Biblical Justice vs. Social Justice with Monique Duson - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 19

To the Got Questions podcast. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about biblical justice versus social justice. And I have with me on the show today, Monique Dusan, the president and founder of the Center for Biblical Unity.

Biblical Justice and Social Justice

So Monique, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. It's great to talk to you about this. I've, I've heard you speak on this multiple times and I just love how you explain the issues. So kind of to lead off, what is the difference between.

Biblical justice and social justice? Basically a play on words. I feel like the word justice itself has been co-opted by, by culture. But when I think about justice, justice is, it is social. We are social beings.

We're meant to live in community and to do life together. And so, you know, no man is, is an island, so to speak, you know, no one does justice alone, but in, in the wording and kind of vernacular of culture right now, we, we see this term social justice, and that has led many people to give very clear definitions between what's being talked about in culture and defined as social justice to, or it's led people into a contrast or to, to a distinct difference between biblical justice.

And so I'll start off with, with social justice. Social justice right now is being defined as the things that society has really cared about or is really concerned about in regards to people. And so it can vary from whatever culture may deem as being unjust, unfair, not nice, you know, so we can look in culture and see things like reproductive justice.

Reproductive justice is just another way of saying abortion or my choice, being able to choose to have an abortion. It's, it's a justice issue because it's not fair that we're saying people should not have the right to murder their unborn babies.

You can look at, you know, the, the queer theory and justice regarding LGBTQ plus, and, you know, how are we making all things equitable and equal for the people who identify as LGBTQ plus. And so what I'm trying to say is that really social justice are the, the issues that society is currently deeming as justice issues.

Biblical justice, on the other hand, are the things that scripture says are issues of justice. So we serve a just God, our God is just. And so as Christians, we should be concerned with justice. We should be doing justice.

Now I have to offer the caveat, we must be doing it according to scripture, because if we're not doing justice according to scripture, we could find ourselves in sin. When scripture addresses justice, it, it addresses things that are impartial, things that are equal, that we are not upholding partiality against one another.

It looks at equal weights and measures. And I will even offer the caveat of, of partiality because I know some people will say, well, then why not have, you know, a homosexual priest or a homosexual pastor or something like that.

Partiality based on God's standards. So it's not according to the laws of God and impartiality to say that, you know, certain people can hold certain offices within the church. Those are the tenants and foundations that God has laid out.

So again, biblical justice is doing the things that God has said in regards to justice, in regards to keeping things fair and partial with like without partiality, equal weights and measures. We're not going to uphold the rich more than we uphold the.

Poor. So I can James two, or it talks about, um, if you see the rich man walk into church and you treat him with special respect or give him the, the best seat. I mean, as opposed to the poor people, that is not a just thing to do.

Um, so our society today, I really like how you explained it and that we're calling a lot of things, justice related issues that really aren't or never have been before, but how do we as Christians, as followers of Christ, um, speak to these issues?

How do we present what the Bible says about justice in the midst of a society that is pushing justice.

In a completely different direction? We maintain truth. We define our terms and we maintain truth. And so when people talk about justice and you're in a conversation with someone who may not be a Christian, they're like, well, you need to be doing justice.

You can say, well, how do you define justice? Because I have a very distinct definition based on the scriptures. And you can get into that conversation when people are, um, pushing and encouraging that Christians, um, support reproductive justice.

We are clear that scripture says we do not do that. We don't participate in sin. I tend to say that doing injustice in the name of justice is still unjust. And so if I am rooting for something that is ingested in an unjust system or injustice overall, in order to make sure that everything is equitable or fair, am I not still participating in injustice?

We have to make sure that we're doing justly, that we are doing just things because if we're not doing just things, then it's still sin.

Abortion, Poverty, and Other Concrete Injustices

So in society, I mean, there's more listeners to this here in the United States than anywhere else. Of course. What would you point to. Some concrete examples of injustice in our society that, um, that match what the Bible says about injustice and how do we, um, really focus on those without losing the people who are focused on all the other issues, which may or may not be related.

To biblical justice? Yes. So some real tangible definitions or, or examples of injustice in our society, I would say as abortion, you know, that that's, it's systemic it's, um, like in law. And so it is an injustice.

It kills more black babies than any other, you know, population in America. Um, and so speaking out on behalf of the unborn, the most vulnerable population is really important. And I can also look at the poor and look at like payday loan places or like those check cashing places that prey on the poor, you know, in, in Exodus, I believe it is honestly, it's like Exodus 22, 21, 22, 23, right in there.

