How Progressives Changed the Definitions of "Justice" and "Equality"

Language, Worldview, and Political Definitions of Justice and Equality

Hey John with the conversation that matters for April 2018. I want to talk about two terms justice and equality. Justice and equality and it is very very very important. We understand What we're what we mean when we're using these terms because there are two different commonly used sets of definitions for them one from a conservative side one from a liberal side and One reason that it's good to understand what we mean when we're using these terms is because we want our communication to be clear.

But another reason is because as George Orwell pointed out and also as Richard Weaver pointed out Language is not necessarily neutral. Language actually can be used to further political agendas language when when definitions are changed or new words are adopted oftentimes they are Changed or adopted because of a new worldview that is taking hold of the culture and sometimes these terms are used To further political or cultural causes and I think these two terms are good examples of that.

A Chapel Speaker’s Appeal to Micah and the Problem of Unstated Definitions

I want to give a story that relates to this but recently I'm not gonna name names at a School of which I am very familiar that happens to train people for the ministry primarily. There was a chapel speaker who spoke to the student body and told them that He said, you know a lot of people they think that justice Is a liberal thing that you know, if you care about justice, that means you're a liberal and he said well Here in the book of Micah, we see that God says that we're supposed to love justice so the translators translated this word justice and And so if you want to be like God if you want to copy him then you should care about justice.

Which means if that makes you a liberal you ought to be a liberal and I think the people walking out of the student body From the student body would have thought to themselves. Well, I guess I need to be liberal in some way.

I need to support Things that further justice from a liberal point of view. That means it may be affirmative action or maybe it means Welfare state or something along those lines and for those who I think hopefully had hermeneutics which Which is not a discipline that that is as favored as it used to be.

But but it still is taught and for those who have had it, hopefully they would have realized. Hey, wait a minute. This chapel speaker did not talk about the definition for justice. He just assumed a certain conception of justice and it was from a left word.

It was from the left and then he just imposed that on the text of Scripture, which you can't do that's kind of a Problem that's that's a breaking a very elementary hermeneutical rule and so. So so the problem is that when conservatives talk about justice What they are referring to and we could probably go let's say greatest generation and before them.

Justice as Impartiality and the Rule of Law

They would have thought of Justice being blind they would have had the conception in their minds of the Roman statue Lady Justice Who's at the Supreme Court building and many other court buildings in this country?

She's blindfolded and they would have thought well justice means that Someone is not favored because of who they are, but they are treated according to what they've done. So let's give an example of this.

Let's say you're a judge and I'm gonna stay away from politically heated examples here. But let's say someone's an introvert because yeah, they're at a disadvantage, right? I'm assuming I love introverts.

I married one. All right, so don't get the wrong idea here, but an introvert walks into the courtroom. Let's say and they're accused of stealing and the judge says well, you know introverts I can understand.

They need to steal because they don't have conversations as much because they're shy and perhaps. And maybe I'm butchering what an introvert is here. But let's say this is the judge logic. They say hey.

They needed to steal. They couldn't get a job because they weren't as aggressive in getting a job as an extrovert would be so. You're off the hook now an extrovert walks in and all other things are equal except personality tests.

And so he the court does administers a personality test finds out the individual accused is an extrovert. And so the judge says 20 years in prison you Thief and so we would say well That's not justice, right?

And we would be right if we said that because justice is blind justice does not take into account Who the person is it takes into account what the person has done? And. And there may be some slight exceptions for that and I'm not going to get into those now but but as a general rule here.

The justice is blind justice doesn't look at race. Sexual orientation any of these things that justice just looks at has the law been Violated if the law has been violated. Then the person who's violated the law must pay so so that's that's.

That's where we're at now this is informed from a biblical understanding the word Shabbat and the Hebrew that is used like in Micah the Lord wants us to love justice love Shabbat. Some translations say that I think it could be righteousness.

But but what it means is Loving the law being administered in an impartial way. Proverbs is chocked full of this language. I think we find in the Psalms as well. But impartiality is a sign of corruption.

So If a king or ruler is impartial, you know, they treat rich people let's say better than they treat poor people. Well, that's not justice. They're being impartial. The law should be administered equally.

So If we go to the New Testament, we go to Romans 13 It says that the government is supposed to be a cause for righteous behavior it's a fear to those who do evil and There's a sword that the government has God has given to administer justice upon those who would do evil.

Equality as the Image of God Versus Egalitarianism

And so again, we find that's what justice is. It's administering the righteous law of God and that's what conservatives mean when they talk about justice now. It's not what liberals mean. Generally what liberals mean when they talk about justice is Writing the wrong sometimes of the past.

It means that if you're at a disadvantage in some way it means compensating for that disadvantage the blindfold comes off and We start looking at race sex gender all these different classes and then we make our determinations on Whether there should be a punishment or how severe it should be based on these things.

That's not justice at all. It's actually the opposite of justice. Biblically speaking now equality is related to this equality in biblical terms means Someone is the imago. Dei is often used the image of God someone has the image of God in them and everyone is equal in That everyone has it.

Adolf Hitler had it and the best person you can think of had it. Another way that everyone's equal. Robert E Lee, I think said this very well, but the ground is level at the foot of the cross. We're all sinners before God.

We're deserving of death and we are all candidates for the sacrificial death of Christ and his righteousness being applied to us, so. So we're all equal in that sense at the foot of the cross. And so there's ways in which we're equal now a more Marxist theory way of looking at this would say that.

Hey, no, there's all kinds of inequalities. There's past wrongs that have created inequalities. Certain genders are have disadvantages. I mean a lot of these disadvantages though. Advantages though are unfortunately are baked into nature.

Just the way God made things. To give a very obvious example women can have babies whether that's an advantage or a disadvantage men can't do it. There's an inequality there, and you're gonna find a lot of inequalities in the world based on culture based on even climate.

Based on the curse of sin and how it's been and how it's worked out in disease and other things there's all sorts of inequalities and Someone from a Marxist bent is going to say well no equality is it should be egalitarian.

We should all be equal should have the same outcome and the same starting point. The same opportunity so the same opportunity same outcome. We should all be the same and where there is not sameness. The government can come in and create sameness so we can compensate for these things.

Well, that's not equality. Equality does not overturn the world. God has created and and then seek to remake the world for a utopia now. Utopia comes in heaven from a Christian understanding and that's where We all have our new bodies.

We're all worship Christ even in heaven though. There's not really equality. There's different levels. There's different crowns you can get and stuff. So I mean it's not necessary even there. It's not as perfect egalitarianism, so.

The utopia doesn't exist on earth and it doesn't really exist in the leftist sense in heaven either. There's always going to be distinctions. And so this is why conservatives and liberals have different concepts when they're talking to each other I think it's important for us to recognize those differences when we have conversations.

So that's all I got for you today. Hopefully you enjoyed it until next time. Have a good.