Social Justice Policy

FROM PROFESSOR PADM550

Well, hello again. My name is Caleb Fisher, and you've probably seen me enough in these videos thus far, but we have to press on. In this module, we're talking about social policy. What is the role of government in social issues? And I want to provide some biblical thoughts again. And the first slide here is history of social justice. And basically, there are some themes that we need to be aware of. Some of them are good, some of them are bad. I think the price of information we have Martin Luther saying, you know, he's emphasizing from scripture, the priesthood of all believers that you and I are made in God's image. And therefore, what we do, whether we're a priest or a blacksmith, our work is sacred and an act of worship that we have individual value. And so that had incredible social implications for society at that time. And the Reformation rejected the notion of the divine right of kings, rejected the notion that the Catholic Pope has all the authority that he controls your relationship with Jesus Christ? No. Christ. And I, we have a unique relationship directly through Christ to the Father. And we don't need a human authority to hinder that. And we have the right to have the scripture in our own language and to read it. And to grow person with Jesus Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the Word of God. The Protestant Reformation was not just a religious revolution, it was a political and social revolution because the entire political social structure, the Middle Ages was predicated upon the elites having all the power, basically domineering over those who did not. The church and the king controlled everything. The problem information, we can change that. Another effort, Marxism critiquing the injustices of the invest revolution and the, the inequalities that the rich hat over the poor and how the poor were exploited. We as Christians, should be very quick to agree with Marxist types about how that happens even today. Big business, as I said in a previous video, big business exploits people often and usually fueled by relationship with big government. That's just the way it seems to work. It could be very careful about that, that tendency. We have the progressive movement, which we've spoken about. You saw in the other videos about the progressive movement in it and its history. Trying to change and solve problems in society through expertise, through government expertise, get the best and brightest in one room. Let them solve the problems, given the authority to solve the problems. Unfortunately, what that does, it gives government too much power, gives bureaucracies too much power, generate solutions which are top-heavy and out of touch with local realities. It sounded good. In the room role the geniuses were together, January and the solution. But meanwhile, back in the real world, there are certain key important details that make that solution less than realistic. And sometimes it's so out of touch with the realities of the situation on the boots on the ground situation, that the solution is more constraining than it is helpful. We also have relayed to the progressive movement, this idea of the social gospel. Many people in the modern era, you know, I'll go to church. I'll, I'll, I'll be a good person, but we're not going to look at Jesus Christ as the savior of mankind, the God-Man, the living Word of God. We're not going to treat him as such. We're just going to use him as a good example for how we should all be towards one another. He does not have the power to change our hearts, actually make us love our neighbors. But we should use him as an example. And we basically domesticate the God-Man, the eternal living Word of God, and use them as just a little poster child for being a good neighbor and being involved in our, our neighborhoods and our communities. Now what a tragic thing to do to Jesus Christ, our Savior and King. But that's what the social gospel basically did. We have to be aware of that. So there is a certain brand of theology day in America that emphasizes the social gospel doing the right thing and your neighbor in your neighborhood, in your communities to care for the poor. And that's, that's commendable, but not the expense. Having a relationship with Jesus Christ and with the acknowledgment with that comes that we need a Savior, that the people that are being afflicted by various issues in our communities often are participating with that problem because they need that they have not been saved by the power of God and we need to acknowledge that now, the next slide defines covenant. Now you've already had this. This is just review. Covenant is an agreement among various price ratify a long-term mutually informing relationship. And scripture God covenants with man, and thus in doing so, affirms the dignity of you and I. If God would covenant with us, if he would a limit himself to promises with us, then therefore, if he'll do that with us and we had better do that with one another. How could we not God of the universe would do, deign to do that with us. And therefore, the rights of everyone is protected by your own rights are protected by protecting the rights of everyone else, your interrelationship, by helping them. You help yourself by caring for them. You ensure that you're cared for. And so this is the model