Have you recently heard the scornful claims of “progressives” who assert that critical race theory (CRT) is absolutely, unequivocally not taught in public schools? Never, no way, no how. Have you heard the suspiciously uniform proclamations that CRT is an academic theory originating and taught exclusively in law schools? Well, take a gander at this upcoming course offered at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy—a public high school:

SESSION # 34 TITLE: Introduction to Critical Race Theory in Education Research

LENGTH: 60 minutes / Three Days DESCRIPTION The three-day session will cover an introduction to Critical Race Theory concepts, the utilization of CRT in the field of education, and research applications of CRT in K12 classrooms and districts. The first 60- minute session is mainly lecture with a brief discussion focused on the tenets of CRT and the field of education. The second 60-minute session has a brief lecture on CRT in education and research, followed by small and large group discussions connecting students’ experiences with the CRT concepts and how they apply to the CRT framework. The final session will be students working in groups to design research questions and choose research methods using CRT as a theoretical framework. Students will create power points and share their ‘research designs’ with the group in the final 60-minute session. Students will be required to read journal articles and book chapters before the start of the session and during the 3-days of the course. Students will also have a small assignment outside the designated class time of the session to prepare for the group presentations.

SESSION GOALS

• To familiarize students with Critical Race Theory concepts.
• To familiarize students with CRT research applications in education.

STUDENT OUTCOMES

1. Students will be able to identify specific tenets of Critical Race Theory.
2. Students will be able to articulate different ways education researchers have used CRT to address education inequity in K12 classrooms and districts.

SESSION CATEGORIES

Academic – Session provides additional insight and inquiry into academic disciplines, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – Session promotes DEI values and perspectives.

PREREQUISITES

N/A

FACILITATOR(S)

Thandeka K. Chapman, Alumni IMSA Student

Remember, IMSA is a public school—that is, a school funded by you, the public. IMSA is using public funds to promote a highly controversial, arguable leftist theory on race and justice, which also includes controversial and arguable ideas about homosexuality and gender confusion.

By the end of the indoctrination seminar, IMSA expects students to be able to “identify specific tenets of” CRT and “articulate different ways education researchers have used CRT to address education inequity in K12 classrooms and districts.” IMSA does not, however, expect students to be able to identify dissenting views of CRT or how assumptions embedded in or derived from CRT may be wrong. In other words, IMSA is not teaching the controversy, and the seminar is not ideologically diverse or inclusive. It is biased in favor of CRT.

Thandeka K. Chapman

The woman teaching this course—and who is presumably being paid handsomely by Illinois taxpayers—is Thandeka K. Chapman, an alumna of IMSA, professor at the University of San Diego, and a “social justice” activist.

She calls herself a “Black Power Baby” whose “parents are educators and activists who utilized their resources to challenge injustices in education. Conversations about race and racism were regular dinner topics while I was growing up.”

All decent people oppose injustice. Many people, however, see serious problems in the way CRT defines injustice and with its proposed solutions to alleged injustice.

When asked, “If you could make any policy recommendation based on your own research (without regard to political possibility!), what would it be,” Chapman replied,

[M]y policy recommendation is to raise teacher salaries to be equivalent to–or above–salaries in other professions. Teachers have the most influence in students’ lives. … Teachers disseminate knowledge in particular ways, justify or demonize certain morals, values and behaviors. … Raising teacher salaries would elevate the profession. (emphasis added)

Paying more to recruit activists who are demonizing conservative morals, values, and behaviors is no solution, and paying activists more money will not elevate the teaching profession.

Depoliticizing teaching would be a good start, but leftist bias is systemic in schools and all ancillary institutions connected to schools, including the colleges and universities that train teachers, professional journals and organizations, teachers’ unions, and organizations that profit from advancing leftist ideas on injustice, systemic bias, oppression, race (and disordered sexuality). The entire system from the inside out and top to bottom is corrupt.

Regular IFI readers may be interested in who the “Chief Equity Officer” at IMSA is. It’s none other than Traci Ellis, former school board activist in District U-46 who infamously said about the American flag,

that flag means nothing more than toilet paper to me.

Ellis also referred to the Republican National Convention as the “Klanvention.” Can someone like that represent a diverse community or promote “equity” and justice?

On her school website, Ellis links to IMSA’s “Equity and Excellence” document adopted in 2018 when she was the Executive Director of the Office of Human Resources, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. What is most notable about this document filled with “social justice” education-ese is the absence of the word “equality.” There are lots of references to equity, inclusion, marginalization, cultural competence, and global citizenship (as opposed to American citizenship) but not one reference to equality.

One thing most “educators” today are not is independent thinkers. They are ideological lemmings whose rhetoric parrots whatever they read in their professional journals and hear at their conferences.

The “Equity and Excellence” document jampacked with jargon concludes with this:

The President, in collaboration with Academy departments, shall develop action plans with clear accountabilities and metrics, where appropriate, to execute this policy. (emphasis added)

This is the escape route for social justice change agents. This is the way they escape accountability for the inefficacy of their doctrinaire plans to change the world using other people’s children. They simply assert that “metrics” are inappropriate tools for measuring the outcomes they desire.

For more on the unprofessional, arrogant, and nasty Ellis who has no business involved in the education of other people’s children, Click HERE.

Some intrepid IMSA parents ought to find out how much Thaneka Chapman is being paid. And they ought to find out what teachers have been learning during professional development over the past five years since Traci Ellis was hired, because taxpayers fund professional development as well.

Anyone who teaches in public schools or has taught in public schools in the last two decades knows that ideas from CRT inform professional development and curricula. Anyone who denies that is either ignorant or deceitful.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Black-Power-Baby.mp3

The Salvation Army, best known for the red kettles and bell ringers during the Christmas season, recently released disturbing statements regarding racism. These statements included several social justice and Critical Race Theory (CRT) buzzwords. As a result, numerous donors have pulled their financial support from the charity.

The International Social Justice Commission, a division of the charity, released “Let’s Talk About Racism,” a guidebook for donors. In the book, the organization asserts that donors may be guilty of “White supremacy, White-dominant culture, and unequal institutions and society.” The group also asks white donors and Salvationists (as their members are called) to apologize and “lament and repent” for any racism.

The charity also released a “Study Guide on Racism.” In this guide, they state “that Salvationists have sometimes shared in the sins of racism and conformed to economic, organizational and social pressures that perpetuate racism.” It is uncertain in what ways they believe that members are or have been involved in racism. The terminology suggests that they are applying the leftist woke gospel and dividing people rather than uniting diverse groups. 

Progressivism is not new to the Salvation Army. But the question remains. Why does a charitable Christian organization want to promote wokeness? It may be that someone in the organization is promoting these left-leaning ideologies.

The two guides included a great deal of language taken from leftist Ibram X. Kendi, Professor at Boston University and Director of the Center for Antiracist Research. There was also language and information from author Robin DiAngelo, who wrote White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Much of this language is very divisive, paints all white people as racists, and insists that all people of color are victims of oppression at all times. 

In 2017, the Salvation Army released an “International Positional Statement” on racism. Professor Jeffery Long, an evolutionary anthropologist who teaches human genetics and Darwinism at the University of New Mexico, was utilized as a source. It is confounding why a Christian charity would use resources from academics that believes in a philosophy that directly conflicts with the Bible.

As a direct result of the woke ideology printed in the literature of the Salvation Army, several donors have stopped financial donations to the charity. The Salvation Army issued a response to the claims in the media that they had asked donors to apologize for being “white.” The Salvation Army has refuted making any such statement and also claims that those making such claims “mislabel” the charity for “their own agenda.” Although it is accurate to say the charity never asked donors to apologize for being white, it is also true that the guidebook and the various other materials and resources regarding racism have the language of CRT and left-leaning philosophies. The Salvation Army has also used information from leftist academics and anti-Biblical ideology such as Darwinism. As a result, the charity may have done a great disservice to themselves but more importantly to the families and individuals that have come to depend on their services. 

The Salvation Army not only provides food and clothing to the needy but also has numerous other services. According to their “2021 Annual Report,” they were able to help 63,000 households with rent or mortgage assistance, served over 2 million with holiday assistance, provided over 7 million with disaster assistance, and helped 121,570 individuals fight substance abuse. The group also ran numerous centers, including 126 rehabilitation centers and 29 centers to assist those rescued from human trafficking. The good that the Salvation Army has done in the past should not be overwhelmed by woke ideology. 

The motto of the Salvation Army is “Doing the Most Good.” Indeed, all Christians should strive for unity and end all racism. Yet if we continue to divide ourselves using the Left’s narrative, this is not “Doing the Most Good.” The act of racism perpetrated by individuals is sin, and these individuals should repent. Nevertheless, demanding that an entire group be held responsible for the sin of racism purely based on the color of their skin is in and of itself racism. Christians best exemplify unity and anti-racism when we work, live, and worship together without the need to create racial division through fake social justice. Instead, we should seek God’s justice and spread the true gospel of Jesus Christ. As it says in Romans 3:22-23:

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (emphasis added)

Perhaps the best thing for the Salvation Army (and all Christians) is to leave behind the leftist woke ideology and do the “most good” by returning to the charitable demonstration of the love of Christ by giving freely to all people regardless of race. 

