Engaging the Culture - Social Justice for Christians - Step by Step Guide

Entering the Mind of a Social Justice Warrior

Alright, today we are going to do something very dangerous. I have been practicing for a long time, building up my stamina, my endurance, and it's all led up to this. Today we are going to enter the mind of a social justice warrior.

Now do not try this at home unless you've done the work like I have. This can be very, very dangerous. But what I've done is I've found my skinniest skinny jeans, I've got my skinniest soy latte over here, I've found the craftiest craft beer that I could find, and, um, well, you know, after we're done maybe I'll even smoke a cigar.

I've read the latest Joe Thorne article, so I feel like I'm almost ready. You know, but something's missing, I just, I'm not quite ready to get into the mindset. I think I know what I'm missing. I need to go find some things to be angry about.

But I have said from the beginning that it is tricky to lead the SVC. Too legit, too legit.

Pastor, his church grows faster and faster than people. Pastor, find him confusing. He sends out his best, but he gains by losing 1 ,000.

Cultural appropriation, I can't believe it. White supremacy, another cis male white leader.

Again, listen, of course, vice president.

Step One: Crafting the Perfect Hot Take

I think I'm ready. I'm gonna give you three steps. Three steps in order to wage this social justice war. Every good warrior needs a strategy, a plan of attack, and I'm going to give that to you today.

So if you want to be a social justice warrior, here is how you do it. Step one, you need good bait. This is known as a hot take, or maybe even speaking truth to power, but you need to put something out there on social media that will get responses.

That's the point. We all know that this war is being waged on social media. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, maybe even YouTube to some extent. But what you want to do is you want to craft a perfect bait so that non-social justice warriors will see it and have to respond.

The first piece of advice I can give you about this bait is that it really needs to be pretty vague. You want to say something that you know what it means. Everybody knows what it means, but it doesn't actually specifically say it.

You want it to be something that maybe they can't even argue with it the way you've worded it, but everybody knows what you mean. So that's one thing that you really want to consider doing. The second thing you might want to consider doing is using words and language that has an established meaning, but use it differently.

So that way it's kind of a different message. One word that people like to use is complementarianism or hierarchy, things like that. We want to tear down the hierarchies, and then people are going to be like, well, I know what that means because of all the definitions and all the history of that word.

But then when they get back to you and confront you about it, then you say, well, I didn't mean it like that. And you see, it's always good. So you can deny, deny, deny. That's also true of the first piece of advice.

If it's very vague and somebody challenges you and says, I know what you're doing there, you can always deny. That's the point. So those are the first two pieces of advice. The third piece of advice is say something that has like three or four examples and say that God's against this and this and this and this.

And then one of those examples, slip it in there. One of them has to be controversial, and then the rest of them are uncontroversial. So if somebody confronts you about your statement, then you're going to say, well, what are you against children?

What are you against love? You think racism's good? That's the thing. You've got to put a bunch of non-controversial things, and then one that's controversial, that's another good piece of bait because people will have to respond.

Another great way to do this is use repetition. We all know that repetition is the best way to get your point across. Just keep saying the same thing over and over and over again. That's good hot takes right there.

That's good bait. Another thing, this is very popular lately, is you've got to take a complicated issue that's very nuanced and things like that and pretend that it's not at all. Just say something very simple as if it's so obvious what the solution is.

Just say it as if it's perfectly clear. If you don't agree, you're evil. That's the best way to do it. You'll definitely get a response there. That's the best way to get your point across. Like I said, good bait, good hot takes, speaking truth to power, it's all of these things because this is all about getting a response.

Step Two: Waiting for the Response

Step two is the easiest step. The next thing you need to do is just wait for somebody to respond. If you posted it right and you've crafted a good hot take with perfect vagueness and misuse of language and maybe even a list or two repetition, if you've done all these things, you will get a response pretty quickly.

In the time that it takes to wait, there's a couple pieces of advice I can give you. You could make another soy latte. You could have another craft beer. Maybe even check for the latest Joe Thorne article to see if he's posted anything new lately.

These are all things you could do. You could even go on Amazon and shop for some new clothes, maybe a V-neck or something like that. That might be a good idea. Or you could even just search for something to be angry about because we all know we need something to be angry about.

Another thing you can do while you're waiting for a response is look up new words that you can use in your social justice battles. I just found a couple recently that are great. For example, flourishing.

That's a great word because who's against flourishing? If somebody's against social justice, well, they're obviously against human flourishing. Also, a good one. Moral brokenness. That's a good one as well.

Sexual minority. Ally. You see, these are great words that you can use. Use this time to you. Redeem this time. Use it to your advantage and find out more words that you can use in your online social justice battles.

Step Three: Defending Yourself as a White Social Justice Warrior

Now, step three is a little bit more complicated because there are some different things that I would recommend depending on whether or not you're a POC. If you're white, you might have a few different responses.

You can be a white social justice warrior. There's nothing wrong with that. You just got to be careful to only use white-approved strategies. I'm going to separate this into two parts. The first is advice for my white social justice warriors.

