Justice

 

Is there such a thing? One atheistic friend confided, “Since we do not have freewill, we couldn’t have acted otherwise, and this insight has helped me to deal with my guilt and shame.”

In essence, he was saying that he cannot be truly held responsible for rape or of breaking his wife’s arm.

Others who have adopted a cultural Marxist perspective deny justice in another way. The insist that what we call “justice” is no more than a tool that the white ruling class has invented to maintain control and to protect their own interests. Consequently, there is no moral truth, no right and wrong. Everything is just an exercise of power of the oppressing white elite.

It should be no surprise that since Marxism has reduced everything to the exercise of power, which Marxists have no reservations about using to secure their goals even as they justify it as the pursuit of “justice.” Just look at their placard, “No justice, no peace!” However, for them, “justice” is a matter of destroying the present system. Think “Cancel Culture.”

Our present administration seems to be relying on the Marxist playbook. From this POV, our prisoners are not the guilty but the oppressed. Consequently:

•    President Biden on Monday will commute the sentences of nearly all of the 40 murderers on the federal government’s death row, in another move to thwart President-elect Donald Trump’s stated goals. Under Mr. Biden’s order 37 of the 40 men on federal death row — all of whom had been convicted of murder — would have their sentences reduced to life imprisonment without parole.

•    On Dec. 12, the outgoing president commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people, including a woman who killed two of her ex-husbands and another lover; a woman who stole $54 million from a small town in Illinois; and a Pennsylvania judge who sentenced minors to harsh prison sentences for petty crimes in exchange for kickbacks from the prison operators. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/dec/23/joe-biden-commutes-sentences-37-murderers-death-ro/?fbclid=IwY2xjawHff0tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHT-7X5egS5mCBR8SmPoVHxER0255o52mTwxgucTLlZ_PxgfKYQc42j2w4A_aem_W1R6yMI0jl6DGCgRBZdPhw

A concern for justice and the welfare of the innocent victims and for the safety of those who had testified against their perpetrators should have required Biden to keep them interned. It should have also caused him to bar the entry of many criminals into this nation. Aren’t our elected officials bound to protect to innocent against the guilty! Not if he believes that the guilty are the white oppressors who are allegedly trying to keep down the oppressed colored minorities and sexual non-conformists!

Unfortunately, those with this POV had largely gained control of the centers of influence. Of course, Marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT) has long been in the making. Derrick Bell argued in his article about Brown v. Board of Education [1954, “Segregation Unanimously Rejected”] that critical race theory asserts that the majority will only secure civil rights for minorities when it serves the majority’s self-interest. When whites adopt black children, they are accused of doing so to prove that they aren’t racist—no consideration of virtue.

This is a good example of Marxist deconstruction of the Christian West. According to CRT, any good that comes out of the West “serves the majority’s self-interest.” No wonder many college students want to see the destruction of the West. However, black scholar, Voddie Baucham, has written, “According to CRT, everything is merely a struggle for power.”  He provides an accurate portrait of CRT’s strategy to vilify the “oppressors”:

•    “Systemic racism is the cause of disparities. If you doubt that, it is because you are a racist who wants to protect your power and keep those disparities in place. This has to be true because, if you were not racist, you would know that the cause of disparities is… racism.” (Fault Lines)

Under CRT, Justice is no longer about  individual guilt or innocence. A CRT founder, Derrick Bell, wrote, "The whole liberal worldview of private rights and public sovereignty mediated by the rule of law needed to be exploded." https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2021/06/23/the-movement-against-critical-race-theory-is-deeply-necessary-n2591397

Ibram X. Kendi, the author of the best-seller, How to Be an Anti-Racist, has ironically written that: “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

Only power speaks. CRT will resort to violence and coercion. Even the cultural Marxist of the Frankfort School, Max Horkheimer, had written “It is not economics that creates oppression but rather the nuclear family, traditional institutions, and concepts of race, gender and sexual identity. These are the chains of tyranny which must be broken by revolution.”

Instead, the real oppressors are one’s own conscience, whose accusations of guilt are projected on those who disagree. Consequently, It is easy for them to conclude that their opponents are the oppressors.

What has happened to our concept of justice? Under CRT, justice is no longer a matter of the guilt and innocence of the individual but one’s group identity. The only ones who are safe are those who are deemed to have the right identity or affiliation. Any opponents are to be destroyed. After all, they are the oppressors who have kept the oppressed in bondage.

Indeed, our nation had been guilty of systemic oppression. However, there is little recognition and appreciation that the situation is now radically different. Shelby Steele is a Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. In White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era, Steele argues that the black community now suffers more through paternalistic programs and the victimization narrative than from their Jim Crow legacy:

•    What I've encountered in my life, most often in the white world, is good will, is people have who have wanted to help me. When I was younger and starting a career, people who mentored me, who really felt it was important to give me the best opportunity to pursue my dreams. And my sense is that that's really been an experience for most blacks who have tried to venture out and develop themselves…

•    One of the most remarkable things in all of human history is the degree of moral evolution, that white Americans have made from the mid-60s to this day. No group of people in history have morally evolved away from a social evil that quickly and to that degree in this sort of short span of time. And very often, in our calculations in thinking about race, we don't give whites credit for that.

