the 1960’s. When Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, Dolphous Weary (who was discipled by John Perkins) writes that his entire floor erupted in cheers at LABC (now Masters College). I have personally talked to several elder civil rights generation Christian blacks that went to Christian colleges (where they were overwhelmingly the minority) and that was a common thread story among all of them. There’s alot of hurt among black Christians and when they voice them they are accused of being inflammatory. My advise to you if you are really serious about not making the same mistakes from the past is to be empathetic rather than defensive and be slow to listen.

Also, I would save the Social Justice Warrior rhetoric for those who actually pride themselves as being so (Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis, and the many other progressive evangelicals). They are the ones that are actually compromising the gospel and have embraced secular sociological theory on race and social justice.

One of my problems with this document is the lack of apparent serious scholarship that is represented when it comes to the subject of Social Justice and the Bible. Only 1 of the 13 initial signers/creators is a scholar in Biblical Ethics (his specific focus is economics and the Bible) The rest are pastors, writers, and a couple that have apologist/discernment ministries. I seriously doubt that the other 12 have devoted a lifetime of serious studies and scholarship to actually deal with the topic of social justice and the Bible. Have any of them written a Thesis or Dissertation or even serious journal articles on social justice and the Bible? Rather it comes across that they are using their credibility from one area (such as expository preaching) to pontificate about another area where they haven’t really engaged the source material going back all the way to the 1840’s where the term Social Justice was first used. Instead what has been presented are short articles coming from social media sites and blogs that are filled with strawman arguments.

So many people are talking past each other. So many people from the “SJW side” (not trying to be pejorative; just looking for a quick identifier!) aren’t clearly explaining what they’re saying. What they say sounds incomprehensible and un-biblical to me. Every attempt to clarify only confuses me more. I don’t, for the life of me, so what is controversial in the Statement on Social Justice. Any Christian ought to be able to affirm it with enthusiasm.

i think this is fundamentally a clash of worldviews, which is why nobody understands the other. I don’t think the SJWs have a biblical worldview. I think they have a secular worldview that’s uniquely influenced by contemporary American culture. I would be interested to know how well this same approach would be received by Christians in, for example, South Africa or Ukraine. I’d be interested to see how Boer Christians would do by calling for repentance from British Christians, or the Ukanians likewise from Russian Christians …