Take ACTION: Please click HERE to send an email to Commander Brian Peddle and/or visit The Salvation Army’s social media sites to let them know that they are alienating many potential supporters who reject the left-wing agenda to divide Americans by race. Please click the following links to visit their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube pages to urge them to abandon  this politically “woke,” intellectually slumbering, and morally superficial agenda.

We are proud to share this great resource from our fiends over at Citizens for Renewing America.

Academics are fast becoming a thing of the past in public schools.

In their place are behavioral psychology and “social and emotional learning” (SEL) designed not to educate but to transform children’s core values, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior.

Once upon a time, education meant learning how to read, write, do math, and think. It meant learning history and science as well.

That is barely happening now, as government data show.

Perhaps more importantly, once upon a time, school children all over the nation also learned the Ten Commandments—do not murder, do not lie, do not steal, and so on.

They learned the Golden Rule, too: Treat others as you want to be treated.

But those “good old days” are largely gone.

Today, government schools use advanced methods including SEL to instill in children a radical new and oftentimes contradictory “politically correct” value system: radical environmentalism, radical feminism, critical theory, Marxism, social justice, LGBTQ-plus, population control, socialism, hyper-racialism, class struggle, and more.

There’s also an occult connection to it all that would shock most secular observers—not to mention Christians, Muslims, Jews, and adherents of other traditional faiths.

SEL: The Mechanism for Transformation

In public schools across the United States today, from pre-K through 12th grade and beyond, children are being subjected to what is seemingly just the latest educational fad—silly, perhaps, but no more harmful than anything else—at least on the surface.

The education establishment refers to it as “social and emotional learning,” “social-emotional learning,” or just SEL for short. Generally they speak only in vague generalities using soothing language while dealing with the public.

And it’s true, some of what falls under the SEL umbrella is fairly harmless.

But then again, the food pellets that contain rat poison are fairly harmless, too—at least until the poison, which is just a trace component in the pellets, is digested by the intended victim.

Similarly, SEL all seems innocent enough at first glance.

“Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions,” explains the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), one of the leading outfits promoting SEL.

The way proponents explain it, SEL is simply aimed to help children do well emotionally and succeed.

What could be wrong with that?

Well, CASEL’s website, a review of SEL programs, and educators themselves reveal a great deal more about the agenda. And it’s not pretty.

Political Extremism and Radical Values

Behind the nice public facade lurk swarms of psychologists, psychiatrists, “educators,” and radical leftists hoping to exploit a century of psychological research for the purpose of molding children’s beliefs and “deconstructing” the values parents seek to instill.

“With a growing number of partners, CASEL is creating a more comprehensive approach to education, one that will lead to a more equitable, just, and productive society,” the organization’s website boasts under the headline “SEL as a Lever for Equity,” hitting multiple key buzzwords associated with the far-left “social justice” movement.

In other words, one of the purposes of SEL—as its leading promoters admit—is to reform society.

Among the webinars offered there are “SEL as a Lever for Equity and Social Justice,” and also a lecture on how to use SEL to “support antiracist practices.” Another webinar outlines how to use policy to “dismantle inequities.”

Again, the leftist buzzwords are everywhere. And that isn’t an accident.

Under SEL Competencies, CASEL drops multiple bombshells acknowledging the far-left globalist indoctrination taking place under the guise of “social” and “emotional” learning.

“SEL competencies can be leveraged to develop justice-oriented, global citizens, and nurture inclusive school and district communities,” it states, adding that the programs will involve getting children to “assess power dynamics” and confront “issues of race and class across different settings.”

The children are also expected to “develop an understanding of systemic or structural explanations for different treatment and outcomes.”

In short, they are expected to believe the highly controversial hypothesis that America is awash in “systemic” and “structural” racism, and that only massive government-led social engineering can fix it.

The children are also expected to accept and agree with the artificial divisions being fomented along “race” and “class” lines as part of the now-obvious effort to “divide and conquer” America.

Put simply, this is all blatantly Marxist “critical theory” rhetoric masquerading as “education.”

It’s extremely dangerous.

In Practice, Educators Shine the Light

A review by The Epoch Times of a wide range of SEL programs used across the United States found that all contain similar extremism, along with highly controversial teachings on sex, sexuality, gender, race, racism, class, economic liberty, family, marriage, and more.

Interviews with educators and a review of their writings on the subject were also very revealing.

In short, the real goals of SEL go far beyond “helping” children socially and emotionally. And it isn’t difficult to find that out.

In fact, in practice, SEL is frequently and explicitly used in public schools to instill certain attitudes and values in children that many parents, if not most, would find controversial at the very least.

For example, public-school teachers in Florida, to comply with SEL mandates, were ordered to show a number of videos to their middle school students.

These included propaganda videos promoting homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, “diversity,” “inclusion,” and more.

Regardless of one’s views on these subjects, countless parents—especially those from faith traditions including Christianity, Islam, or Judaism—would find the effort to obliterate traditional sexual morality and even biological sex in children’s minds to be objectionable.

Numerous other highly controversial political, religious, economic, and worldview positions are treated as “correct” by the forces behind SEL.

More than a few self-styled SEL educators are very open about how they intend to use SEL to brainwash children.

Open Circle Director Kamilah Drummond-Forrester, who supports “social and emotional development for children,” wrote openly at EdSurge.com about weaponizing SEL to indoctrinate children with her hyper-racialist views.

“Teaching [white children] to be aware of their racial identity would allow them to better understand the privileges that accompany that identity,” she wrote, adding that this would help them dismantle the “concept of ‘whiteness.’”

“Social and emotional learning (SEL) has an important role to play in that education.

“One of the core competencies we focus on, as a necessary foundation for the others, is self-awareness. That self-awareness must include race,” she continued, without acknowledging that many parents probably don’t want their children obsessing about “race” or being propagandized by a far-left activist posing as an educator.

In an article for EdTech Magazine on peddling SEL to students amid coronavirus-inspired online learning, writer Adam Stone touts “SEL-oriented teaching materials from the Zinn Education Project.”

Howard Zinn, of course, is the far-left pseudo-historian whose dishonest and politically motivated narratives were most recently debunked by historian Mary Grabar in the book “Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation Against America.”

Zinn described himself as “something of a Marxist,” his biographer recounted.

According to EdTech, though, the “SEL-oriented” propaganda from Zinn is supposedly “aimed at nurturing empathy and compassion.”

In the real world, Marxism has everywhere and always nurtured hatred, death, slavery, torture, starvation, shortages, political repression, religious persecution, and other evils.

And yet under the guise of SEL programs and “nurturing empathy and compassion,” millions of children are having their minds poisoned by being force-fed actual Marxist propaganda and fake history.

And perhaps even more alarming, Stone urges educators to use surveillance tools that give “insight into students’ online behaviors—both inside and outside the virtual classroom—to enhance SEL.”

One of the recommended total surveillance tools offers educators “a holistic view of online activity across search engines, social media, email and web apps,” Stone said, adding that an artificial-intelligence engine would perform “real-time assessments” to “flag online behaviors that indicate emotional distress.”

As explained in an earlier segment of this series, Orwellian technology is used to monitor and track “progress” on adjusting children’s attitudes, too. That data is being compiled and saved forever under the label of “emotional intelligence.”

The Big Brother technology is also used to determine whether further “interventions” are needed to coerce the child into holding the desired attitudes, values, and beliefs about the issue in question.

And, as U.S. Department of Education documents make clear, it will also be used to predict “future behavior and interests” of the children.

Educators Speak Out

Of course, educators who have seen through the agenda reject SEL as a massive threat to America’s children.

One of those who spoke out against the SEL abuses taking place in her school, Jennifer McWilliams of Indiana, was even fired for being too vocal about it.

“The thing I find to be the most disturbing about social emotional learning is how well it disguises its true sinister motives,” she told The Epoch Times. “Parents do not understand that SEL psychologically manipulates children to question (and eventually rebuke) any Christian or conservative beliefs that may be taught in the home.”

While parents are led to believe that SEL is like teaching children The Golden Rule, “it is quite the opposite,” McWilliams said.

“Social emotional learning is rooted in progressive, social justice ideology that divides anyone who questions the radical groupthink agenda,” she said. “From my personal experience, not only do parents not understand it but teachers and administrators don’t either.”

SEL also represents the “brainwashing of our children,” McWilliams continued, noting that it trains children to “compromise on everything” with no consideration of what is taught in the home.

“These programs rely on a bombardment of propaganda, conditioning, and role playing to separate children from God and the nuclear family,” she said, saying SEL was the vehicle used to get children to accept as truth the narratives behind Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) and Black Lives Matter (BLM).

The popular SEL program used in McWilliams’s school, Leader in Me, was designed to “shift the culture of the school to influence children’s morals and values based on progressive social justice standards,” she said, adding that it became ubiquitous on campus.

When she began publicly speaking out about it on social media, she was fired for supposedly making the school look bad.

“Parents must speak up and take back control of the influence in their children’s lives. If not, the kids will pay with their freedom,” McWilliams said.