A CHRISTIAN RESPONSE TO THE PRESENT BORDER CRISIS?

 

 

Globalists promote a border-less world. How should the Christian respond to this claim? Of course, immigration reform is necessary. However, presently we must enforce the laws that we now have. While we Christians have a responsibility to love all people, here are some thoughts to guide Christian compassion:

1.    Unless Christian compassion begins at home or it will create bitterness. What if I was to love all wives and children as my own? This would create bitterness and impede other attempts to love. Instead, well loved families are best able to help others. Might this also pertain to nations! Mustn’t love begin with our own and our neighbors?

·       Galatians 6:10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Am I loving my neighbors if I am exposing them to harm?

2.    We cannot reward evil. God does not bless the unrepentant (Luke 13:1-5); nor should we. God has ordained government (Romans 13:1-5) and even borders and national sovereignty (Acts 17:26-27). He thwarted man’s attempt at creating a one world government (Genesis 10). He also commanded us to respect our government even when we do not like it:

 

 Many of the caravans have already proven that they refuse to respect our laws and prefer to illegally and forcefully break into our country. To allow disregard for some laws is to encourage disrespect for all laws and would put our citizens in jeopardy. However, regarding the illegals already in our country, Christian mercy should not be withheld.

3.    To aid and abet the entry of the caravan and to provide sanctuary for criminals is to resist the legitimate and just concerns of our rule of law.

 

·       1 Peter 2:13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme,

4.    To reward those who will break the law because of public opinion or the pressures that the migrants are exerting is to undermine the rule of law. It sends the wrong message. It says that we are willing to break the law. It also says that the violent and forceful will get their way while the ordinary citizen or asylum-seeker will not. This represents the undoing of justice, the equal application of the law to all. It will breed defensiveness and fear instead of trust and respect. This will inevitably create cynicism and contempt for the law and the institutions that are supposed to maintain it, and will eventually lead to collapse if unchecked. When people do not respect the system, they will take the law into their own hands.

5.    To allow one migrant caravan is to invite many more. We cannot coherently refuse the next caravans, once we allow the first. Law must always be about setting limits.

6.    Indiscriminately allowing in un-vetted migrants is equivalent to emptying prisons of convicted criminals. This represents neither Christian love nor justice. If we do not enforce national boundaries, then we leave it to citizens and states to form their own boundaries. If government will not protect the innocent, then the innocent must protect themselves. Inevitability, this will lead to chaos. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people must first protect its own before all else. According to Jesus, even the corrupt Sanhedrin was to be obeyed:

·       Matthew 23:2–3 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.”

7.    A borderless world is a world of disorder and instability. It is an unfounded dream of human togetherness, peace, and a refusal to regard the lessons of history and the many bloody attempts to create an international workers’ paradise. The scent of weakness is an invitation to the violent.

 

·       Romans 13:1-5Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

8.     The Old Testament is often erroneously used to justify “open borders.” Admittedly, the ideal was to provide “one law” for alien and Israelite alike. Consequently, the alien was forbidden to practice their alien religion:

·       Deuteronomy 17:2-3, 5 “If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones.”

Israel was to show the world the goodness and justice of their God, not by sending missionaries out but by welcoming those to an opportunity of tasting a better life:

 

·       Deuteronomy 4:5–8 “See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?”

 

We are no longer a melting pot or are able to inspire conformity to a broken system.

WITCHCRAFT—THE FASTEST GROWING RELIGION

Interest in witchcraft has been ballooning in the last couple of decades along with its rejection of traditional values and the Christian faith, which they blame for their persecution and banning. One indication of this is the proliferation of many hundreds of such groups, and maybe even thousands, on Facebook alone. Other indications come from studies:

•    Women, too, are more likely to buy in [to witchcraft], with 30% of women and 25% of men citing their earnest belief [in witchcraft].

•    According to YouGov’s 2022 poll, more than 1 in 4 Americans says the stars influence their lives, including 37% of adults under 30.

Witchcraft, which is one expression of paganism, has been packaged in many different and appealing ways:

•    Leda Beluche…says it’s not a sinister inclination. It’s simply borne out of feminine interest in self-knowledge.

•    Professor Helen A. Berger…said in an interview with Brandeis Stories. “For centuries, women have been told to focus on families. Focusing on the self is a radical act. It’s empowering. ”https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/oct/29/young-women-gravitate-toward-modern-witchcraft-psy/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=email_link&utm_source=email

Many are attracted by the opportunity to practice white magic, casting spells to help others. However, eventually they gravitate into black magic—casting spells against others. Why? They have no defense against evil. According to them, both “evil and good” are equally valid aspects of life to be embraced.

However, there are those practitioners who call themselves “Christian.” Therefore, it is doubly important that genuine Christians arm themselves with the many verses warning against witchcraft. Here are just a few of them:

•    Leviticus 19:31 “ ‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.”