that Scripture gives us. It rejects ramp and individualism, where it's all about me and I just kinda come home and do whatever I want. I don't really care about my neighbors. It also rejects the kind of a heavy-handed collectivism that we see in some societies where you are, are basically under the heavy weight of what society with the families and clans want. It's all about them, not you. The viral rejects, both of those extremes of puts us. I buy carrying for the group by having a group consciousness, by being involved in my community, in my neighborhood, my church, my society, my rights will be protected. That's a powerful notion of individuality. And the group are both protected in the biblical notion of covenant. And so key covenantal terms by way of review, the Hebrew term has said is loving fulfillment of Coda obligation, love and duty are intertwined. You don't separate your duty from your love for someone. In our romanticize society today we think of true love having to be all about this romantic feeling. And if that, that romantic feeling is not, there must not be authentic. On the contrary, scripture says, if your love is authentic, you are carrying out your duty and you're going the extra mile and doing so. Because after all, Jesus Christ has said, personified, he went the extra mile men more than that by taking on our sin and die on the cross for us. And then we have mutual accountability in a couple relationship, I am accountable to you. You're accountable to me in this class. I'm going to be the professor, but I'm accountable to you, even though you as a sooner accountable to me, we're in this together in the learning process. And then stemming from that is a notion of federalism. Federalism, the Latin word for covenant is fetus FED IS covenantal theology very popular in the American founding era, the colonial era. And with that came this F son of federalism, a covenantal biblical idea that said you share power in a covenantal structure. No one has all the power. And so that's why I find fathers when they first created the system of government that we have first, the one with a confederacy, were the states had basically all the power and a very weak national government that had issues. We can debate the merits of the direction they took, but they still had a federal system in the revised constitution that we have today. The states still have a lot of power. The national government does not have all the power. Now guys, what this means is that in a covenantal system, you cannot solely rely upon government to solve all your problems. You and I as mean bait be made in God's image, have obligations to one another. And what we often forget is that if we advocate in our own lifestyles, succumbing to addictive behaviors, succumbing to apathy. We hurt those around us even are not involved. And as we die on the inside, as we give into addictive behaviors and laziness, whatever it may be by not being self-governing, are actually hurting those rats because we cannot help them. And we begin to model this internal moral decay. To say nothing of not caring for the poor. To say nothing, I'm not caring for the sick and the widows and the elderly. If we advocate everything to be government, we are not fulfilling our God-given obligations. I hope that makes sense. And in the history of Kevin, I've, I basically refer to the American founding error with respect to federalism. But obviously it's in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ fulfills the covenantal ideas in the Old Testament in the new testing with his own sacrifice. In fact, that the better word is not Old Testament versus New Testament. It's old covenant versus New Covenant. Because a testament in a testament, if I'm writing my final will and testament, I'm telling you what you get from me. And there's no negotiation, there's no sense of mutual accountability. But in a covenant, God covenants himself with us. We see that covenant fulfilled ultimately in Jesus Christ. We see this in the process Reformation. When, when Martin Luther and others rebelled against the power structure of that time, they were, they were appealing to covenants will emphasis of scripture. We talked about this in earlier modules, how, how the term was translating the scripture, that the reformers embrace a more covenantal view of scripture, that it gave him the basis, the moral authority to critique the divine right of kings to critique the authority of the Pope's, the unlimited authority. They were, they were persecuted where they go, they went to America, the French Huguenots, the, the, the Calvinists, the Anabaptists, they came, they brought their federal, their covenant theology to America. So the question is, if a covenantal perspective on society limits government and prescribe certain confines for government, why would it not also can find how we tackle policy problems in this leads us to the next slide on sphere sovereignty. This is from Abraham cooper himself very big into reformed theology and covenantal theology. He was get this in Holland. He was a hero. He owned a newspaper. I believe he's a professor, he was a pastor. He wrote columns and newspaper articles, but he's also Prime Minister. You think the guy was busy? I would say so. And he really articulate this idea of sphere sovereignty based upon covenantal principles. And what it says, if