Christian Ethics and Economic Justice

In recent years, increasing numbers of Christians have stressed the idea of the liberation of the poor and the marginalized as central to the Christian faith.  They have rejected an old, otherworldly theology that focused only on “saving souls” rather than on doing anything to improve this world in the here and now.  Instead, they have emphasized that God’s Kingdom is something that Christians must work to establish in this world by establishing economic justice in society.  A significant movement within Roman Catholicism, “Liberation Theology,” has placed working for socioeconomic liberation and reflecting upon this work at the center of its theological method, in place of the traditional dogmatic theological method.

There is much truth in this modern Christian emphasis on economic justice.  In the Old Testament, God’s foundational act of salvation, which forms the basis for God’s covenant relationship with Israel, is the Exodus, God’s liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  In the New Testament, we do not see a sudden shift away from this emphasis on liberation from oppression to otherworldly concerns.  God is still the One who “has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.  He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52-53).  According to Jesus, the purpose of His ministry was, “to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).  In Scripture, salvation is about more than “saving souls,” and God’s Kingdom is about more than an afterlife.  God’s people are supposed to be agents of God’s Kingdom in this world in the here and now by caring for the poor and oppressed, resisting oppression, and establishing justice.  

However, it is simply not true that bringing about socioeconomic liberation and establishing justice in the societies we live in is the central task of the Church.  The Gospel does have a lot to say about these things, but they are not the central point of the Gospel.  A one-sided emphasis on these things leads to a distorted, problematic, and unbiblical theology.

The Place of Socioeconomic Liberation in Scripture

The Gospel of Luke records an incident where someone asks Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13).  Jesus’s response is, “Man, who appointed me judge or arbiter between you? . . . Watch out!  Guard yourselves against every form of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:14-15).

Jesus’s response might strike us as strange.  “Well, Jesus,” we might respond, “You’re the Messiah, the King of Israel, and the Lord of the whole world!  God has appointed you as judge and arbiter over everyone!”  Jesus’s point here is not to deny His Messiahship or His Lordship.  His point is to dismiss the man’s request for assistance in getting the “fair share” that is justly owed him in order to focus on the more important point of warning His audience against the danger of greed.   

Jesus does warn that it is very difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt 19: 23-24).  However, His point in saying this was not to encourage the poor to rise up and take the wealth of the rich for themselves, but to warn all people to beware of the spiritual dangers of riches.  This was a frequent theme in Jesus’s teachings, regardless of the economic status of His audience.  As renowned biblical scholar John L. McKenzie comments, “It is not without interest that Jesus is said to have addressed numerous warnings against greed, avarice and conspicuous consumption to people who had very little wealth; this may suggest that actual poverty does not mean that one is free of greed, avarice, and even of conspicuous consumption.”^[1]The Civilization of Christianity (Chicago, T. More Press, 1986), page 82.  While Jesus certainly wants His followers to be concerned about economic injustice, the thrust of Jesus’s teachings about wealth was not about encouraging fair and equitable wealth redistribution per se, but about the right ordering of our desires away from wealth and towards love of God and neighbor.

The Gospel is good news for the poor (Matt 11:5; Luke 4:18, 7:22).  And it is, in a sense, bad news for rich oppressors (James 5:1-6).  If God’s Kingdom is now established, and God is at work in the world establishing justice, this means that the oppressed poor will be lifted up and rich oppressors will be brought down.  

At the same time, it is simply not true that the Gospel is all about the liberation of the poor from oppression.  Jesus called all people, rich and poor alike, to repent of their sins.  Oppression is certainly a very serious sin.  But it is one sin among many.  When Paul lists the works of the flesh that disqualify people from inheritance in God’s Kingdom, he lists sexual immorality, idolatry, witchcraft, jealousy, and drunkenness right alongside economic sins, without any differentiation between them (I Cor 6:9-10; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 5:3-6).  And, as we have already noted, poor people are perfectly capable of committing sins of greed.  There simply is no special emphasis in the New Testament on sins of oppression or the sins of the rich.  The ethical teachings of the New Testament are complex, and cannot be simplistically reduced to one single principle, such as “liberation.”

The Old Testament Torah had quite a lot to say about caring for the poor and oppressed.  But at the same time, it also taught, “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly” (Lev 19:15).  Caring for the poor and caring about justice does not necessarily mean always being on the side of the poor against the rich.  