•    Leviticus 20:6 “‘I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.”

•    Leviticus 20:27 “ ‘A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.’ ”

•    Deuteronomy 18:10-14 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD; because of these same detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so.

•    1 Chronicles 10:13 [King] Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance,

•    1 Samuel 15:23 “For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.”

•    Isaiah 8:19-22 When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.

•    Jeremiah 27:9 “So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your fortune-tellers, or your sorcerers, who are saying to you, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon.’”

•    Micah 5:10-12 “In that day,” declares the LORD, “I will destroy your horses from among you and demolish your chariots. I will destroy the cities of your land and tear down all your strongholds. I will destroy your witchcraft and you will no longer cast spells.”

•    Acts 19:19-20 A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

•    Galatians 5:19-20 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions

•    Revelation 18:23 The light of a lamp will never shine in you again. The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again. Your merchants were the world’s important people. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.

•    Revelation 21:8 “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

If you are mature enough to stand against their many delusions, you might consider shining your light in opposition their hopes and practices. While they believe in spirit guides and even “negative spirit entities,” they naively believe that the combination of their intuition and herbs can protect them against these negative entities (They refrain from using Biblical terminology such as “demons.”)

I would advise against witchcraft groups that are simply pandering their services, selling products and spells. Instead, I would advise joining groups where the younger witches are hungering for friendships to take the place of their own shattered and demonized relationships so that you can speak into their hurts. Perhaps have a trusted friend accompany you into this darkness.

WHEN TO TAKE A STAND

 

 

Here is an account of valor that will make us modern Westerners shudder. It raises the question of how far we should go to defend the truth—our faith. Should we openly oppose a pastor while he is preaching a false Gospel? Phinehas took it a giant step further.

King Balak of Moab had shrewdly led the feared Israel into sin so that their God would curse them, eliminating their threat to Moab. Consequently, Moab enticed Israel into sexual immorality and pagan worship. Consequently, many Israelites mourned and wept but seemingly didn’t take stronger action. Therefore, the Israelite offenses became more blatant:

·       Numbers 25:6 And indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

It is shocking that Moses hadn’t taken any further action than weeping. Had the sin become so acceptable and widespread that he felt that He could do little to stem the apostasy? However, Phinehas would not merely weep over Israel’s rebellion and the God-sent plague that had already killed 24,000 Israelites:

·       Verses 25:7-9 Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.

After this unauthorized act of violence, God stopped the plague. Clearly, God had been satisfied by Phinehas’ faithfulness:

·       Verses 25:10-12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: "Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the children of Israel, because he was zealous with My zeal among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in My zeal. Therefore say, 'Behold, I give to him My covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.' "

Had Moses failed to be a Phinehas? Has a plague decimated many churches and Christian institutions today? Do we need another Phinehas, and even many? And what kind of Phinehas must we be?

Clearly a plague of apostasy and rebellion against the Word of God has been ravishing today’s Church. We can cite many instances of this today. For instance, the bowing before the LGBTQ goddess.

Andy Stanley’s LGBT-friendly Drive Conference in 2022 has been taken offline by his North Point church. However, from YouTube snippets and published notes Pastor J.D. Greear had collected some of Stanley’s statements:

·       A gay person who still wants to attend church after the way the church has treated them . . . I’m telling you . . . they have more faith than I do. . . . They still love God.

·       I know the “clobber passages,” alright? We’ve got to figure this out. And if you don’t . . . you can say goodbye to the next generation.

·       Pastors who declare they are affirming or not affirming are taking the church away from someone unnecessarily. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/downplay-homosexual-sin-generation/

In essence, Stanley demands that we have to reinterpret that Bible’s teachings against homosexuality to make them more gay-friendly. He also claimed that LGBTQs have more faith than the rest of us when they have faithfully endured the Bible’s teachings against homosexuality and have continued to seek God through a Church that has been antagonistic to them and their lifestyle choice.

Sadly, it seems that out of the hundreds of pastors who came to this conference, none spoke up against Stanley, at least at that time. In another of his conferences in 2023, Stanley suggested that faith can be a faith without repentance:

·       The most controversial conference speakers were Justin Lee and Brian Nietzel, whom Stanley described as “two married gay men” who are also “Christ-followers today.” They were invited to speak—and had spoken at previous North Point gatherings—he said, because their stories of growing up in church environments while experiencing same-sex attraction would be “instructive and inspiring.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/2023/10/andy-stanley-unconditional-conference-theology-lgbt/

What can be Biblically inspiring about un-repented sin! Besides, how can this couple be regarded as “Christ-followers today,” since they continue to refuse to repent of their sin! 

·       1 John 1:6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

If Stanley had only been preaching specifically against demonizing LGBTQ rather than loving them and telling them that we are all sinners who need to continually repent, the Church could have no Biblical objections. However, Stanley goes much further. Had there been a Phinehas among them to expose Stanley and to stop the plague? I am not aware of one.