It says that, you know, we don't charge interest to the poor. We don't, we, we treat the poor in a certain way so that we are not taking advantage of them, but where is the first place that a payday loan place will go and set up.

They're not going to do it in, you know, some affluent community. They're going to prey on the poor. How do we exegete our communities and look around to say, you know what, I bet that there are some justice issues that are going on here so that we can truly speak out on behalf of those who really may not have a voice that I may have with the level of education or, um, you know, power isn't the word that I'm looking for, but, um, maybe the platform that I.

Have. So speaking of platform, I've been fascinated with the center for biblical unity for a while now, and just tell our listeners who may not be familiar with it. Um, what is the center for biblical unity and what is the mission?

What do you believe that God has called you to in this.

The Center for Biblical Unity and Its Mission

Work? So the center for biblical unity is a nonprofit organization. We were founded in February of 2020. And, um, we really just want to facilitate safe and sane conversations around race, justice, and unity.

I use my voice to speak out against critical race theory and some of the other critical social theories. It's not just me, it's me and my partner, Krista Bontrager. She's also like everywhere on, you know, all the social media platforms as theology mom, and we do trainings.

We speak at churches or, you know, Christian organizations on, you know, what is critical race theory? How does it, how did it come into play? And why do Christians need to avoid this? What will the introjectory be if we adopt this framework into our Christian churches?

And so that's what we do. It's all about family at the center for biblical unity. We make sure that, you know, anyone who's, who's here on our platform with us, we're family first. And because we're family first, we have a different level of relationship.

I'm not going to treat you because you're white as my oppressor. I don't think of you that way. According to second Corinthians five, you know, that's the, there is a way of treating someone according to the old man and whatever that old man is that stays in the old, in his past, because now he's come into the body of Christ.

He, God has made all things new. And so I'm not going to treat you according to any old man, um, whether defined by your personal actions or defined by culture. When you come into, to Christ, we are family according to Ephesians.

And that's how I treat you first. And then our mission is one race, one people, one savior. And it's based on scriptures based on what we see in the new Testament and acts and in Ephesians, um, Colossians, you know, we are literally one race of people.

If you believe in a historical Adam and Eve, um, we are one new people according to Ephesians and we serve one savior. And so that's, that's who we are and what we do and what we promote. We are not, um, progressive or in any way, or, you know, looking to adopt any of the critical social theories.

So, um, you've mentioned critical race theory and disordered listeners. Now we're going to be covering that in a future episode. Monique could definitely speak on that, but we're going a little different direction with the episode today, but, um, so tell me, um, I've been introduced recently to your new, um, small group curriculum called reconciled, and I've already talked to our small group.

And as soon as it's released, we're going to run through that for our next lesson. So tell us, tell our listeners a little bit more about reconciled and, um, what you hope to accomplish, how you envision God, I'm using it.

Reconciled and the Myth of Racial Reconciliation

So reconciled, it's a six week.

Curriculum, small group curriculum or individual. It has, um, like written components to it, but it also has video components. And the goal of reconciled is to get Christians talking and thinking about the way we do unity.

One of the conversations in culture right now is that black and white Christians cannot be reconciled until we start talking about things like reparations or legislation, repentance from whiteness, you know, all of these things that culture is really deeming as important.

But when we look in the scriptures, it tells us that we are family. We are reconciled with, if you have come into Christ, we are reconciled one to another, our hearts are first reconciled to God. And then we are reconciled one to another.

And so we've entitled it reconciled because one, we are first reconciled. Now the, it opens up talking about the myth of racial reconciliation and, you know, this idea that races must reconcile. Well, I believe that hearts truly reconcile because our race is a social construct.

From there, we move on to things like walking in unity, according to Ephesians four, how do we walk in unity? How do we, um, interact with one another as family? These are the important conversations that I believe the church should be having because there are, you know, we, we, we have had a rough history in America with racism.

No one needs to deny that that is what it is. And we, as the body of Christ, we have, we have, and we uphold a different culture. And so if we don't come together to talk about, Hey, how can we walk in unity?

We might still find ourselves in black church and white evangelicalism and participating in ways that I don't believe Christ ever meant for his church to participate.

