still a bit of time before this goes to press; as always, I’d appreciate any comments

A Wee Word from the Pastor

I usually try to avoid the talking heads on TV, but in recent weeks Glenn Beck has made himself unavoidable. Perhaps you missed the media fracas—if so, consider yourself lucky. Perhaps you have not heard of Glenn Beck, the polarizing author, talk show host, political commentator, and conspiracy theorist—if so, bless you. But since Beck recently made some sweeping generalizations about Christians and Christianity that caused quite a stir, I figure I should probably write a little something in response.

To catch you up: on a recent television show Glenn Beck claimed that “social justice is a perversion of the Gospel” and urged Christians to leave their churches if their congregations preached “social justice,” or if their websites contained the words “social justice.”

On the surface, we Hallock Presbyterians are safe and sound—at least since I’ve been here. I checked: we don’t have a website with the words “social justice” (we don’t have a website at all!). And I did a computer word search of my sermons and the words “social” and “justice” have never appeared in the same sentence together. Whew!

But Beck, not known for apologizing or backing down, ramped up his rhetoric. After many Christians responded negatively to Beck’s critiques, starting petition campaigns and speaking out online, claiming that it is the call of all Christians everywhere to seek social justice, Beck took things to the next level. Beck dedicated a week of his show to fighting the Christian-based organization Sojourners’, and its founder Jim Wallis. Now Jim Wallis is another guy happy to spend some time in the spotlight. Wallis did so by peddling his books, (including “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It” and “Rediscovering Values”), but also by responding with sound judgment and helpful history.

In a recent Washington Post Op-Ed article “Christians Stand up to Glenn Beck” Wallis writes,

While the term has sometimes been used to support ideologies of the left and right, social justice is in fact a personal commitment to serve the poor and to attack the conditions that lead to poverty. These are some of the most passionate beliefs of a younger generation of Christians and one of their most compelling attractions to Jesus Christ.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the archetypal “social justice Christian” and the one from whom many of us have drawn inspiration. King inspired me to build movements for change, not to build big and tyrannical governments, as Beck has charged. King clearly called for more than private charity: He called for changing structures and, yes, for using the “government” to end racial segregation and establish voting rights for African Americans. And it was King acting in what he believed to be obedience to God, not a preference for totalitarian governments, that led to remarkable achievements of helping to realize a more just society.

Wallis is right to defend those of us who seek “social justice” in the world. Indeed, leaders in the Roman Catholic Church, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, and even Glenn Beck’s own Mormon church have publically challenged Beck’s understanding of social justice.

The Presbyterian Church is no different. The six “great ends of the church” that are outlined in the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are:

1. The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind
2. The shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of the children of God
3. The maintenance of divine worship
4. The preservation of the truth
5. The promotion of social righteousness
6. The exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world

It’s pretty near impossible to seek the full fellowship of God’s children without working for social justice. The “promotion of social righteousness” is integral to the PC(USA)’s essential purpose.

I will refrain here from any further cultural analysis of Glenn Beck or the justice-seeking state of the mainline church in the US at the moment. What social justice really looks like is a topic for another day, as are the ulterior motives of Beck’s show. But since First Pres Hallock doesn’t have a website, and since I haven’t said it explicitly from the pulpit in the past six months, let me be clear: Individually, and as a body of believers, an essential part of our response to God’s love is our call to seek social justice. Call it “mission,” call it “social justice,” call it “whirled peas”—whatever—but, with God’s help, let us seek it together.