How To Deal with Christian Social Justice Warriors
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Christian Social Justice Warriors want to talk about “social justice,” but they do not want to define it.
In the words of Jonah Goldberg, social justice is merely code for “good things no one needs to argue for, and no one dares to be against.”
Why would such a term as “social justice” be in vogue?
Social Justice Warriors cannot yet speak truthfully about their goals.
It would not fly. To the majority of Americans, “socialism” still sounds like an evil thing.
Same for:
- “Identity politics”
- “More welfare handouts”
- “Partiality based on race”
- “Transfer payments based on race”
Leftists are skilled in reframing the discussion to obscure the issue. (Proponents of pure wickedness have to be.)
This article will explain their main trick and how to deal with it.
What is the main trick of the Social Justice Warrior?
They play on your emotions while blurring the facts.
The Social Justice Warrior uses fear, jealousy, hatred, revenge, greed, superstition, and anger to control the narrative. Any one of these emotions can distract from rational thought.
You’ve seen this trick hundreds of times. Social Justice Warriors do not typically start a conversation by talking about broad principles or relevant facts. They start by telling about some specific, anecdotal outrage suggestive of a narrative.
For instance, there is a narrative that it is dangerous to be a black man in a car, because you are likely to be pulled over by a racist police officer and shot for no reason. If you wanted to establish this narrative rationally, you would perhaps cite a statistical study. But if you wanted simply to blur facts while stirring emotions, you would tell the story of one man who has been mistreated or shot. The implication, perhaps more implicit than explicit, is that if this tragic situation happened one time, then it is no doubt happening frequently.
Do the facts bear out this interpretation?
Even the leftist New York Times says no. While there are some important disparities in treatment that correlate with race, evidence suggests there is no increase in police shootings of black people due to racial bias.
But do such facts matter? To the Social Justice Warrior, not necessarily.
Facts matter only if they are expedient toward establishing the predetermined narrative. Social Justice Warriors are presuppositional about their social theories. (See more about the topic here, here, here, and here.)
I’d like to show you a case study in how this trick works — and just how dishonest it is.
I came across this jewel yesterday on Twitter:
@Lex_Lutheran, a professing Christian posted the following:
…this happened in our decade… yet ppl think @drantbradley @ThabitiAnyabwil @JemarTisby @AlsoACarpenter @Burns23 @TruthsTable @DrMoore etc are part of “the most dangerous threat” to the gospel for talking about Social Justice…
@finchfrii
Judge sentenced to 28 years for selling Black teens to prisons npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686/pa-judge-sentenced-to-28-years-in-massive-juvenile-justice-bribery-scandal
There are many absurdities here.
First, check out the posted article. You will see that the article is from 2011. It is characteristic of the Social Justice Warrior to skim through years of news stories to find the one that best seems to fit the needed narrative.
At the top of the NPR story there is a disclaimer:
Editor’s note, March 10, 2019: In recent days, this 2011 story has been circulating on social media with an altered Facebook headline that was not created by NPR. The headline and story published here are accurate as originally published in 2011.
It turns out that the title of the article is not “Judge sentenced to 28 years for selling Black teens to prisons.”
In fact, the title was, “Pa. Judge Sentenced To 28 Years In Massive Juvenile Justice Bribery Scandal.”
That is a highly misleading change. To see why, we will need to take a look at the actual story. It is indeed horrifying.
From NPR:
A Pennsylvania judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison in connection to a bribery scandal that roiled the state’s juvenile justice system. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was convicted of taking $1 million in bribes from developers of juvenile detention centers. The judge then presided over cases that would send juveniles to those same centers. The case came to be known as “kids-for-cash.”
No one would deny that Judge Mark Ciavarella’s actions were an outrage.
But the NPR story is not the same as the story @Lex_Lutheran tried to disseminate. In the NPR story there is no mention of black teens. It is possible that many of the teens involved were black. But the NPR story says nothing about the race of those teens.
The falsified title suggests that the corrupt judge intentionally and selectively condemned black teens to prisons. But in fact, if such an allegation is true, it is not to be found within the NPR story.
@Lex_Lutheran’s version also happens to change the wording from “juvenile justice” to “prisons” — a word choice that suggests these teens were being sent to state prisons. Such a shift in wording draws on an association between the recognized social problem of mass incarceration (especially of black men) and the specific details of this case, which involved juvenile detention centers.
Narrative, narrative, narrative.
No rational person would defend Judge Mark Ciavarella. To all appearances, this man is a wicked pagan, and he deserves worse than he has received. But that is not a topic on which SJWs and conservatives would disagree.
For the SJW the issue is never the issue.
The issue is only ever a means toward an end.
