Saturday, January 12, 2013

January 13, 2013

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  Micah 6:8

If they are well intentioned then they are naive. If they are out to fundamentally change traditional America under the guise of they are not to be trusted and should be opposed.
If their idea of fairness is creating equal opportunities then count me an ally. However, if their notion of fairness is equal outcome by redistributing wealth from the successful producers to the non-contributing members of society I part ways with that.
As I mentioned in my previous post, "social justice" has become a buzz word for the practice of redistributing wealth by attacking the rich through punitive taxes and regulations. In the worldview of the progressives or socialists, the wealthy aquired their wealth by exploiting the middle class and it is now time to level that out.
In my last post I shared several issues of concern with the concept fo social justice espoused by the President his political party which is currently in charge of our nation.
Today I want to get personal and highlight some of the concerns I have with their brand of "social justice".


WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS OF “SOCIAL JUSTICE”?

1) It Will Impact Your Faith
The people who want to bring fairness and parity to American culture have already infringed on the rights of the Catholic Church by mandating them to distribute contraceptives and to fund abortions against their religious convictions.
They are infringing on the convictions of some military chaplains by pressuring them to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex marriages.
If the government's concern about fairness don't seem to extend to people with religious views that oppose their agenda.
2) It Will Impact Our Freedom
One way the progressives go about accomplishing their income redistribution agenda is by increasingly imposing higher taxes and restrictive regulations.

The class envy and class warfare strategy of the progressives is designed to weaken free enterprise capitalism and replace it with socialism of some sort.
Think about it. Losing money and personal property to the government is also a loss of freedom. If you don't have personal property rights you don't really have freedom.
 3) It Will Impact Our Finances
High tax rates and punitive regulations remove opportunity for businesses to prosper and strengthen the economy. It shrinks your take home pay and reduces your ability to save, spend and invest.
Also, the more money that is pulled out of the private sector into the government the more  the economy shrinks and struggles.
A government that is running up trillion dollar deficits every year and continues to borrow $.40 of every dollar it spends weakens the value of your spending power.
4) It Will Impact Our Future
Think about how your future will be impacted if your faith is opposed tor restricted, if your freedoms are reduced, and you can earn less money and save less money and have less money to invest.
What sort of a future does that bode?
For a clue of how your future could be impacted by the implementation of "fairness", study Greece or Spain or Italy and see what sort of futures their people are facing.
Perhaps you are thinking, "Brad, why are you getting so political? I thought this is supposed to be a spiritual devotional blog."
While this struggle is being played out on the political arena it is essentially a spiritual conflict between secular humanistic values and Judeo-Christian values. The people of God must understand the nature of the battle so they can know how to pray, how to live, how to vote and how to discern the times.

January 12, 2013


“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
 
If you have young children or if you have had them I am sure you are familiar this phrase, “NO FAIR!”
 
Fairness is a big issue in 21st century American culture. There is great value and virtue attached to efforts to make things fair.
 
During the recent Presidential election we heard our President talk about fairness a lot. He promoted raising taxes for the higher income Americans to make sure they pay their “fair share”.
 
Many on the liberal side, or the left side of the political spectrum have – either intentionally or unintentionally – equated “fairness” with “justice” and refer to their efforts to make society fit into and conform with their notion of fairness – “SOCIAL JUSTICE”.
 
Let me ask you several questions about fairness:
 
·         Help me make a list of some things that are fair about life.

·         If you think something is fair but I think it is unfair – who is right?

·         If we both agree something is unfair how do we make it fair?

·         What happens if by making it fair for us we make it unfair for others?

·         Is fairness about opportunity or is it about outcome?
 
Are you beginning to understand the complexity of the problem?
 
WHAT ARE THE ISSUES WITH “SOCIAL JUSTICE”
 
"Social Justice". That phrase sounds good doesn't it? Social refers to people and relationships. Those are good things!  
 
And who doesn't like justice? God knows we could use a lot more justice! Different forms of the word "justice" appear 200 times throughout the Old Testament! So, obviously it is an important concept.
 
What is the problem with social justice? Why should you be concerned about it?
 
Several of the problem areas have to do with the underlying worldview behind the liberals view of "social justice". This worldview is vastly different from the traditional Judeo-Christian viewpoint. Here are several examples:
 
1) GOD VS. GOVERNMENT
 
Our Founding Fathers believed that our rights and freedoms were bestowed by the God Who created us and the role of this new government was to protect those freedoms. For nearly 150 years that principle was honored. But with the rise of the Progressives over the past century, that has begun to change. To them rights are granted by government.
 
Progressives have systematically marginalized God and the Bible and the role of faith in the culture. It appears their goal in dimishing those institutions has been to increase the role and influence of government.

Traditional ideas of justice center around protecting individual rights according to the moral values expressed in the Founding documents.

For many of those in power today, justice is meted according to what best serves government interests.
 
2) CONSTITUTION VS. CHAOS

Another fundamental different in how progressives view "fairness" has to do with the nature of truth.

Traditionally, justice and  notions of fairness have been grounded in the absolute truths of our Constitution which are based on the unchanging truths of the Word of God.

Many of our current leaders do not honor absolute truth. The same is true of a teachers and college professors. Rather, they are guided by situational ethics generally dictated by what best serves their political agenda. When justice is dictated by a whim, you essentially are in a state of chaos.
 
3) FREEDOM VS. FORCE

There is a distinct difference between believing that freedom is a gift from God and guarded by Constitutional rights and assuming that rights are granted by government to serve the state.

When your freedom depends on government granted rights, that freedom can be taken by the government at their discretion and you live under the threat of force.

4) DIGNITY VS. UTILITY

Traditionally, because individual rights were understood to be granted by God, there was dignity assigned to each person and his freedom was a sacred trust to be protected by government.

But in the worldview of most current leaders, the value on an individual is determined by how useful that person is to the state. Weakness, old age, mental impairment, or serious illness requires extra money and resources from the state and therefore makes you more of a liability than an asset to it.

Jesus told us to be "wise as serpents and harmless as doves".

II Chronicles 12:32 talks about the "men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do".

As people of God and the Church of Jesus Christ, we must know the times in which we live and understand how notions of freedom, rights and justice are changing so we can stand for God's truth and justice.