Posted on 03/17/2010 9:02:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
When Glenn Beck urged Christians to leave churches that preach social justice, he allowed himself to be tripped up by conventional buzzwords of the campus Left. In plain English, “social justice” is a goal of all churches and refers to helping the poor and seeking equality. As a code word, it refers to a controversial package of goals including political redistribution of wealth, gay marriage, and a campaign against “institutional racism,” “classism,” “ableism,” and “heterosexism.” Beck was wildly off base linking “social justice” (of either form) to Communism and Nazism, but he was correct to note that the term is often used as a code.
In the words of Peter Wood, head of the National Association of Scholars, “The campus left learned with its promotion of the concept of ‘diversity’ the advantages of packaging hard-core ideology in bland, feel-good terminology.” “Social justice” is one of several terms — others include “dispositions,” “sustainability,” and “cultural competence” — that has been given in-group meanings by the wordsmiths of the cultural Left.
In 2002, for example, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) issued new guidelines requiring education departments that listed social justice as a goal to “include some measure of a candidate’s commitment to social justice” when evaluating the “dispositions” of their students. As soon became clear, this provided education schools a back-door method of ensuring ideological conformity among their students.
At Brooklyn College, Washington State, and Alaska-Fairbanks — all public institutions covered by the First Amendment — students were punished for voicing opinions that differed from those of the faculty. At Washington State, where the college of education tried to expel a student for his conservative opinions, the dean was asked whether Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia could pass a disposition test at the school. “I’m not sure how to answer that,” she replied.
Eventually, NCATE clarified its wording a bit. Sounding very much like Jim Wallis teeing off against Glenn Beck, NCATE protested the attack on the words “social justice,” saying, “To most Americans the phrase social justice is positive and connotes values associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition.” The problem is that even in its mildest form, the insistence on dedication to social justice puts schools in a position of judging the acceptability of students’ political and social opinions.
Other fashionable buzzwords include “secure livelihoods” and “strong economies,” which seem to refer to redistribution of wealth, not economic development to create new wealth. (Few of the words are precisely defined, but used in context, they convey the general idea.) “Cultural competence” may sound like it would refer to knowledge of different cultures. But it really means the acceptance of multicultural ideology and cultural relativism.
The most potent of the current buzzwords is “sustainability,” which ties traditional environmentalism to the entire left-wing agenda. As Wood says, hundreds of campuses now have sustainability officers, courses that promote the ideology, and most ominously “co-curricular programs run through student life and residence halls to ‘educate’ students about their mistaken ‘worldviews’ and bring them aboard this new ideological ark.” Kathleen Kerr, who ran an astonishing all-out indoctrination program in the residential halls of the University of Delaware (students were all expected to accuse themselves of racism, for example), admitted in a speech that “the social-justice aspects of sustainability education” included lessons on “environmental racism” “domestic partnerships,” and “gender equity.” We are far from tree-hugging here.
The apparently harmless lingo of the Left can’t be taken at face value. It needs an English translation.
— John Leo is editor of Minding the Campus, a website of the Manhattan Institute.
For reference:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2469956/posts
As a Catholic I have often been perturbed by the wide swaths of my Church that seem to endorse the “Social Justice Gospel”. And at times it does make you question whether you should leave. Ultimately I concluded that all Churches are human organizations run by men, which have human failings and fall short of the ideal. No Church is perfect since they are all run by men. Better to stick in there and try to make yours the best Church it can be.
I think Beck got it right and this author has it wrong, especially since the words do not have the same meaning that the author attributes to them. Social justice is Marxist language and always has been.
Uh, probably not, you fellow traveler.
“Social justice” does not appear anywhere in the Bible.
So what happy little meaning do these churches derive from it that couldn’t be better explained by the following:
“Follow the Ten Commandments”
See NCC, National Council of Churches.
I think so too. What the churches are to teach is simply JUSTICE.
If you go to Mt Rushmore, you will learn that our country was established for “life, liberty and social justice”. I kid you not.....................
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Beck’s own religion practices “social justice”
SLC harbors and sends out illegal alien mormons to knock on doors as missionaries KNOWING that they are illegal aliens...
Big time “social justice”
The social justice churches are simply the apostate church of the eschaton.
If the church you’re attending doesn’t preach the doctrine of sin and its punishment, and the exclusivity of Christ’s sacrificial substituional atonement,
run for the exit...
no matter how good their youth programs are :).
The internet has the answer to that, post the information on this thread when you Seek And Find it.
Thanks
Social justice today means Marxist and liberation theology and is against true Christianity.
2 Thessalonians 3:10 (New International Version)
10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
As he says, and as I’ve been saying, it depends what you mean by “social justice.” If you take the words in their proper sense, then it’s a good thing. If you take the words as they are twisted by the Orwellian propagandists of the left, then it’s a bad thing.
In some ways, I think it’s better to quietly suggest the bishops that they need to rethink their propensity to support “social justice” as imposed by government using tax funds. Charity should be voluntary: giving of money and of services. Charity should not be forced.
There are many problems with doing it through the government. First, it is forced. Second, it is highly inefficient. Third, it is easily corrupted by the leftists and their culture of death.
If you cough up $100 in taxes, probably more than 95% of it goes to pay government bureaucrats and building maintenance. And a good part of the rest is used to promote abortion or to break up families and encourage single motherhood.
If you donate $100 to the United Way, probably $90 goes into their pockets and half of the rest is spent on evil purposes.
If you donate $100 to the Salvation Army, most of it will actually be used to help people.
If you give to your church, most of it will be used to help people. If you help out through your church or your local food pantry, all of it will go toward helping people.
Do the bishops really want to build government bigger and bigger, until they take over all the formerly Catholic hospitals because no one has any money left to support them? Then these formerly Catholic hospitals become abortion centers and death clinics?
If Obamacare passes in any form, a ton of money will be taken away from ALL of the private charities and churches, and be given to the government, which will use if for mostly evil purposes.
I think the term "seeking equality" is code for socialism.
The goal of churches should be to spread the gospel of Christ, not wealth redistribution or "equality" in hiring practices.
I think people started doing that, from the Protestant denominations, years ago. That is why they are disappearing in our country. We Catholics who disagree just suck it up, go to Mass, take Communion and ignore it. Find a Mass with a short to non-existent homily. Oh, and refuse to contribute money to any Catholic charity that is pitching this BS. My tipping point: a “green Mass.” As if. Left, went to a later Mass in Spanish. Respectful but unpleasant note to the priest about why I go to Mass, and how it doesn’t have anything to do with dubious scientific assertions.
Beck is right.
If your church is teaching that you should deal compassionately with your neighbor, give from your own pocket to help people in need who cross your path, bless others with what God has blessed you with, then you’re probably in a good church.
If they are teaching you that government should do all those things, you are probably in an apostate church.
If your church is teaching you that we should love and welcome the sinner, then you’re in a perfectly orthodox church. If they are putting unrepentant homosexuals into positions of leadership, get yourself and your family out of there post haste.
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