The Occult Origins of SEL

The story behind SEL is even more troubling.

According to a history of SEL by CASEL, the term “social and emotional” originated in a meeting at the Fetzer Institute, a shadowy New Age powerhouse created by wealthy New Age guru and late media baron John Fetzer.

One of the founders of the SEL movement, David Sluyter, served as president and CEO of the organization.

“Our mission is to help build the spiritual foundation for a loving world,” the group states on its website, adding that it is working toward a “transformative sacred story for humanity in the 21st century.”

According to Brian Wilson’s book “John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age,” Fetzer was, among other things, a public and fervent devotee of Alice Bailey, the controversial occultist who founded the Lucifer Publishing Company (now known as the Lucis Trust).

So obsessed was Fetzer with Bailey that he and his people would regularly recite her “Great Invocation,” which she claimed was given to her by spiritual beings known as “ascended masters,” Wilson documents in his book.

The Fetzer Institute didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. CASEL initially suggested it would make somebody available for an interview, but didn’t follow up despite multiple requests.

More than a few other prominent names in education were similarly enamored with Bailey’s bizarre teachings from supposed spiritual entities.

United Nations World Core Curriculum author Robert Muller, for instance, who served as assistant secretary-general of the U.N., said in the teachers’ manual that his U.N.-backed global school curriculum was based on the teachings of Bailey and one of her “ascended masters.”

The values being taught to children under Fetzer-inspired SEL programs feature remarkable similarities to those taught by John Dewey, a man almost universally known among educators as the founding father of America’s “progressive” education system.

Dewey, who was inspired by the Soviet educational system, was a co-author and signer of the Humanist Manifesto, a religious document rejecting God and prescribing collectivism as the cure for society’s ills.

For at least 12 years—more if they go to college—American children are indoctrinated into the collectivist values of Dewey’s religion, which was essentially just warmed-over communism and atheism hiding behind a religious facade.

Interestingly, as early as 1898, Dewey himself expressed an understanding of the need to utilize psychology, a discipline then still in its infancy, if the plan to re-shape Americans through “education” was going to succeed.

Even more interesting, perhaps, is the fact that Bailey, citing her ascended masters, recognized the importance of Dewey’s educational schemes in achieving her goal of a one-world order with a global religion.

“Our problem is to attain the kind of overall synthesis that Marxism and neo-Scholasticism provide for their followers, but to get this by the freely chosen cooperative methods that Dewey advocated,” Bailey wrote in her book “Education in the New Age.”

Funding and People

Even a brief review of the funding and individuals behind SEL also reveals a great deal about the agenda.

On its website, CASEL lists, among other financiers, billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Gates, who has a friendly relationship with the Chinese Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping, put almost $300 million behind the Obama-backed Common Core standards, which formally nationalized and helped globalize America’s education system.

Before that, Gates signed a deal with UNESCO, the subject of part nine in this series, to work on globalizing the world’s education systems.

Also listed among the financiers of CASEL is Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which CASEL said “provides generous funding to CASEL to support school districts and their capacity to promote social and emotional learning.”

For some background, the recently deceased patriarch of the family, David Rockefeller, wrote in The New York Times in 1973 that “the social experiment in China under Chairman Mao’s leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history.”

Rockefeller also boasted in his autobiography “Memoirs” of “conspiring” with a “secret cabal” of globalists, “against the best interests of the United States,” to build a “One World” political and economic system.

Aside from its financiers, CASEL’s leading super-stars also suggest something is amiss, to put it mildly.

Consider the involvement of radical Stanford educator Linda Darling-Hammond, a board member emeritus of CASEL and known associate of communist terrorist turned educator William Ayers.

Ayers’s Weather Underground group set off bombs across America in cooperation with communist Cuban intelligence. The FBI operative who infiltrated the group’s leadership, Larry Grathwohl, revealed that the organization’s leadership was plotting to exterminate millions of Americans in camps.

Interestingly, Darling-Hammond had an opportunity to test out her educational quackery unimpeded in the Stanford New Schools. The results are now in: In 2010, Stanford New Schools placed in the lowest-achieving 5 percent of schools in California, according to multiple reports.

More than a few other colleagues of Ayers are or were also involved with CASEL and SEL, with his University of Illinois at Chicago being central to the scheme. At least 3 of 13 members listed on CASEL’s website came from that university’s Department of Education and Psychology.

SEL was formally unveiled in the late 1990s. However, the real history behind it goes way back to Lev Vygotsky, a Soviet psychologist who studied how to effectively brainwash children to become good communists.

Vygotsky’s contributions in laying the foundations for SEL are widely acknowledged among practitioners and even in the academic literature (pdf).

Interestingly, Vygotsky was a close colleague of Ivan Pavlov, the Soviet psychologist famous for his behavioral-conditioning experiments on dogs.

Vygotsky had been inspired, in part, by American psychologist and educational researcher E.L. Thorndike, a student of close Dewey-ally and associate James McKeen Cattell of Columbia University.

In fact, Vygotsky wrote the foreword to the Russian translation of Thorndike’s “Principles of Learning Based Upon Psychology” published in Moscow in the mid-1920s.

Thorndike didn’t bother to conceal his views on education: Children should be educated like circus animals, and it should be so arranged that the child will be incapable of not doing what the trainer wants.

Vygotsky, too, had grandiose ideas about how Soviet “education” and “psychology” would be used to fundamentally transform the individual, and ultimately, mankind.

“It is education which should play the central role in the transformation of man this road of conscious social formation of new generations, the basic form to alter the historical human type,” Vygotsky wrote in 1930 in the journal of the All-Union Association of Workers in Science and Technics for the Furthering of the Socialist Edification in the USSR.

“New generations and new forms of their education represent the main route which history will follow whilst creating the new type of man,” he added.

SEL is simply the latest tool of the collectivist education establishment in its fiendish drive to create this “new type of man”—a collectivist man who will mindlessly submit to the tyranny of his overlords, without the intellectual ability to effectively resist.

Conclusion

Today, while most educators and parents have little understanding of what is going on, SEL has become ubiquitous in government schools across the nation.

National Education Association (NEA) Foundation Global Learning Fellow Wendy Turner, a second-grade teacher and self-styled “SEL warrior” quoted in an article on the NEA’s website, explained that SEL is now the top priority for schools.

“SEL is the foundation, the heartbeat of the classroom,” she said. “It’s about connecting everybody and making them feel safe and secure before you get to the academics.”

In a U.S. Department of Education report, a “review” of existing studies called for subjecting “the entire student body” to constant SEL programming “in order to reinforce social and emotional learning not only in the classroom but also on the playground, in the cafeteria, and in hallways.” Parents should also “reinforce” it at home.

But the facts are now clear: The SEL craze is an extreme threat to America’s youth—and to individual liberty.

The scheme isn’t about helping children at all. Instead, it’s about manipulating and conditioning America’s youth to hold the values and beliefs that the education establishment wants to instill.

Unfortunately, those values and beliefs are incompatible with individual liberty, Western civilization, the U.S. Constitution, the nuclear family, religious liberty, and other key values that underpin the United States.

Parents and policymakers must urgently protect the nation’s children from this dangerous threat.

This article was originally published by The Epoch Times, and is one report in a series of articles examining the origins of government education in the United States.

The esteemed evangelical Christian Wheaton College is really woking up. The administration has removed a plaque honoring Wheaton alumni and missionaries Jim Elliot and Ed McCully because it described as “savage” the indigenous Ecuadorian tribe that brutally and without cause speared Elliot, McCully, and three other missionaries to death in 1956. The plaque, which was donated 64 years ago by Wheaton classmates of Elliot and McCully, read:

For generations all strangers were killed by these savage Indians. After many days of patient preparation and devout prayer, the missionaries made the first friendly contact known to history with the Aucas.(“Auca” is the Quechua word for “savage” and was the name used at the time by indigenous people to refer to the Waorani tribe.)

Wheaton College president Philip Ryken, who appears to be either unable or unwilling to stem the efforts of Wheaton’s “social justice” faculty warriors to awoken Wheaton, said this about the decision:

Recently, students, faculty, and staff have expressed concern about language on the plaque that is now recognized as offensive. …The word “savage” is regarded as pejorative and has been used historically to dehumanize and mistreat Indigenous peoples around the world. … Any descriptions on our campus of people or people groups should reflect the full dignity of human beings made in the image of God.”

I guess no more calling people sinners with deceitful and desperately sick hearts on the Wheaton campus.

When President Ryken defends Wheaton’s decision by claiming the word “savage” is now considered a “pejorative,” he makes two errors. First, “savage” always was considered a pejorative. When in the history of the church, or America, or Ecuador did anyone consider the descriptor “savage” non-pejorative? It is not, however, an epithet like the “n” word.

Second, he errs by acquiescing to the woke mob who seek to dishonestly use Christianity as a weapon to silence all condemnation of sin. In so doing, he has inadvertently caved to relativism. Does President Ryken believe that Christians should refrain from using any and all terms that the world now views as “offensive”?

According to Wheaton spokesman Joseph Moore, this decision was made following the griping of a mere “dozen students and staff.” It would be interesting to know which staff members agitated for this change. Parents who may be considering spending a boatload of money to send their children to the increasingly woke Wheaton and donors who oppose the woke movement might find such information helpful.