The Image of God, Truth, and Speaking Across Racial Lines

So it's so interesting. I've read some of the popular books out there, whether it's some white fragility or some of these things. And to me, like the whole worldview of it, it's just so completely foreign to me in that I approach it as look, we're all equally created in the image of God.

Um, there's no difference in Christ between black people, white people, Asians, Latinos, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I don't, it's like noticing someone's skin color to me. I don't want to say it's irrelevant, but in terms of my relationship with them in the body of Christ, to me, it is irrelevant.

But when, every time I attempt to say something like that, I, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. Like I don't even know like how to communicate. Sometimes I just recently wrote a article for our blog site, um, where it's essentially like, look, I have zero points of intersectionality.

I'm a white male, heterosexual cisgender with no disabilities, although some would debate that part, but it feels like there's so many things I'm according to society, not even allowed to talk about. Um, how do you, as my sister in Christ, how would you encourage me, even guide me?

How do I even speak on issues related to race with how the culture is viewing essentially the white male as the ultimate you're just by birth completely ineligible to talk about any of these things.

I say that truth has no color and we speak truth to error. And so if that is the way that we live as Christians, because in, um, I think it's Ephesians maybe four 15, 17, you know, it talks about speaking truth to error.

We, we uphold truth. We have truth. We have the word of God. I'm not looking to a sociology book. I'm not looking to a sociologist. I'm not looking to culture to define truth for me. I have truth and you have truth.

And that truth is not subjective. That truth is objective truth. And so to, to say, well, you know, because you're a white heterosexual male, you know, now you are the oppressor and you have no right to speak.

We don't see that in scripture. So we participate with one another from scripture first, and we continue to stand on scripture. We don't, we don't participate with culture on cultures terms. We participate with culture from the scripture.

We have to be the light to offer a different viewpoint and some will come and some will not. But in my personal opinion, we never cower to culture or we never adjust our worldview to fit into the schemes of culture.

We maintain our worldview and we.

Invite the culture to come along. So that's excellent. I mean, that's basically the track I took in the, in the blog and look, the word of God is truth. I fully believe that word of God is inspired. It's inerrant.

So you can deliver its message no matter what your skin color is, no matter what the issue is. But, and I am asking this in absolute all sincerity, what advice can you give me to help me to know when I do speak on these issues or write on these issues, how can I be as a sense sensitive to how other people feel?

How can I talk about these issues without coming across condescending or anything of that nature? What, what are some pointers? This is genuinely.

An area where I want to improve. Well, I would, one, I would just get in prayer and I would ask the Lord, like, okay, I'm writing a blog post and I do this with my own stuff that I released. Like what do you, what is important?

What needs to be said and how can you be as gracious as possible? Here's the problem is that the setup is already that you're a racist. The setup is already that you're an oppressor. So you're already coming in behind the eight ball as am I.

So even with my black skin being a female, I am participating in whiteness, the way that I speak, the words that I write, where I choose to, to go and, you know, and to share, that's all participating in whiteness.

I cannot on some level be more concerned with culture than I am with obeying the Lord and, and obeying the scripture. And so, yes, I can be gracious and I can be kind and I can invite people in and they may still see me as an oppressor.

They may still see me as being blindsided by white people or, you know, any of the horrible other things that people have said. I can't be so concerned with that, that I then cower to them. And so that would be my encouragement to you is that you obey the Lord, that you obey the scripture and you do what he's told you to do, because people are going to judge and look at you.

However they choose from the worldview lens that they're looking through. Now, if they're Christians and they're choosing to look at you through that lens, I would question some of their beliefs and their worldview.

And we can do that and have conversation about that. But if we're not, if, if we are, or if the question is, you know, how do I not upset culture? I don't think that there's a way to do that. And I think that we see that in the scriptures.

So at that point, it's like, they're going to think about me what they want to think about me anyway. I have to obey the Lord. I have to do what scripture tells me first, because otherwise I may be cowering.

In the culture and find myself in sin. Yeah. So Ephesians 4 15, like speaking the truth in love and, and Timothy where Paul instructs Timothy to preach the word in season and out of season. Sometimes we're talking about these things and it kind of seems like we're speaking it out of season, but we are called as followers of Christ to declare the truth, to do it in a loving way.

Or first Peter 3 15, always be ready to give a reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. So it's even, you know, we have to be careful when we say like.

Speak the truth in love, because sometimes people will say, well, that wasn't loving, but then we look at Jude and it's like snatch people, snatch them from the fire. That's loving, you know? So we have to also thread through.

