Why You Should Join The Social Justice Committee. - Pat Drummond

At our Wednesday Gospel group, one of us asked "What is the difference between Justice and Social Justice?"

The question was raised with a degree of unease as the establishment of The Parish Social Justice Committee was imminent.

Sister Lyn asked me to address the question and afterwards asked me to commit to writing what I had said for consideration before today's meeting.

So, what is the difference between Justice and Social Justice?

Justice, in most of our minds, is immediately linked to Crime and Punishment.  It's about Personal Justice, if you like, Justice between individuals.

Our criminal law, our police, our judicial and prison systems certainly understand the concept in this way.

For most of us as Christians, Personal Justice presents no intellectual difficulties. The Gospel message of our own sin, repentance and redemption is experienced and well understood. The call to Forgiveness, Compassion and sharing is also most easily seen and practised at this level also, where it involves the individual members of own families, our own churches and social associations.  It's a valid and important Christian concept.

This is the face of Christ dealing, one to one with the leper, with the Centurion's child, with the woman taken in adultery.... with the thief on the cross.

Social Justice on the other hand concerns Just outcomes between groups of people; often between very different, ethnic, socio-economic and geographic subsets within, and between nations.

As such, however, its pursuit often leads Christians into perilous territory, and towards political and social action of one sort or another.

Those who are led by The Spirit in this way are often heavily criticised.  Lord Shaftesbury, Martin Luther King Jnr. and Mary McKillop are good examples of people who came under fire from governments, society, even The Church (in Mary's case), for pursuing Social Justice. But the political and social implementation of the Gospel message is, nonetheless, an equally valid Christian concept.

This is the face of Christ 'turning over the tables' of the money lenders and driving them from the temple, denouncing the pharisees for 'placing loads' on the backs of the poor, feeding his disciples in the cornfield on the Sabbath Day.  These were active social interventions that were meant to publicly confront the political and social inequities of His day.

It is possibly fair to say that it was this side of His ministry that resulted in His Crucifixion more than His personal acts of charity or, even, (although it was doubtless a factor), His theology.

Many Christians, however, are distinctly uncomfortable with this side of Jesus' example and there are good reasons why.

One of them is that Social Justice Committees in Christian Churches are often laid open to charges that they are manipulating religion to serve a political agenda.

Another is that Committees such as these do have the very real potential to polarise and divide congregations. They may even be seen to undermining the maxim that 'religion is something that should unite, not divide us.'

To prevent this happening I think it is important to understand the Genesis of Christian political division.

Briefly, I believe it is this.  All of us have a disturbing propensity to create God 'in our own image and likeness' instead of it being the reverse, as the Bible proclaims.

All of us have been raised in a political culture of one sort or another.  Most of us are very sensitive when 'our team' is seen to be criticised by The Church.

If our parents supported the Liberal/National Party Coalition or the Labor Party we are statistically very likely to support that group also.

And this cultural mindset tends to bleed into all our attitudes on social and political matters.

The Christian Left and their political organisations over the years, have tended to put a heavy emphasis on the redistribution of wealth, through 'Progressive' taxation, Government welfare systems and Equal Opportunity Legislation. They place a heavy emphasis on charity, compassion, forgiveness and, dare I say, they tend to .....'cherry pick' the Bible for those texts that support their position.

They often, however, tend to shy away, from texts that bear on 'the flames of hell', limits to personal or sexual self-actualisation, and the nexus between personal accountability and judgement.

The Sixties were a stronghold of these Christian Socialist organisations and they did, to give them their due, do a lot of good in areas of Social Justice policy.

The Nineties, on the other hand, have thrown up a different paradigm in Christian political organisations.  The Christian Right.

Christians on the Right bear a tradition that is much more heavily focused on Personal Virtue, Personal Redemption, Individual Charity and Personal Responsibility.

Their concerns at a political level are more likely to be on matters relating to personal morality.  So it is no wonder that it has been the issues of Abortion, Sexuality and tough Law and Order policies that their political organisations have become tightly focused.

The downside is, of course, that this mindset tends to make the Christian Right less than sympathetic for any compensatory political or social policies designed to care for those, like single mothers or the unemployed, who, as a group, fall behind.  These groups are often viewed as people who have somehow failed to exhibit what are viewed as the essential 'Christian' virtues of Personal Accountability and Self Reliance.

Christians on The Right are also deeply guilty of 'cherry picking' the Bible for those texts that relate to personal morality and accountability but are often very quiet in the presence of the Lord's admonition that they should ' give all you own to the poor and come follow Me.'

What is the way, then, through this dilemma?  How do such divergent mindsets work together on committees such as ours?

Well, first and foremost, I believe, it is to acknowledge that we carry such political prejudices, and that to move beyond them we have to engage with those who think differently to ourselves with a genuine willingness to listen and to learn.

Secondly, and I believe more importantly, it is to take a conscious decision to actually invert the overarching lens through which we view the world .  It will, for many of us, be a test of where our hearts truly lie.  If we are committed to our Politics first and our Faith in Christ second, then we will inevitably become one of those who will try to use religion to pursue a political agenda; but if we take the far more difficult step of pursuing our Faith in Christ first and our Politics second; then we may hopefully do what Christian Social Justice groups really should do.... which is to use Politics to achieve a Christian agenda.

It will mean some difficult 'rethinks' for anyone truly committed to the process because we will all have to periodically 'switch' allegiance to our natural political institutions on an 'issue by issue' basis.

And that is a tough call.

Ask Tony Abbott, Brian Harradine, Carmen Lawrence, Petro Georgio or any of the others who, from time to time, have followed the dictates of their conscience over the demands of their respective Party Lines.

And their experience should be instructive for us.  Why?

Well, because one would be tempted to think that a pre-eminent commitment to the call of the Gospel over the exigencies of Politics should guarantee the good opinion of all.

It won't.  If history is any guide it will probably mean that you will 'cop a caning' from everyone...depending on whose political aspirations you are cramping at any given moment.

But why should we expect any different.  They didn't go easy on Our Lord either.

The other thing is that a good cross-section of political opinion is essential if this committee is to really have any influence at a local political level.  Politicians and bureaucrats are more easily influenced by people who normally support them, than by the 'usual suspects' that oppose them on every issue.  A healthy range of political outlooks is essential for this committee to be effective at a wider level.

So, if you were hanging back from joining The Social Justice Committee because you were frightened it would be 'stacked' with us Lefties....well, that's all the more reason to join and do your bit to make it representative.

Pat Drummond