The word “savage” means “not civilized” or “ferocious, violent, or brutal.” The tribe called the Waorani or “Auca” that brutally killed Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, and Pete Fleming was at that time, indeed, savage.

While the complicated story of what happened to the Waorani people since the savage murders of five missionaries is little known by many Christians who know the story of Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, the fact that the Waorani were a savage people in the 1950s and earlier is not disputed.

Retired Wheaton College associate professor of history and PCUSA-ordained minister Kathryn T. Long has written a well-reviewed book about the complex history of the Waorani people since the murders of the five missionaries. She makes clear that they were a violent (i.e., savage) people. In a review of her book, Professor John G. Turner writes,

More than 60 percent of Wao deaths during this period were violent ones, [Long] estimates, making the Waorani one of the most violent cultures on earth.

A 2008 paper co-authored by eight scholars including Long, describes the Waorani tribe:

The Waorani may have the highest rate of homicide of any society known to anthropology. … The Waorani (Huaorani, Waodani, Auca) of Ecuador, are known to be even more warlike than the Yanomamo. … Their reputation for ferocity was earned by violence against each other as well as outsiders.

Even one of the Waorani who killed the missionaries acknowledges the former savagery of the tribe:

We lived angry, hating and killing, ‘ononque’ (for no reason) until they brought us God’s markings. Now, those of us who walk God’s trail live happily and in peace.

The now-cancelled Wheaton plaque was clearly referring to a moment in history when the Waorani were savage, which they inarguably were. But the woke, like all doctrinaire propagandists, insist on manipulating history to advance their ideology.

The Roys Report interviewed a current Wheaton student on the plaque controversy who expressed some peculiar unbiblical notions about how Christians may talk about sin:

“Wheaton’s doing a better job of trying to be mindful of the language that they’re using and how it harms people, especially indigenous people. … I don’t think reducing them to their violent tendencies is humanizing because they’re still created in God’s image. It’s also holding them to a Christian standard when they’re not Christians. They’re still people and they’re living life that is not the same as ours. Holding them to our standards wouldn’t necessarily be fair.”

What would this student think of Jonathan Edwards referring to “wicked unbelieving Israelites”? Was he using language that harms people? Was he reducing them to their wicked tendencies and dehumanizing them?

May Christians call false prophets “ravenous wolves” as Jesus did?

Should Christians today abstain from criticizing the “trans”-cult—including “drag queens” who read stories to and twerk in front of toddlers—because they’re not Christians and, therefore, we ought not hold them to “our standards”?

Are standards regarding savage acts “ours,” or are they absolute, objective, transcendent standards applicable to all?

What about past slaveholders or contemporary neo-Nazis? If, when referring to their wicked beliefs and acts, Christians don’t include a comprehensive list of their good qualities, are those believers guilty of dehumanizing reductionism?

In Revelation, those who are not saved are called “dogs.” Peter describes false teachers—of which we have many in the church today—as “irrational animals … born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant. … They are blots and blemishes. … Accursed children!” Paul calls the Galatians, “foolish Galatians.” John the Baptist called the multitudes a “brood of vipers.” Amos called women fat “cows” and warned that God would take them away by harpoons or fishhooks. Paul wrote this to Titus: “As one of their own prophets has said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true.” In other words, Paul called Cretans liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

Were John, Peter, Paul, Amos, and John the Baptist insufficiently mindful of their use of harmful dehumanizing language? Are they unfairly holding non-believers to “our standards”?

Paul wrote,

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you.

In other words, he both held unbelievers to God’s standards and described believers by their past sinful acts. They were sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, greedy, drunkards, and swindlers.

As reported by the Associated Press,

Current student Caitlyn Kasper praised the decision to remove the plaque. “Plaques like that have caused pain to people and are almost a symbol of white superiority in their very presences and in how they make people of color feel unwelcome at Wheaton.”

Does such a plaque cause pain to people? Do people untutored in the doctrine of wokeness espoused in public schools via Critical Race Theory feel pain when seeing this historically accurate plaque? Or is it just the indoctrinated who claim to feel faux-pain?

Is there something intrinsically wrong about feeling pain when confronted by one’s own sin or encountering testimonies of past sinful acts committed by humans?

Was the plaque really “almost” a symbol of white superiority? And if this plaque was “almost” a symbol of white superiority, was it such a symbol or not?

Those who have connections to Wheaton College know that this is merely another step in its ongoing Great Awokening. Wheaton has been churning out social justice warriors since at least Obama’s presidential tenure. As the mother of two Wheaton graduates and mother-in-law of two, I say that with no pleasure.

I first wrote about Wheaton’s cultural capitulation in 2010 when the social justice manifesto of the Department of Education was discovered, a “conceptual framework” rife with the woke rhetoric polluting government schools everywhere today.

The comments from these two current Wheaton students point to the larger problems at Wheaton and raise important questions. How is it that Wheaton students are so biblically ignorant and so woke? Is Wheaton continuing in its abolitionist history of boldly confronting and opposing sin at any cost—especially those serious sins that currently find favor among the well-heeled and powerful? If so, why do we hear so little coming out of Wheaton College from either the administration, faculty, or students about the grievous harm and injustice being done to children by the homosexuality community and “trans” cult? Could it be that Wheaton is tutoring students in the ways of soft-peddling biblical views of sin while scratching itching ears?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Wokeness-at-Wheaton.mp3

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The ideology of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and other “social justice” organizations teaches that all whites are racist oppressors, thereby justifying verbal attacks on people who are deemed inveterate racists and justifying riots to destroy everything that has emerged from an allegedly irremediable racist system. In promoting an explicitly racist ideology, BLM and other “social justice” organizations institutionalize racism, the fruits of which we are still suffering.

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I had awarded Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey the award for Most Cringeworthy Performative Act/photo op of 2020 for his fake body-wracking sobbing while kneeling at George Floyd’s casket. Frey’s performative act/photo op topped even that of the genuflecting congressional thespians adorned in culturally appropriated African kente-clothe scarves led by prayer warrior Nancy Pelosi.

You might want to take some Zofran 30 minutes before watching this:

But now I must rescind the award and give it to the dozen apparently racist celebrities publicly confessing and self-flagellating before the Black Lives Matter Crusaders for their collective, systemic white transgressions.

In melodramatically somber tones, lesbian Sarah Paulson, Aaron Paul, bisexual Kesha (formerly Ke$ha), Bethany Joy Lenz, Kristen Bell, Justin Theroux,  Debra Messing, Mark Duplass, Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard’s daughter), Julianne Moore, Piper Perabo, Stanley Tucci, Ilana Glazer, and gymnast Aly Raisman are taking responsibility for “every unchecked moment, for every time it was easier to ignore than to call it out for what it was, for every not-so-funny joke, every unfair stereotype, every blatant injustice, no matter how big or small, every time” they “remained silent,” and “every time” they “explained away police brutality, or turned a blind eye.”

Eleven of the twelve sanctimonious celebrities work in an industry rife with sexism and exploitation of women and now we learn they are also, apparently, guilty of racism. While profiting from one of the most hypocritical and destructive industries in the country that creates and promotes soft-core porn and glorifies violence, all these self-indulgent, privileged celebrities are now confessing to being racists.

Are they really responsible for every not-so-funny joke, unfair stereotype, and blatant injustice in the world? Did all twelve of them really explain away police brutality? If that’s true, they have a lot to atone for.

The moralizers/offenders identify what they see from their snazzy digs:

Black people are being slaughtered in the streets, killed in their own homes. Going for a job should not be a death sentence. Sleeping in your own home should not be a death sentence. Playing video games with your nephew should not be a death sentence. Shopping in a store should not be a death sentence. Business as usual should not be life-threatening.

No disagreement. Is there anyone in America who believes black people should be slaughtered in the streets, killed in their own homes, killed while playing video games with their relatives, or killed while shopping?

But is there a pervasive problem with black people being slaughtered in the streets, killed in their own homes, or murdered while shopping? Well, yes, there is, but the slaughtering of blacks—including innocent children sitting on their porches, sleeping in their beds, and walking home from school—is being committed primarily by young black men raised without fathers.

Here are some data from scholar Heather MacDonald that the celebrity social justice warriors may want to consider:

However sickening the video of Floyd’s arrest, it isn’t representative of the 375 million annual contacts that police officers have with civilians. A solid body of evidence finds no structural bias in the criminal-justice system with regard to arrests, prosecution or sentencing. Crime and suspect behavior, not race, determine most police actions.

In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.

The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015. The Post defines “unarmed” broadly to include such cases as a suspect in Newark, N.J., who had a loaded handgun in his car during a police chase. In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.

