Replies

"Social justice" is nothing more nor less than the kind of Marxist-lite socialism we have seen from Europe and Canada. It is not a Biblical concept, but comes right out of Das Kapital. The Bible enjoins believers to earn their own living. The only "wefare" program was open to widows and orphans. They had the right to glean in someone else's field, but they still had to work for it and it was not handed to them. The Apostle Paul said of one did not work, he should not eat.

>>
They had the right to glean in someone else's field, but they still had to work for it and it was not handed to them.
<<

Yes, and more importantly with respect to "social justice" is that while the farmer also was not to harvest to the corner of his field, he did not have to worry that the corner would expand each year (to fund "vital unmet needs") and eventually become the majority of the field.

In other words, the same Authority that gave the Commandment against coveting and theft and also commanded provision for the poor knew the difference between a "taking" and a "tax". He did not protect property rights on the one hand (in the Commands) and give society an open-ended way to destroy property rights on the other (wealth transfer).

Advocates of "social justice" will never fully cite the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) because it is chock full of support for free-market principles: the right to own your own labor, the right to negotiate a mutually acceptable wage, the right to enforce a contract, the right to own and control property, the obligation of an employer to promptly pay his workers, among others.

This parable defines real "social justice" in its summation by Our Lord himself: "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?" (Mt 20:15).

To the extent that advocates of "social justice" seek to collectivize property and money for purposes of central planning, they destroy the very rights protected in the Ten Commands as well as the principles shown in the rest of the Scriptures.

Let me repeat: socialism is founded on three sins: Lies, Coveting and Theft. God will not bless any system founded on sin.