we're all in this together, and if no one source has all the power, that implies by default that various entities in society share power. And in fact, he would say that each sphere in society is meant to bring glory to God, its own unique ways that the other spheres cannot infringe upon the authority given to it by God. So the arts have their own authority to worship God and it's unique way. Business has its own authorities. You need God to worship God in its own unique way. Families, churches, and yes, government. And the point that we take from sphere sovereignty is that we have limited government but active community, communities. That we are actively engaged in our communities and in society to solve problems. In this goes back to what de Tocqueville noticed, an early American government. That early American people, citizens. They did not rely upon government saw the problems that got involved these voluntary associations. As the TOEFL describe it, they would just solve prompts, a certain meeting together to solve problems and get things done. So today, in today's society, any policy issue we attack if we're going to say big government shouldn't be doing it, we better have a solution for who should be doing that's ultimately going to be you and I involved in our communities. Now in society today, we have this big battle between conservatives and liberals. And I think we need to kinda take the heat out of that debate. Great book to read is Tim Keller the protocol God. And his point is really that, that God was protocol and even pursuing either sun. Like he shouldn't be a nice either. So not just the protocol son who ran away with all the money. Yes, He was a jerk out of control and living on life on the edge. But the other son who sit behind, who had basically kinda be the conservative, I'm going to work hard. That's sudden was just replace at the first sign just in a different way. He was self-righteous. He felt entitled to God's blessing. So Keller's point is that okay? Yeah, maybe the prodigal son is more like the, the liberal who believes in all this promiscuity and you do whatever you want, and there's no moral norms. Who are you to judge me, et cetera? Is that wrong? Sure, but what else is just as wrong? The self-righteous, arrogant, older brother, kind of another religious, self-absorbed person that really isn't in love with a lower, just trying to earn God's favor through good behavior. Now guys, that fits kind of nicely with a typical conservative, liberal debate at the concert is very concerned about moral righteousness and individual responsibility that lazy bum shouldn't have left the home to begin with. And lucky, waste all your money, why should I help them? Well, that's not quite a biblical responses it now. So, so we all need a Savior were all a mess and our own unique special ways we need a Savior. We need to work together, put asides of those differences. Now as I think as a Christian model, this final application, we would say as, as Christians that we must allow any policy issue, a personal spiritual component of that problem to be addressed. We're not going to really solve the problem. If we're not solving the spiritual and personal component of that problem. And that by default is going to mean we're going to need more Just governmental solutions to any issue. Thus, policy solutions must be as local and personal as possible and must allow for an infusion of biblical truth. So in that MAY, can, should analysis a lot of times we're going to say, no, national government may not solve this problem. But that does not mean that doesn't stop there. We said then who should communities, churches, non-profits, businesses, families, neighborhoods working together to solve that problem? And yes, we do acknowledge that systemic legal, political, structural changes will need to be made in many cases is not just a personal problem, it's not just a matter of what you seem to get a job, get get off your feet and get to work. It's not just that using to break your chemical addiction. Often there, the whole society is geared to help that person fail. And those need to be addressed as well. And often that doesn't mean a governmental intervention. Obviously, with that though, we emphasize human responsibility, that has to be allowed for a lot of progressive solutions only emphasize redistribution, redistribution of wealth, and so forth. And finally, as I've said before throughout this presentation, community level participation and cooperation. Again week, if you're a conservative like myself, it's very easy to say big government shouldn't be doing something. We don't often focus on the other side of that coin. What should you and I be doing if our entire political career is just focused on what government shouldn't be done. We're kind of not doing a good job of presenting the biblical answer to that question in that problem. So on that note, I hope you think about that in terms of your future career and what God might have you to do. You're not just a career politician or you're not just a career criminal justice person. You're a human being made in God's image. You are a neighbor. You are a member of your community, you're a member of your church. You are your brother's keeper. Contrary to what Keynes said in the book of Genesis, you are called to care for your neighbor. Thank you for your time.