On Memorial Day weekend in Chicago alone, 10 African-Americans were killed in drive-by shootings. Such routine violence has continued—a 72-year-old Chicago man shot in the face on May 29 by a gunman who fired about a dozen shots into a residence; two 19-year-old women on the South Side shot to death as they sat in a parked car a few hours earlier; a 16-year-old boy fatally stabbed with his own knife that same day. This past weekend, 80 Chicagoans were shot in drive-by shootings, 21 fatally, the victims overwhelmingly black. Police shootings are not the reason that blacks die of homicide at eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined; criminal violence is. …

A 2015 Justice Department analysis of the Philadelphia Police Department found that white police officers were less likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed black suspects. Research by Harvard economist Roland G. Fryer Jr. also found no evidence of racial discrimination in shootings. Any evidence to the contrary fails to take into account crime rates and civilian behavior before and during interactions with police.

Of course, everyone knows the celebrity pontificators aren’t really confessing and don’t really feel guilty. They’re doing what socially insular, intellectually myopic, presumptuous, and self-righteous celebrities do best: scold the deplorables—oh, and act.

What other icky cultural manifestations of kowtowing to the destructive Marxist ideologies of BLM and Antifa fascists are emerging? Here are a few:

• As of this writing, Seattle, a sanctuary city with a plague of homelessness, is now a lawless Antifa/BLM enclave, which has been named the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ). At the command of political leaders, Seattle police surrendered the entire 6-block area to anarchists, including their own police precinct, which has been renamed “Seattle People’s Department East Precinct.” Leftists promptly erected borders around their zone and appointed a defacto armed police department. Lawlessness and chaos–which ultimately result in tyranny–are the logical ends of “progressivism.” Next up, the Purge. If current policemen all across this once-great nation walked off the job and BLM members took over “protecting” our rights and communities, would we have less racism, fewer bad “cops,” and communities better suited for human flourishing? I wonder if any businesses will open stores or corporate headquarters in Seattle? I wonder if any families will move there? Other than anarchists and zombies, who will want to move there?

• There are a number of candidates vying for the title of “Progressive” Hypocrite of the Pandemic Year. Top of the list is Michigan governor Christine Whitmer, or as Andrew Klavan calls her, “Obersturmfuhrer Whitmer, ” who prohibited Michiganders from buying seeds or paint when they were shopping at Home Depot, who told Michiganders not to travel north on Memorial Day weekend as her husband traveled north on Memorial Day weekend to get their essential boat on the water early, and who banned lawn care workers from mowing lawns—alone. Well, here she is marching shoulder-to-shoulder with BLM. Sheltering in place is good for thee but not for she when there’s a campaign for the vice presidency that needs a photo op. #PerformativeAct
  Does anyone think that if there had been hundreds of thousands of conservatives marching peacefully in streets for the past two weeks to protest the crushing quarantine—with zero rioting, arson, looting, and brick-throwing—that leftist quarantine zealots would have been silent? Or would there have been mass rage, rending of clothes, and sanctimonious scoldings over the iniquitous disregard for human life demonstrated by demonstrators?

• The mob is coming for your jobs. John Daniel Davidson writing for The Federalist warns that your position on BLM has consequences:

There will be no opting out of the Black Lives Matter movement. You’re either for BLM or against it—and if you’re against it, you’re a racist. You will either support BLM publicly and enthusiastically, or you will be harassed, shunned, and shamed out of mainstream America. If you dare to speak a word against BLM, you will be targeted, mobbed, and probably fired.

• Leftists now want to burn books (and movies and historical monuments), but since they can’t actually say that, they had to figure out a way to conceal that they want to burn books. What to do, what to do? 💡Brainstorm!Just rename book-burning. Call it “decolonizing your bookshelf.” Oh, and when you’re done with all that decolonizing, call the Firemen:

Coloured people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. (Captain Beatty, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury).

We just put our American flag up at our house. I think it’s going to stay up for a while. I am deeply thankful to live in America where “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and where our forefathers wrote, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

This is a remarkable country built on principles that enable it to become “a more perfect Union” as long as we remember the Creator who endowed us with Rights. Without a Creator, there exist no unalienable Rights. Without a Creator, there exist no transcendent truths, no moral absolutes. Un-created human lives don’t matter. Un-created humans create and inhabit a world of highly intelligent dogs eating dogs.

I hope Christians who, in the face of slander, hostility, and threats, offer feeble, vapid defenses of their silence on issues that both culture and Scripture address realize that 1. We the people are the government, 2. Children are watching as parents model cowardice and rationalization, and 3. Silent capitulators are feeding the behemoth that will devour their children’s and grandchildren’s hearts, minds, liberty, and maybe their bodies.

But by all means continue. Take up your crosses daily, and hide them in the basement.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/nauseating-performative-acts-by-celebrity-racists.mp3

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I am really torn about what to say about the upheaval going on in our nation. I have spent a lot of time reading, researching, and listening to various sermons, presentations, and articles on things like the social justice movement, intersectionality, racism, cultural Marxism and virtue signaling in our culture and in our churches…

I recently had a “discussion” with someone that almost instantly turned into my having to prove I am not racist . . .  as defined, of course, by his perceptions, not my heart, or my statements, or my actions.

I love America and I love the study of U.S. history. I thank the Lord that in His sovereignty he blessed me by ordaining my birth here in 1967. I almost never think of myself as “white.” I do often think of myself as American. I believe that I have American privilege. I am so thankful for it. I do not buy into “white privilege.” I cannot think of a better place for anyone of any ethnic background to live that offers more freedom, more equality, and more opportunity than the U.S.

I do not believe that in 2020 America is racist. More than any other country, America has sacrificed to correct the wrongs of our history. I am worried that too many people have been led to believe that America has not changed since 1865 or 1920. It has . . . but for many, the sins of the past can never be overcome or repented of enough. I do not believe this is Biblical, let alone secularly true.

I do believe that, even today, there are racist Americans, and that some people treat others poorly. (There are also racist police officers.) But I do not believe they are racist because they are Americans or even because they may be white. There are some racists among us, of all ethnicities, and all professions, because we are all humans with a sinful nature that utopian ideas cannot change. For this same reason, there are also liars, adulterers, thieves, rapists, and child abusers among us too. We have, and need, laws to address and deter these human sins.

Thankfully, we have passed a great deal of laws that have been successful as both a teacher and a protector, so that all Americans have opportunities in spite of our differences. We also have vital institutions like churches and schools to help us live above our base human tendencies.

There are people out there talking about “systematic racism” some saying that, as one professor declared on national TV, “America is a social experiment that has failed.”  If this is true, we are doomed. But it is not true. Venezuela and the USSR were social experiments that failed. America has been a very, though not perfectly, successful experiment in liberty in so many ways.

There are definitely economic inequalities in the U.S. for a variety of reasons. Yet, it should also be remembered that 71 percent of the world’s population has less than $10,000 in total assets. Americans are a prosperous lot, and globally, most of us would be considered wealthy and privileged. The typical American has as much wealth sitting in their driveway, as much of the world currently has in their entire life.

I say that only to say a self-hating society cannot last.

The loss of life of at least 17 people, mostly minorities, in these riots is horrific. To me, after this is the destruction of businesses and properties in the cities where serious social problems remain. A part of this destruction that deeply worries me involves an historic ignorance I see mostly among young white anarchists who have infiltrated and hijacked a legitimate concern over the death of George Floyd and police policies.

Last week, I mentioned the senseless painting of “Black Lives Matter” on the Indianapolis Soldiers and Sailors monument, which was built in large part to remember the lives and service given by Indiana’s Union soldiers in the Civil War. I think that outrage has now been topped in Boston.

Rioters vandalized the Shaw Memorial statue dedicated to the 54^th Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry regiment. This was the all black Union regiment depicted in the Oscar winning movie Glory, starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. Authorities believe that rioters vandalized the memorial on Sunday, May 31^st – the 123rd anniversary of its dedication!   

This kind of stupidity, and total dismissal of the good things in American history that occurred to achieve equality, is baffling and scary. Too many of our nation’s young have been indoctrinated to believe everything bad about our nation with no historic or global perspective of the positive uniqueness of America. These senseless anarchists might as well vandalize the Selma, Alabama, Pettus Bridge too.

While I do not want to dismiss legitimate conversations, let me pass along a couple of facts that point to my title of this item.

• Today, 28 percent of all children adopted from foster care in the United States are interracial adoptions.  Another 21 percent of privately initiated adoptions in the U.S. are interracial adoptions.

• For children who are not Caucasian, 73 percent of their adoptions are to Caucasian parents.

• The percentage of international U.S. adoptions that are interracial is 84 percent.

• Fifty years ago, only 3 percent of marriages in the U.S. were interracial, but by 2015, 17 percent of newlyweds in the U.S. had a spouse from a different racial background. (For comparison, interracial marriages in Japan today are still just 3 percent. In 1978, China did not have one single interracial marriage registered among its 950 million people, which was a population three times the size of America today.)

• The percentage of interracial marriages involving a black spouse has tripled since 1980.

I am not wanting to overlook any concerns, but these are not the kind of major life decisions you would see of a people living under a “systematically racist” government.

America needs prayer, optimism, and unity right now; not lawlessness, self-loathing ignorance, and destruction.

This article was originally published at AFA of Indiana.

What is social justice? Is it a virtue, a philosophy?

