My understanding is that “Christian Charity” has long been a part of the Christian churches. The collectivists have long considered the religious to be one of their principle opponents. It is hard for them to force the people to worship The State if those people have a higher being that they choose to worship, thus the protracted and often violent attack on all religion, especially Christianity, which preaches, at its core, freedom from the enslaving affect of sin and godlessness, which translates to liberty in life.
The collectivists constructed a very stealthy means of bringing the religious into their fold, and what they did was subvert the idea of Christian Charity in several ways. One of those ways was to blend it in to class warfare, pitting ‘the poor’ against ‘the rich’ and subverting Christ’s teachings to make the argument that if you have money, you are not a Christian or are guilty of not living a Christ-like life, that you must give your ‘wealth’ to the poor in order to be saved, or, at a minimum, you must support that type of government that is focused on doing so. This became known as “economic justice.”
The “social justice” side of that subversion was to take the concept of “judge not that ye be not judged” and to alter the original intent of Biblical forgiveness to support all types of ungodly and un-Biblical behavior. Thus, criminals became the “victim” because of economic disparities, and the perverse became a victim group that needs to be celebrated (according to their twisted sociology). This is the “social justice” aspect of the collectivist subversion of scripture. It is very clever, because it ties in with the “support the poor” subversion and uses it as evidence that if we don’t abide by these mandates, the result will be social unrest due to the economic disparities (caused by the free-est economic system of Capitalism, which is one of their primary targets).
As a Christian, I believe we do have a duty to take care of those who need help and that we should do what we can to provide the basics and ease the suffering of the less fortunate. That is a far cry from where we are today, though. The Bible teaches us that our primary relationship should be with God and Jesus, and that this relationship will then lead us to voluntarily live a life that helps others, seeks peace, etc. It teaches us Christian Charity, which is to provide a safety net for those who fall on hard times or are incapable of helping themselves. But the other side of that “Christian Charity” is that as soon as people are able to care for themselves, it is our duty to stop supporting them. Why? First, because it is not good for their spiritual health to be enslaved to the handouts of others. Second, it drains the ability of those who can help so that they are less able to help others who may fall on hard times. As we have seen with the rise of the welfare state, if this counterpart to Christian Charity is not maintained, it creates a class of people who believe they are entitled to handouts, who turns them hostile and violent toward those they feel are maintaining their existence, and it slowly sours the spirit of those who are providing as they constantly see the fruit of their labors confiscated and “redistributed.”
As I said, I believe in Christian Charity, but this socialist state we live in is so far from the origins of those Biblical teachings, that I think we can fairly say that those Biblical precepts have been successfully subverted and have turned many churches into propaganda arms of the State.
Very well written analysis, GPM
I couldn’t agree more with your take on these insidious and successful antics of the, what I call “highjacking”, of the dogmatic terms and aims of Christianity, all for nefarious use by the enemies of the Church.
Social Justice, as the term itself, I first heard from the Left using it and secular media using it. When I converted into the Church was when I realized that the term was solidly engrained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), a document which has been around for ions. Universally the Church has an understanding of the term around the globe, so the Left wanted it, naturally, and have succeeded in subverting it.
This has lead to non-Catholics and conservatives to cast a suspicious eye toward the Catholic Church, as if the subverted version of the term came from them.
This is just my take on it, however. When you posited that it came first from the Left, I was interested in the who, what, when and where of the origin of that term, “social justice” that could have preceded the long established CCC.
This is interesting for me. Thanks.