The first thing you can do when somebody responds and questions what you said in your hot take, just tell them to Google it. Just say, hey, use Google. Google's free. That's a good response because it doesn't really answer their question and it forces them to Google it and it always gets the appropriate result because we all know that you shouldn't feel forced into a conversation after your hot take has been posted.

The second thing that you can do, this is a piece of advice, again, for white people or POCs for that matter. Just tell them how much your opinion is going to cost you socially or with any standing. The more that it costs you to have the wrong opinion, the more believable it is.

It adds believability to it. Here's a piece of advice. You could say, well, I could get fired for my opinion. We need to let my opinions cost us something. That's the best because once they know that you're sticking your neck out there to be against racism, then they know that it's probably true because you wouldn't risk your livelihood if it wasn't true.

So you always got to throw something like that in there. Another piece of advice that you could do, this one always works, is when somebody questions what you said, you should say, well, you need to listen more.

You need to learn and be allowed to be teachable. You need to listen to people of color more. Those are the best. I mean, honestly, if you're a white person, I would use that every day because obviously if somebody disagrees with your hot take, they're obviously a racist or they just don't listen.

That's the thing. They're just not listening and learning. They're not humble. They don't have a teachable spirit, so you need to tell them that. They need to know they don't have a teachable spirit. Another piece of advice is you could just say, hey, I don't like your tone, so I'm not going to engage with you.

That's a good one, too, because it kind of puts them in their place. I mean, they can't talk back to you. How dare they disagree with your hot take? So you tell them, maybe when you lower your tone, I can engage with you.

The other thing that is always good, it really works as well, is just tell them that they're ignorant. If they disagree with your hot take, it's obviously because they don't know any better. They just don't know.

I'll play a clip right now of somebody using this tool perfectly.

I think there's a cascading effect, and it starts with ignorance.

And so you see, they're ignorant. If they don't agree with you, they must not know what you know. And so that's always good to give yourself sort of that moral superiority, that intelligence that they don't have.

And they need to know that they don't have it, so they need to go get it. And so those are my pieces of advice to defend yourself, how to argue like a social justice warrior if you're white. Now, if you're a POC like me, you can use all of those same tools, but you also have some new ones that I can give you as well.

Step Four: Defending Yourself as a POC Social Justice Warrior

The first thing you can do is when somebody responds, tell them that you're not going to engage because you're just too traumatized to do it. It's traumatic to have to argue for your points, use reasoned defenses, logic.

These things, this is all about white supremacy. I mean, logic and reason, this is white supremacy. Having to put forward reasonable, plausible arguments and defend them in public, that's part of white supremacy.

And so it's traumatic to defend. Now, here's a clip of somebody using this defense perfectly.

From the earth to the moon, and you can't do research on the racial history that we need to fight in this country. I don't want to be traumatized by teaching you history. I want you to grow up in your spiritual maturity.

Here's another one.

Use words like white privilege or supremacy. Use it as often as possible, because we all know that if a white person criticizes what a POC like me is saying, that there's clearly an issue there. They feel comfortable, you know, really advancing white supremacy.

And that's not okay. That's not okay with me. And you need to tell them that. They need to know that. And that's part of waging social justice war. Putting white people in their place for being white supremacists.

Another thing that I like personally, this is a good one too, is refer them to some books. I mean, they obviously don't read if they disagree with you. I mean, look, if you don't agree with social justice, you're just not really well read.

I mean, a perfect, a good example is the New Jim Crow. They obviously haven't read the New Jim Crow. If they did, they would, of course, be a social justice warrior. Oh, another good one is Divided by Faith.

These are books that you need to read, obviously. If you don't agree, you need to read them. And if you don't agree, read them again, read them again, read them again. This is just what you do. And, of course, the last piece of advice I have for POC social justice warriors is the always useful, the always timeless race card.

You can always pull the race card. And that's how you wage social justice war. I'm going to throw in a bonus step as well for all of my Christian social justice warriors out there. This is regarding how to use scripture, how to use the Bible in your social justice battles.

Step Five: Using Scripture for Social Justice Battles

The very first thing you must always remember, this is the most important thing. Whatever scripture you use, it must use the word love or the word justice. That is extremely important. You must use one of those two words.

The other thing is it must be ripped out of its context completely. We cannot have people looking into the passage and finding out what it actually is about. We just need to have them focus on the words love and justice.

Let them figure out what it means. That's the thing. The third thing is that it must be presented in such a way that it appears obvious to support social justice. Again, we don't want them thinking about that proper context, the exegesis of the passage.

We just want them to think, hey, it says justice, so it must be about social justice. Present it like that way, matter of fact, no apologies. That's how you use scripture. It's the best way. You see, this is how you wage war as a social justice warrior.

Again, step one, put out good bait, hot takes. Step two, wait. Don't forget to redeem the time. Step three, defend yourself, but only defend yourself in the ways that I've recommended. Step four, if you do use scripture, make sure that you follow my... Blah!

Blacked out.