Social justice encompasses economic justice. Social justice is the virtue which guides us in creating those organized human interactions we call institutions. In turn, social institutions, when justly organized, provide us with access to what is good for the person, both individually and in our associations with others. Social justice also imposes on each of us a personal responsibility to collaborate with others, at whatever level of the “Common Good” in which we participate, to design and continually perfect our institutions as tools for personal and social development. ^[1]

Or is it pretty much just action?

Social justice is open doors.

It is not a bunch of privileged academics patting themselves on their backs and making pronouncements that are so vague that you cannot figure out what was promised. It is not yet another institute named for another community leader that produces nothing tangible.

Social justice is a belly full of wholesome food – every single day.

Scholarships, jobs, good schools, full- access to quality health care, peace, etc., that’s social justice . Social justice is the foundation on which productive lives, sound families and strong communities are built.^[2]

Whatever a speaker means by “social justice”, is there any actual justice in it? Let’s find out.

Justice for all

An online dictionary defines “justice” as:

1. the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness: to uphold the justice of a cause.
2. rightfulness or lawfulness, as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason: to complain with justice.
3. the moral principle determining just conduct.
4. conformity to this principle, as manifested in conduct; just conduct, dealing, or treatment.
5. the administering of deserved punishment or reward.
6. the maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings: a court of justice.^[3]

That is, justice means having some standards by which your deeds or work will be measured, and then being impartially judged against those standards.

In the United States our laws, our justice, are based on English common law.^[4] In turn, this comes from a Bible-based culture. America still expects its laws to agree with what the Bible says about right and wrong.

Our laws bring individuals before the courts, to judge them innocent or guilty. We don’t try groups of people, but rather charge each individually. There is no legal concept of group guilt or “it is society’s fault.”

What distinguishes justice from mere courtroom proceedings is the expectation of even-handedness. The participants expect that the judge, and jury if there is one, will impartially examine the facts and rule on them. They must not favor a person because of wealth, fame, power, or race. The Bible has plenty to say about having honest courts.^[5]

Social Justice is not Justice

Regardless of how of Ms. Silva^[6] feels about it, if social justice is to rise above mob violence then we have to define it. Wikipedia says this about social justice:

Social justice is a concept of fair and just relations between the individual and society. This is measured by the explicit and tacit terms for the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges.^[7]

There are many other definitions like it. They don’t deal with standards for behavior, about right and wrong. Rather, they care about transferring money and privilege between groups.

The social justice definitions amount to roughly this: Social justice is merely a conversational label. A potent one, but a label. Through this phrase listeners are encouraged to uncritically accept the speaker’s assertion about just how society must be overhauled.

This is so unlike justice. Justice is an act of examining a combination of individuals and deeds, then rendering an impartial judgment. Social justice, however fine the sentiment, amounts to a campaign speech.

Why is the Social Justice phrase so powerful?

There is magic in these words. By them you can convince yourself, and perhaps others, that your desires are legitimate, and that society must be bound by them. But the old political rules still apply, for you need a lot of people to all articulate the same thing. In brief, lobbying for change.

You see “social justice” most often out of people and organizations paid for social advocacy. From Wikipedia:

In the current global grassroots movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets and economic justice.^[8]

That, and perhaps the smell of fresh government subsidies, are what brings the Center for Economic and Social Justice,^[9] CARE,^[10], the United Nations,^[11] and the San Diego Foundation^[12] out to sell us social justice.

How is Social Justice being used right now?

If you say “social justice” often enough, you get people to think you’ve something profound to say. You can shame your opponents as being unjust. And you can deflect criticisms about just how bad your ideas really are. For example:

Social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal rights and opportunities —this includes the right to good health. Yet today, there are inequities in health that are avoidable, unnecessary and unjust. These inequities are the result of policies and practices that create an unequal distribution of money, power and resources among communities based on race, class, gender, place and other factors. To assure that everyone has the opportunity to attain their highest level of health, we must address the social determinants of health AND equity.^[13]

Yet we know, time and again, that getting the government involved only makes things worse in every way.^[14] But non-government solutions get shouted down because they don’t conform with an overall goal of transforming society.

Conclusion

Social justice isn’t a virtue at all. It is merely a phrase meant to self-justify a social proposal. In fact, you must look even harder at the proposal attached to the phrase. The words “social justice” are meant to numb your sensibilities.

Getting a just society is entirely another matter. Start with learning what justice truly is. The Bible is a good start. Everyone has a role in preserving a just society, and everyone can convince his or her neighbor, a business, a leader, and a judge, to do their own parts.

Learn more: Grievance Scholars Expose the Trojan Horse of Social Justice in Faith & Academics

Endnotes

1. Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice, Center for Economic and Social Justice, https://www.cesj.org/learn/definitions/defining-economic-justice-and-social-justice/ ↑
2. Silva, Candelaria, What Social Justice Means (to me), January 28, 2014, http://candelariasilva.com/what-social-justice-means-to-me/ ↑
3. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/justice ↑
4. Gardner, Jonathan, Christianity and English Common Law, Federal Way Conservative, https://fwcon.wordpress.com/2018/08/23/christianity-and-english-common-law/ ↑
5. http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-7-number-1/biblical-foundations-limited-government ↑
6. Silva, Candelaria, What Social Justice Means (to me), January 28, 2014 ↑
7. Bandow, Doug, Biblical Foundations of Limited Government, Acton Institute, July 20, 2010, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice ↑
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice ↑
9. Defining Economic Justice and Social Justice, Center for Economic and Social Justice ↑
10. https://www.care.org/work/poverty ↑
11. International Forum for Social Development, 2006, https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/documents/ifsd/SocialJustice.pdf ↑
12. TSDF, What Is Social Justice?, The San Diego Foundation, March 24, 2016, https://www.sdfoundation.org/news-events/sdf-news/what-is-social-justice/ ↑
13. Social Justice and Health, American Public Health Association, https://www.apha.org/what-is-public-health/generation-public-health/our-work/social-justice ↑
14. Merline, John, $586 Billion Later, Health Care Is Worse Than Before Obamacare — Thanks Obama, Issues & Insights, June, 2019, https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/04/586-billion-later-health-care-in-bigger-state-of-crisis-thanks-obama/ ↑

This article was originally published at FixThisCulture.com.

On Friday July 12, pro-illegal immigration supporters protesting outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility pulled down the American flag and replaced it with the Mexican flag. Throughout America’s history, our flag has flown as a symbol of our foundational guiding principles. The American flag—like the flags of every country in the world—stands for its principles—not its flaws. There exists no flawless nation, state, or city because there exist no flawless humans. But there are countries whose guiding principles are nobler than others—countries in which liberty, equality, and justice are more passionately pursued and protected than in others. The United States stands at the pinnacle of such nations.

If national flags did represent a country’s flaws and failures rather than its guiding principles, surely the Mexican flag would stand for egregious institutional corruption and incompetence, making it inexplicable why anyone would replace the American flag with the Mexican flag.

Alternatively, if Mexico is superior to America in most ways, why aren’t Central American emigrants staying in Mexico?

It’s clear that the surge of immigrants applying for asylum are not really asylum-seekers. As a result of their own governments’ incompetence and corruption, impoverished Central Americans are coming to America for the prosperity immigrants throughout our history have seen and sought. They see and seek what Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe cannot see. They desperately desire entrance into the country Kaepernick and Rapinoe detest.

But they are abusing America’s generosity and exploiting the cheap political gamesmanship of conscience-less and incompetent congressmen and congresswomen in both parties whose deliberate inaction has created the conditions on the border that Leftists now blame on the Trump Administration.

The political Left’s sickening exploitation of the huddled masses beggars belief. Cultural regressives encourage hordes of suffering people to flood our border knowing full well the detention facilities cannot accommodate such numbers, and then Leftists use images and descriptions of these overwhelmed facilities to whip Americans into a frenzy of rage directed at ICE agents and Republicans.

No one better typifies the dishonest exploitation of immigrants than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) who in a congressional hearing tried to smear former acting ICE director Tom Homan by accusing him of heartlessly separating children from their parents—a practice started by the Obama Administration and ended by the Trump Administration in June 2018.

In response to AOC’s accusations, Homan responded that anyone who is arrested for committing a crime is separated from his or her children and that crossing the border anywhere except for ports of entry is a crime.

Later in a tweet AOC responded that “the [Trump] admin has practically closed ports to asylees” resulting in migrant “desperation” that leads them to do dangerous things like “what Oscar & Valeria (the father and daughter who drowned) did.”

Very cunning and morally repugnant tactical moves on AOC’s part. First, she encourages masses of migrants to flood our borders, thereby overwhelming detention facilities and resulting in far less than ideal conditions for detained immigrants. Then when the administration places restrictions on ports of entry—which would improve conditions in detention facilities—she criticizes the administration for its efforts and accuses it of causing the deaths of a father and daughter.

AOC’s ignorance and malfeasance was surpassed by that of U.S. Representative Jesus Garcia (D-Chicago), who, in an explosive hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives accused Homan of not caring about migrant children because they aren’t white.

Justifiably outraged, Homan responded in a riveting defense of himself and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in which he also pointed out the ethical implications of the failure to secure the border and identified the group responsible for the border debacle: Congress.