What does @Lex_Lutheran hope to achieve by posting this misleading headline? Surely, he is not attempting to convince people of the existence of injustices. Of course there are injustices. He wants to make a point about something else. But what?
Review his tweet:
…this happened in our decade… yet ppl think @drantbradley @ThabitiAnyabwil @JemarTisby @AlsoACarpenter @Burns23 @TruthsTable @DrMoore etc are part of “the most dangerous threat” to the gospel for talking about Social Justice…
His tweet was not an attack on Judge Mark Ciavarella. It was an attack on those conservatives who have dared criticize his pantheon of leftist professing Christians.
Chief among the conservatives he seeks to attack is pastor John MacArthur, the most prominent (and most slandered) name on the list of original signers of the Statement on Social Justice.
@Lex_Lutheran writes:
“I’m jus applying the actual words of #PopeMacArthur
He states that more so than Health gospel, Prosperity gospel, Universalism, Antinomian, Easy believism, his strange Fire concerns, pedophilia in church, liberalism, etc … this is the most dangerous threat.
And yes … #PopeMacArthur & his disciples view each person I listed as a part of the Social Justice detour.
In every way, @Lex_Lutheran has illustrated my thesis:
The main trick of the social justice warrior is to play on your emotions while blurring the facts.
He played with emotions by citing an event so horrible that any rational person would feel disgust. But he misrepresented the event in such a way that his own narrative would be elevated, regardless of the facts. Then he went for the throat. The issue is never the issue. His point all along was to accuse John MacArthur of holding improper priorities on the topic of justice.
That is the whole trick.
How do you deal with this kind of Christian Social Justice Warrior?
The answer is simple: Own the moral narrative.
The ground your opponent most desires is the ground you absolutely have to deny him. His goal is to own the moral narrative. Take it.
Don’t wait.
- Right out of the gate, tell your enemy that he is your enemy.
- Tell him he is a liar.
- Tell him he is nakedly attempting to perpetrate a moronic category error.
- Tell him he is spreading a discredited story calculated to stir up emotions while obscuring facts.
- Tell him no one in the world is going to believe he is so stupid as to have done this from sheer ignorance.
Never give a liar even a moment’s indication that you consider him an honest man worth reasoning with. Treat his ideas like the infected, contagious man-eating disease that they are.
Then tell him exactly what his lie is.
He has pretended to care about the gospel. Call. His. Lie.
Here is what you say:
To a Social Justice Warrior, wicked, pagan judges doing wicked things is supposed to be an “attack on the gospel.”
That is preposterous.
No one is denying the great wickedness of the pagans. The question is: What kind of “gospel” are the Social Justice Warriors talking about?
Do they have a definition? Or in their eyes is “the gospel” just short hand for “peace and justice on earth”?
No one would say it is a distraction from the gospel to fight against that wicked judge. John MacArthur believes the priorities of the social justice *pastors* are wrong — they are contradicting the gospel by preaching *socialism*.
No one is stupid enough to miss this. Your original tweet was dishonest.
Just as there are no honest thieves, there are no honest Social Justice Warriors. You pretend to be stupid because you want to lie and steal.
When called on it, you will flee like the reprehensible coward you are.
Tell me, you unconverted pagan: Do you vote for pro-abortion Democrats? Murder is nothing to joke about.
I will not play the victim in your parasitical game.
You belong where all liars and cowards belong (Revelation 21:8).
You cannot continue on the path you are on and expect God to welcome you into his Kingdom. Repent, because his Kingdom is at hand.
There is forgiveness for all who throw themselves on the mercy of God and turn from their deceitful ways. Do it now. Do not wait.
Harsh? Yes.
But no harsher than the words of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, Paul, Jude, John, or Peter — and their enemies were hardly any more vile.
That is what to say to a Social Justice Warrior. And that is ALL that should be said.
Social ostracism is a tool that leftists have no quibbles about using. Meanwhile, conservatives try to play “nice” (read: dumb) while the greatest threat to the gospel and to our society is growing daily in power.
Why, if we conservatives believe we are in the right, should we hesitate one moment to wield the most powerful weapon available to us, short of physical force?
Remember 2 John 1:8–11:
8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.
9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting,
11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
In Acts 20:29 Paul tells Christians what to expect:
I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
Paul was right.
If you have any doubt that this is so, please check out this video from my friend Jon Harris.
Christians, don’t be cowards.
The truth will always be attacked. But the truth wins out when good men care enough — and even get angry enough — to fight back.
Want to see what a healthy discussion of Social Justice looks like? Click here for our recent debate What Is Biblical Justice?
Also, get our free 64-page e-book Christian Answers Against Social Justice.
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