There is a very real sense in which Jesus suffering and dying on the cross with us and for us shows that God is on the side of the poor and oppressed.  But it does not follow from this that everyone who is poor and oppressed is on God’s side.  The Gospel calls all people, including the poor and oppressed, to repent of their sins, believe in Jesus, and commit to following Him as His disciple.  Only by doing this can they be saved and have eternal life.

Christianity and the Ethics of Liberation

“Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them,” writes the apostle Paul, “Were you a slave when you were called?  Don’t let it trouble you–although if you can gain your freedom, do so.  For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s free person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave” (I Cor 7:21-22).  It is extremely difficult to reconcile this teaching of Paul with the idea that the point of the Gospel is to empower the poor and oppressed to liberate themselves from oppression.  Of course, gaining freedom from slavery is a desirable thing that people should pursue if they have the opportunity.  But for Paul, what is more important is that, whatever social or economic situation they are in, Christians serve Christ by showing God’s love to everyone around them.  

Christians know that, as children of God, they are free in Christ, and that God is at work bringing about perfect freedom and justice in the world.  But that is the point.  God is the One at work bringing about these things.  

It is true that there is a sense in which Christians are called to be “God’s hands and feet” in the world.  Christians are active participants in God’s Kingdom, the ones through whom God is at work in the world.  But there is a very important difference between “being God’s hand and feet” and “taking matters into our own hands.”  In the former case, we seek to be obedient to God’s word, be the holy people He has called us to be, and be agents of God’s reconciling work to all people.  In the latter case, we decide that it is up to us to bring about liberation here and now, and then try to determine the most effective way of going about doing that.  The major difference between these two approaches centers around how we treat our enemies and our oppressors.

In Jesus’s day, Israel was being brutally oppressed by the evil pagan Roman Empire.  Different Jewish groups had very different ideas about how to deal with this situation.  The Sadducees supported the Roman status quo.  The Zealots advocated immediate violent rebellion against it.  Then there were the Pharisees, who believed that if Israel were faithful and obedient enough to God, then God would intervene and set Israel free.

To a large extent, Jesus agreed with the Pharisees on this issue.  Jesus just had some very different ideas about what being faithful and obedient to God looked like.  Jesus freely associated with Israelite “sinners,” showing them love and calling them to repentance.  Even more scandalously, Jesus taught His followers to show love to their enemies, including the evil, pagan, Roman oppressors.  If a Roman soldier forces you to carry his equipment for a mile, taught Jesus, show him love by carrying it for two miles (Matt 5:41).  Far from teaching His followers to engage in protest and civil disobedience against their oppressors, Jesus instead teaches us to ask how we can show God’s love even to those who oppress us.

The teachings of Jesus demand that Christians cease looking at their oppressors as a problem that needs to be eliminated.  Instead, we must see our oppressors as fellow human beings who are themselves in need of liberation from control by the demonic, spiritual powers of darkness.  By showing God’s love to them, we can show them who God is and invite them to be reconciled to God, experience the reality of God’s Kingdom, and be freed from sin (including their own acts of oppression).  

Of course, showing love to our enemies is not always an effective means of persuading them to repent.  If it were, then everyone would do it.  But Christians are not obedient to God because it is the most effective way of visibly improving things in the short term; they are obedient to God because, by doing so, they can show the world what God’s Kingdom looks like, bringing about the conversion of some.

The establishment of God’s Kingdom does mean the end of all oppression and injustice.  But until Jesus comes again, this will never be fully realized here on earth.  Unless people know and love God, the establishment of true justice is impossible.  Thus, Christians must recognize that they will never be able to eliminate injustice and oppression from society in this age.  We must wait for the eschatological age.  This does not mean resignation in the face of evil; Christians should do all they can to establish justice in the world.  But it does mean that Christians must resist the temptation to use methods contrary to the methods of God’s Kingdom (e.g., violence) to try to establish their own utopian vision of justice and freedom.  We must trust in God.  We must trust that, as we follow Jesus on the way of the cross, God is at work in us bringing about His Kingdom of perfect justice and freedom, even when it is difficult to see how.  And we know that one day, when Jesus comes again, we will see this Kingdom fully realized.