AOC and her allies—who assume no responsibility for the desperation migrants feel or for the detention facilities conditions—are committed to keeping the number of suffering illegals high in order to secure political power.

Ironically, cultural regressives like AOC in government, in the press, and in the streets who so passionately support illegal immigration benefit from the fertile anti-America soil in which so many young Americans have been grown like weeds: that is, government schools. And this anti-America indoctrination starts long before college.

Public schools, long-controlled by Leftists and Leftist organizations, are seed beds of hatred for America and have churned out America-hating, self-identifying “social justice warriors” who mete out injustice to all those who refuse to submit to their ideology.

Government schools advance “progressive” views of America under the banner of “teaching for social justice,” which shares some of the philosophical features of “Critical Pedagogy,” “Critical Race Theory,” and, within theological circles, “Black Liberation Theology.”

In broad outlines, “teaching for social justice” is essentially repackaged socialism with its focus on economic redistribution. Social justice theory emphasizes redistribution of wealth and values uniformity of economic and social position over liberty. That is, “social justice” disciples pursue the distinctly un-American goal of equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Social justice advocates seek to use the force of government to establish economic uniformity.

Social justice theory encourages people to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics that demarcates groups according to which groups allegedly constitute the “oppressors” and which the “oppressed.” Those who are identified as the “oppressors” need not have committed any acts of actual persecution or oppression, nor feel any sense of superiority toward or dislike of the supposed “oppressed” class. The theory promotes the arguable idea that “institutional racism” and “systemic bias” as opposed to actual acts of mistreatment of individuals by other individuals, is the cause of differing lots in life.

Social justice grievance theory hyper-focuses on America’s mistakes and failings, while diminishing or ignoring the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world and in enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.

Ironically, those who most hate America are those who most vigorously facilitate the illegal immigration of those who desperately want to live in America.

The ideological echo chamber that government schools are and foster is reflected in these words from Megan Rapinoe when asked about going to Washington D.C.:

We’ve always been interested in going to Washington…. So, yes to AOC, yes to Nancy Pelosi, yes to the bipartisan Congress, yes to Chuck Schumer, yes to anyone else… who… believes in the same things we believe in.

Perfect encapsulation of “progressivism’s” view of diversity and tolerance.

American stands for freedom, equality before the law, and justice. While it is profoundly good and noble to choose to tend to the needs of those less fortunate, which Americans—especially Christians—are known around the globe for doing generously, it is unjust of the government to compel Americans to pay, and pay, and pay for those who break our laws. America’s commitment to justice is inseparable from its commitment to law-keeping. If every citizen is permitted to decide which laws must be obeyed and which may be disobeyed, we are no longer a just country and perhaps not even a sovereign nation much longer.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/America-Hating-Social-Justice-Warriors.mp3

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
We are excited to announce that at this year’s IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.

In 2013, the American Nurses Association (ANA) stated this : “The American Nurses Association (ANA) prohibits nurses’ participation in assisted suicide and euthanasiabecause these acts are in direct violation of Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements (ANA, 2001).” (Emphasis added)

But now in 2019, the ANA is proposing a new position paper to change this. Not only is the ANA attempting to change its previously used term assisted suicide to “aid in dying” (the approved term of Compassion and Choices), but also the Code of Ethics itself.

The draft position paper is titled “The Nurse’s Role When a Patient Requests Aid in Dying”.  There is an online form for public comments which must be submitted before April 8, 2019. There is no requirement that you have to be a member of ANA or even a nurse to make a public comment. The ANA can also be contacted by email at customerservice@ana.org or by phone at 1-800-284-2378.

There is much in the draft position that I find shocking both as a nurse and a patient. For example, the draft position begins:

“It is the shared responsibility of professional nursing organizations to speak for nurses collectively in shaping health care and to promulgate change for the improvement of health and health care” and “(t)he nurse should remain non-judgmental when discussing end of life options with patients, who are exploring AID” (a.k.a. physician-assisted suicide). (Emphasis added)

This statement flies in the face of the way nurses have traditionally cared for patients considering suicide, whether they are terminally ill or not. Unfortunately, this follows the lead of several medical, nursing and hospice/palliative care organizations that have changed their positions on assisted suicide to “neutrality” or even support.

The ANA draft also states, “The nurse has the right to conscientiously object to being involved in the AID process” but “Nurses are obliged to provide for patient safety, to avoid patient abandonment, and to withdraw only when assured that nursing care is available to the patient.”  (Emphasis added)

The draft suggests that such nurses can “ensure the ongoing care of the patient considering AID by identifying nurse colleagues willing to provide care.”

This is forced cooperation and does nothing to protect nurses’ conscience rights. Such a position would impact not only current nurses but also potential future nurses who have strong ethical principles against helping patients kill themselves.  Many nurses already are worried about the impact of other ANA positions, such as the 2017 “Nutrition and Hydration at the End of Life”  which states, “People with decision-making capacity have the right to stop eating and drinking as a means of hastening death. (Emphasis added)

In a section titled Social Justice, the draft position states:

“Nurses must continually emphasize the values of respect, fairness, and caring,”(ANA, 2015a, p.35). Statutes that allow AID are not present in every state, which presents geographic inequity in terms of access. Additionally, AID medication is expensive, which presents an additional barrier to access for those who cannot afford it, even if they live in a jurisdiction or state where this option is legal. Nurses act to reduce or eliminate disparities. While this is most commonly associated with health promotion and disease prevention, the current AID landscape raises questions of fairness which require ethical reflection.” (Emphasis added)

I find it outrageous to encourage nurses to become social justice warriors  fighting for more access to assisted suicide and cheaper lethal overdoses. And one recommendation in the ANA draft position eliminates all doubt about a radical departure from the 2013 Code of Ethics prohibition of  “participation in assisted suicide”: “Nursing research is needed to provide an evidence base for AID.”

NON-JUDGMENTALISM: IS IT REALLY IN OUR PATIENTS’ BEST INTERESTS?

When I first met “Frank” (not his real name) many years ago, I was puzzled. Frank was a terminally ill man who had just been admitted to my oncology unit for control of his “unbearable pain.” However, Frank didn’t seem to be in any physical pain.

I talked privately to Frank’s wife, Joan, who tearfully confided that Frank was cleaning his gun collection when he asked her if she would still be able to live in their home if, in his words, “anything happened.”

Joan said she knew he was talking about shooting himself and even though she was horrified, she said she thought the right thing to say was: “I will support any decision you make.” However, she later panicked and called the doctor to say that Frank was having unbearable pain. The doctor agreed to admit him and ordered morphine to be given as soon as he arrived.

When I suggested to Joan that Frank’s real question might not be about their home but rather about whether his lingering dying might be too hard on them both, she was stunned. This had never occurred to her. She said she loved Frank and she wanted to care for him until the end. I told her that she and her husband needed to talk.

Frank and Joan then finally had a long overdue open discussion about their sorrow and fears. I told the doctor what I discovered and when I last saw Frank and Joan later that day, they were holding hands and smiling as they left the hospital.

I learned that Frank died peacefully — and naturally — a few weeks later with his wife at his side.

I believe that this situation shows how being “non-judgmental” can itself be lethal. Unfortunately, the public as well as we healthcare professionals are being given the message that a patient’s “right to self-determination” is the most important ethical principle.

What I did with Frank and his wife was a lot like a recent UCLA project started when California legalized physician-assisted suicide. The project showed that “most of what patients needed was to discuss their feelings about their approaching death and process their grief and sense of loss.” The project also found that “only” 25% of these patients seeking assisted suicide went on to use assisted suicide.

When someone is suicidal, it should not matter whether they are terminally ill. Instead, we should treat them with the same care and concern we would give a physically healthy suicidal person.

Anything less would be discrimination and I am telling this to the ANA.

This article was originally published at NancyValko.com

Speaking at a recent conference on Social Justice and the Gospel, Dr. Voddie Baucham, Jr. addressed the meaning of social justice and explains that the term doesn’t mean what we think it means. Dr. Bauchman is a Dean of Theological Education at African Christian University in Zambia.

He begins by quoting Dr. William Young, who defines social justice as the redistribution of advantages and resources to disadvantaged groups to satisfy their rights to social and economic equality.  In theological terms, God demands justice, and therefore injustice is “sin.”  Accordingly, any disagreements cannot be allowed as this would be “injustice” and contrary to the Divine will.

But It’s important to remember that social justice is not about whether the individual experiences success.  It is always about the group: it is important to identify disadvantaged groups that require justice.  And it’s not about numbers.  Take women, for example.  They comprise more than half the population but are still considered disadvantaged.

This leads to the concept of “identity politics,” i.e., what politicians will do for “our group.”  If some group is not doing well – never mind any particular individual – we need to find out who is to blame.  There needs to be a redistribution of resources to address any disparities.

If we claim that the individuals in any particular group are responsible for their own disadvantages, that would amount to the dreaded accusation of “victim blaming.”  In fact, social justice assumes that those in “privileged” groups – as, for example, white people, who are successful, financially or otherwise, have acquired those resources illegitimately.  According to social justice, the answer is to redress the perceived grievances.  The fact that extremely high-paying professional sports is dominated by players of another color is an anomaly that is ignored or considered just.