And this is why I'm saying, you know, we have to do these things in prayer and in obedience to what the Lord is telling us to do, because we are also individuals where I may go into an environment and snatch someone with my words.

You may go into an environment and really have a calm, peaceful conversation. Both are being done in love and both are being done in obedience. I should never like outrightly be rude or condescending, you know, or things like that, impatient, but that doesn't mean that I might not snatch somebody and you might not have a gentle conversation or vice versa.

Culture is going to define by their own definition of what is loving, what is rude and things like that. But.

We have the definition in scripture. I love always going back to Isaiah 55, 11, where it says that God's word always has an impact. So when we're speaking God's word, they're not, it's not our words. Even when we feel like there's been times where that was a complete waste of my time, the person wasn't listening and come back later and find out, no, God was really working in that person's heart.

So yes, I'm looking at the opportunities to speak the truth in love and being biblical and what we share, and then ultimately trusting God for the results, because we can't know what God is doing in someone else's heart and mind.

And it's difficult. I mean, it's when the culture is so antithetically opposed to the gospel message into the biblical cure for, for racism and injustice to speak these things, but that's what God calls us to do.

And so thank you for the encouragement to continue, but at the same time, like not trying to satisfy the culture and not trying to say what they want me to say, or even in the way they want me to say it, but I'm still trying to be sensitive to, okay, let's make sure we're saying this in truth and in love so that there's, there's plenty of roadblocks out there.

The last thing I want to be doing is adding any additional stumbling stones to the conversation.

Guarding the Church from Critical Social Theories

Exactly. Like we don't want to go out and intentionally be someone's, you know, reason for not coming into faith or for adopting the critical social justice narrative or critical race narrative, you know, things like that.

We don't want to do that. And when I see some of these ideologies coming for Christians, I'm like, Hey, hold on. Like, this is my family. You know, I truly believe that we are brother and sister. There's something ontologically that's happened supernaturally, you know, that's happened.

And that makes us brothers and sisters and I will fight for the family. And so when I see like people like Ibram Kendi or Robin DiAngelo and white fragility and things like that seeping into the church, I am strong against that.

And, and I say, no, because I don't want my family to be plucked off. I also don't want my family injured. So these ideologies come in and what's the first thing that happens? All white people are bad.

And I know people will say, well, that's not what critical race theory teaches. It doesn't teach that all white people are bad, but we have to look at in a nuanced way. What are the results of the ideology?

The results of the ideology are that you are an oppressor, that you are, you know, bad quote unquote. There's something inherently wrong with you. Whiteness is pervasive and just like racism and it's everywhere.

And, you know, these are structures that we need to tear down. And, you know, you have something that I don't based on your white skin and things like that. It pits us against each other. And we have to stand at the gates and guard against ideologies that would seek to still kill and destroy those within the body.

Of Christ. Absolutely. And I'll be the first to admit there is plenty of things inherently wrong with me. It's called sin. And that's something that every human being struggles with. So I'm first to admit I'm not perfect, make mistakes and things.

I do things. I say in my heart and my mind, but that doesn't deliver me from the fact that I'm called to preach the word. And thank you for again, for the encouragement, for the reminders, just jump back real quick to reconcile them.

When is it going to be released and where can people acquire it? So it drops on July 31st.

It is a PDF. It will be delivered PDF format. And then there will also be videos that come with it for the six weeks. And it will, it'll all be delivered though in one package, not like week by week. It, you can order it at center for biblical unity .com backslash reconciled, or just head over to our webpage center for biblical unity .com.

And there is a giant button for it.

On our homepage. And I'll include these links on both the, the comments or the description field on our YouTube channel, and then also at podcast .gotquestions .org. And I'll let Monique give me any other links she'd like for us to maybe her Twitter or any other, so you can follow her.

She's got a lot of great content on a lot of these issues and other issues as well. So I encourage you to follow Monique and learn from the insights she's gained from the, what's her experience and from all the time she's spent speaking on this, these issues, I strongly encourage you all to do so.

So Monique, thank you again for joining us on the show. Thank you for the encouragement you've given me today to just continue speaking out and not allow society to send in a sense, tell me to.

Sit down and shut up. No, we speak truth to error. Truth has no color. Truth is the word of God.

Amen. So this has been the Got Questions podcast. I hope you found this conversation helpful. So Got Questions? The Bible Has Answers. We'll help you find them.