The social justice madness is everywhere these days, and there’s a reason.  Culturally, it sounds better to say you advocate for social justice than to say you advocate for socialism or Marxism.  Racially, it sounds better to say you advocate for social justice than to say you believe in stoking racial division through grievance mongering.  Theologically, it sounds better to say you are promoting social justice rather than to admit you are bastardizing the Word of God to advocate for progressive politics under the guise of Christlikeness.  

But what does the end result of social justice philosophy look like?  When the ideology is allowed to germinate and blossom, what fruit does it yield in those who harbor it?  This, from the New York Times:

I’m riddled with shame. White shame. This isn’t helpful to me or to anyone, especially people of color. I feel like there is no “me” outside of my white/upper middle class/cisgender identity. I feel like my literal existence hurts people, like I’m always taking up space that should belong to someone else.

I consider myself an ally. I research proper etiquette, read writers of color, vote in a way that will not harm P.O.C. (and other vulnerable people). I engage in conversations about privilege with other white people. I take courses that will further educate me. I donated to Black Lives Matter. Yet I fear that nothing is enough. Part of my fear comes from the fact that privilege is invisible to itself. What if I’m doing or saying insensitive things without realizing it?

If that melee of self-pitying confusion and misery doesn’t send you running from the cancer of this deceptive movement, I don’t know what will.  Those two paragraphs alone depict four distinct characteristics of a life lived in submission and compliance with social justice dogma:

1. Shame: Notice that the author does not feel ashamed for any specific offense or actual transgression.  It’s merely a perceived sense of wrongdoing divorced from any real action.  Such a feeling is an actual psychological or personality pathology.  It’s literally bad for both your mental and physical well-being.

2. Loss of Identity: The author has become embroiled in false, intersectionality-laced labels that serve no ultimate purpose other than to divide the human family and isolate them from one another intellectually, socially, and philosophically.

3. Sense of Futility and Hopelessness: For all the talk of social justice making the world more harmonious, the precise opposite is reality.  In a world where injustice will always exist, this movement offers no meaningful solutions to mitigating its effects besides a haunting zero-sum game of discrimination.  Increasing discrimination against one group so as to balance previous discrimination against another.  This creates a perpetual state of angst between groups, communities, and cultures.

4. Paranoia: Given that social justice demands an end that is both unspecified and unattainable, it logically follows that repentance and contrition are never enough.  That reality brings about an incessant need on the part of those involved to constantly verbalize a prostrating humiliation before approved arbiters of what counts as “justice” these days.  Failure to do so risks having others point out that you have fallen prey to your blinding privilege, thus banishing you from the cultural cool kid table.

It’s all bizarre, mindless, dangerous, and unhealthy.  And from the superior position of Christian thought, it is completely antithetical to what our Creator wants for us.  Consider:

1. Shame: The Old Testament prophet Isaiah reassured those who come to God to, “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced” (54:4).  While our earthly nature may tend towards shame, grace and forgiveness is there to nail those feelings to the cross.  There is therefore, “now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

2. Identity: True Christianity sheds all manmade labels and declares that, “Whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:17).  While social justice seeks to divide us, the cross reminds us that we are united together as, “the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27).

3. Futility: Christianity reminds the brethren that there is purpose to our work on earth for the Kingdom of God that is not of this earth.  It’s why Paul encourages us not to, “grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).  It’s why James promises that for those who persevere, we, “will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12).  Work for the Kingdom of God is never done in vain, but it’s obvious that the more one works for social justice, the vainer it appears.  To the observant, that should indicate the incompatibility of these two causes.

4. Paranoia: The Psalmist writes that when we seek the Lord, He, “delivered me from all my fears” (34:4).  That’s because unlike the obvious spirit of the social justice warriors, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 2:17).

I’m often asked why I so often speak out against the social justice movement in America.  This.  This is why.