Social justice demands that resources that are “unjustly” gained be transferred to those of an underrepresented minority.  Accordingly, a white person who started from nothing and became successful means nothing and is still considered the unjust one.  On the other hand, someone from a minority family of financial means deserves whatever privileges they enjoy.

Thus, central to the idea of social justice is the idea of “redistributive justice.”  According to its adherents, only this can guarantee genuine democracy.

Dr. Baucham cites the largest online professed Christian community that is claiming to fight for social justice.  The site, Faithful America, lists their victories and exploits in fighting for social justice.  Topping the list is their fight against a company called Hobby Lobby, which has stood for Christian values.  Number two on the list of Faithful America’s list of “victories” is convincing Google to delist World Vision, a worldwide Christian ministry.  Third on the list is their success in forcing MSNBC to drop the Family Research Council, which fights for Christian values in Washington D.C.

A pattern is beginning to emerge.  Faithful America also defended a pastor who was defrocked for performing a same-sex wedding in violation of the stated principles of his denomination.  If we recall the social justice assertion that injustice is “sin,” then standing for traditional marriage and refusing to sanction gay marriage is considered “sinful” behavior.

According to Dr. Baucham, the social justice movement centers on three main areas.  The first is minority equality; the second is feminism and women’s rights; and the third is the LGBTQA+ movement, which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, the allies of the aforementioned, and anyone other aberrant sexuality not on this list.

Dr. Baucham refers to the classic gay propaganda strategy book of the last century, After the Ball, How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Homosexuality in the 1990’s.  The book describes three strategies to accomplish this goal: desensitizing, jamming, and conversion.  All involve acclimatizing “normal” heterosexuals to seeing – and eventually accepting – LGBTQA+ people by “bombarding” them through television, movies, the media, and the educational system to “getting used to” their abnormal lifestyle.  Those who resist are to be identified with neo-Nazis and the KKK, etc.

Thus, it has come about that those who hold to marriage and family as historically understood have become the enemies of “social justice.”  If such a thing can be imagined, it has come to the point where the views of traditionalists are considered “sinful,” and worthy only of an unforgivable disapproval until if and when they “see the light” and not only tolerate but celebrate the homosexual lifestyle.

This video and his message is well worth your attention:

IFI Worldview Conference

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

Written by Peter Heck

The Social Justice church continues embarrassing itself.  And while I continue praying for unity within the church of Christ, for the diminishment of manufactured schisms and the futile exaltation of man-made schemes for worldly reconciliation, it’s getting to the point where I’m convinced that this movement is just going to have to burn itself out by butchering its own credibility amongst the brethren.

Commentaries like the one offered recently by social justice theologian Timothy Isaiah Cho convince me the credibility-butchering has commenced in earnest.  Check out this masterpiece:

Timothy Isaiah Cho

“If the references in your pastor’s sermons, the books used in small groups, the resources passed between the laity, the music sung in worship, & even the reflection quotes in your worship bulletins are predominantly by White men, your church is promoting a truncated Christianity.

This communicates to those in the church that the real gatekeepers of orthodoxy – and those who are the only ones worth listening to – are White men. It says that authentic worship – and that which we should rightly emulate – originates from White men.  It declares that the church property belongs to, is led by, and influenced by White men. It says that women and people of color are properly always to be listeners, submitters, and passive bystanders in the church who should be grateful for the place they’ve been allotted by White men.

In contrast, Jesus’ church is the epicenter of equity and diversity. Each part of the body is weak and incomplete in faith without all of the other parts, and we are called to mutually submit one to another while exercising our respective gifts in service to one another.”

Apparently, Cho has determined that his “gift” is sowing division in the body along the lines of man-made, social constructs like race.  Offering no exegetical evidence for his position, it’s just a stunningly tone-deaf statement in light of the reconciling work of the Holy Spirit, and it stands in flagrant contrast of the command Jesus gives His disciples, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”

In other words, while Christ is instructing His disciples to test all things against the perfect standard of His word alone, social justice theologians like Cho would discard that benchmark in favor of a skin melanin quota system.

It’s as absurd as it sounds.

Luckily, as I alluded to earlier, this kind of conspicuous nonsense is increasingly being exposed.  That’s good for Christendom.  For instance, by Cho’s standard, if the preaching of your church featured the writings of predominantly Jewish men, it would be promoting a truncated Christianity.  Given that predominantly Jewish men were the authors God selected to write His Word, the accusation would seem to have some inherent flaws.  It’s almost as though the real test of the references, quotes, and perspectives offered in a church service should be their fidelity and faithfulness to the text.

But again, what is most unflattering about Cho’s social justice gospel is that it masquerades as a path towards reconciliation while flying in the face of the testimony of inerrant Scripture.  Writing on the ministry of reconciliation himself, the Apostle Paul penned these words inspired from the Holy Spirit:

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”

Truncated Christianity is the kind that doesn’t offer the full counsel of God; the kind that falls short of God’s declared Word to man, or worse, the kind that undermines or conflicts with it.  Regrettably, that’s the kind being peddled so fervently by social justice activists like Timothy Isaiah Cho.

This article was originally published at PeterHeck.com.

When you look at the history of Christianity in the West, it is largely defined (despite popular anti-Christian myth to the contrary) by Christians promoting social justice and charity for the poor and underprivileged. No other social group has been responsible for more positive social reform and improvements for the underprivileged, sick and downtrodden than Christians.

In early 19^th century, William Wilberforce, a Bible-believing Christian, campaigned his entire political career in the British Parliament for the abolition of slavery. Christian groups have founded scores of hospitals and medical clinics. According to the Catholic News Service, over 117,000 Catholic health care facilities exist around the world today, including hospitals, clinics and orphanages.

The abolitionist movement and the underground railroad were largely Christian movements. Quakers, Anabaptists and many ministers called for abolition and helped protect slaves as they made their way to Canada.

Christianity Supports the Common Good

Researchers who study philanthropy tell us: “Per capita, Americans voluntarily donate about seven times as much as continental Europeans. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household. There are many reasons for this American distinction. Foremost is the fact that ours is the most religious nation in the industrial world. Religion motivates giving more than any other factor.”[i]

Consider the amazing history of the humanitarian “Salvation Army” around the world since 1865. They have reached millions and millions with practical help and the message of the Gospel. Their mission statement is: “The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.” With a “heart to God, and a hand to man,” they model what true Christians have always sought to do throughout all time: Preach the Gospel and demonstrate God’s love to others.

One of the most revered Reformed American preachers of all time, Jonathan Edwards (a staunch theological conservative), advocated for radical, “liberal” generosity:

“It is the duty of the people of God to give bountifully for the aforesaid purpose. It is commanded once and again in the text, ‘Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy poor brother.’ Merely to give something is not sufficient. It answers not the rule, nor comes up to the holy command of God. But we must open our hand wide. What we give, considering our neighbor’s (needs), and our ability, should be such as may be called a liberal gift.”[ii]

What is Social Justice Theology?

With this background, it may surprise some when some Evangelicals refuse to support a popular fad within liberal church circles called, “Social Justice Theology.”

As with most things, it’s unfair to say that a complex ideology can be described in one mere sound-bite. However, in a nutshell, the primary objection that conservative Christians have with Social Justice Warriors (SJW) is their insistence that we should help people…with other people’s money! This is where the new postmodern, liberal version of Christianity parts from the historic Christian faith and practice.

Jesus taught his disciples to give generously, of their OWN money to the poor. SJW’s look to the civil government as the great savior of society. They advocate for socialistic programs that promote a forced redistribution of wealth through mandatory taxation and government-controlled welfare programs. It’s quite easy to be generous with money taken by force from others. The problem is, that isn’t truly loving.

Socialism is Not Love or Justice

Former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once famously quipped:

“Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.”[iii]

In the end, Socialism always results in people losing their freedoms, as the government increasingly takes control of the mean of production and distribution. Ronald Reagan once said (speaking of the hip new packaging of Socialism as a social kindness), “Under the tousled boyish haircut is still old Karl Marx — first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a Government being Big Brother to us all. Hitler called his ‘State Socialism’ and way before him it was ‘benevolent monarchy.’”[iv]

If you want to know where this “benevolence” leads, it ends up with all citizens (except those in elite political — and corrupt economic — power), losing their liberty. History has played that story out again and again.

As true Conservatives, our desire is to see true justice and true charity. Neither of these thrive when people have their liberties decreased through an ever-expanding government monopoly. Nor does it thrive through the financial plundering (and soon disappearance) of the working middle class (because of excessive taxation for government welfare programs).

As Christians, we are for the Biblical and historic Christian church’s version of social justice (where people demonstrate kindness from uncoerced hearts). We are not for the new Neo-Marxist version of force and political aggression. The new Social Justice is simply Socialism, disguised under a thin “Christian” veneer. Advocates of true social justice will want nothing to do with it.

(For more study on this topic, I will refer you to the excellent essay, “Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus A Socialist?” by Lawrence W. Reed.)

[i] https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/statistics/who-gives

[ii] http://www.biblebb.com/files/edwards/charity.htm

[iii] https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/102953

[iv] The New York Times (27 October 1984)

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