Tim Keller on Biblical Justice

[joshuabgood]

Very worthwhile article. Long but very good. Something for everyone interested in issues of justice. Perhaps the common ground we are all seeking.

https://quarterly.gospelinlife.com/a-bi ... al-theory/

[Josh]

This would be the standard conservative Reformed position, although that doesn't mean I necessarily disagree with it. I do find the discussion about biblical justice can ring a bit hollow without the Anabaptist perspective that we are meant to be pilgrims and strangers in a very unjust world, and we represent a different kingdom, as opposed to being reformers trying to fix this world's kingdoms.

[GaryK]

Lots of good stuff in this article. I especially like the ending where the focus is on Jesus as the example for all Christians to follow.

[GaryK]

This would be the standard conservative Reformed position, although that doesn't mean I necessarily disagree with it. I do find the discussion about biblical justice can ring a bit hollow without the Anabaptist perspective that we are meant to be pilgrims and strangers in a very unjust world, and we represent a different kingdom, as opposed to being reformers trying to fix this world's kingdoms.

I agree. This article lays out good reasons for Christians not to buy into secular understandings of justice and sort of brings us through the Old Testament up to the point of Jesus. What I would love to see is someone taking it from there and laying out a New Testament view of justice.

[barnhart]

This article helped clarify why I don't believe human rights exist, except as a sort of mental scaffolding to talk about how people aught to treat one another. I appreciate the admission that the biblical view of justice includes mystery, this precludes biblicists from using this world view as a mechanism for ruling, there is too much we don't know about justice from God's view point. Therein lies the tension, refusing to acclimate to the injustice in the world without claiming authority to solve it.

Side critique: references to "human flourishing" as points on which to hang doctrine or judge ideas always alarms me. The scriptures do not define this concept nor hold it up as compass point for making ethical considerations. It feels to me like an interpretation of what the scriptures mean but say directly, being used to anchor a worldview.

[Aaron]

This article helped clarify why I don't believe human rights exist, except as a sort of mental scaffolding to talk about how people aught to treat one another. I appreciate the admission that the biblical view of justice includes mystery, this precludes biblicists from using this world view as a mechanism for ruling, there is too much we don't know about justice from God's view point. Therein lies the tension, refusing to acclimate to the injustice in the world without claiming authority to solve it.

Side critique: references to "human flourishing" as points on which to hang doctrine or judge ideas always alarms me. The scriptures do not define this concept nor hold it up as compass point for making ethical considerations. It feels to me like an interpretation of what the scriptures mean but say directly, being used to anchor a worldview.

I went to Keller's page, and then some other page(s) on there to read testimony....

The tension, the trouble, the injustice is seen in the testimony of Pastor Hu ----- what can be done for him and his assembly ?
Why is there any strain? Why so much tension there (and in some in the usa) ? Why are the so-called patients NOT aware of the truth ? (in China and in the USA) .... why is deception so widespread, permitted, and even propagated by "Christians"?!

footnote: THOSE who DO seek the Truth, and Keep Seeking the Truth, ... those who seek God's Kingdom and His Righteousness, and Keep seeking God's Kingdom and His Righteousness,
FIND HIM, they FIND the answers, they FIND the Truth.
(this is The Promise, from God, Himself, and there is no one greater that God could swear by than Himself! )

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quote: https://quarterly.gospelinlife.com/chur ... -outbreak/
“Death is real, but the resurrection is even more real,” Pastor Hu said. His next words, though, showed the strain felt so piercingly in Covid-19 China: “This is no sermon, but a terminally ill survivor telling another patient where the vaccine is.”

In late January, the Chinese government quarantined the entire city of Wuhan, a central Chinese city with a population of 11 million, in a desperate attempt to halt the coronavirus, now known as Covid-19. Since then, China has struggled to contain the virus’s spread so much so that even thousands of miles away, Pastor Hu’s city lies in the grip of the disease.

In the light of Covid-19, does China really need a new church at this moment? Surely, one might think, there are dozens of more important steps Christians in China might be taking to serve those around them. Yet, in the midst of his city and country’s suffering, Pastor Hu decided to forge ahead with his church’s long-planned February launch. Was it the right call?"

[joshuabgood]

David Fitch's (an Anabaptist leaning thinker) response to Tim Keller. Well worth reading and, more coming.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/scot- ... stice.html

[Josh]

“ The US church has fallen into the bad speech habits when it comes to ”justice.” Even after the demise of the post WW2 white protestant hegemony in North America, U.S. Christians continue to assume that when we use words like “justice,” “self-actualization,” “pro-life,” “marriage” and even “love” that we as Christians are all talking about the same thing as those outside the church. But this is absurd.”

This seems a tad postmodern to me; I think marriage means marriage. I don’t use words like “self actualisation” and rarely use terms like “pro life” or “justice” precisely because they are political terms.

If we can’t agree on what “marriage” means, it’s a waste of time to talk about anything else.

[barnhart]

I found Keller's article thought provoking, but I like this better. That said, I found it odd to spend so much time on his guess of Keller's position on a third writer (McIntyre). That could have been better spent developing a practical approach to the tension of refusing to normalize injustice without claiming the authority to fix it.

This was worthy:

Anabaptist leaning thinkers argue that Christians cannot expect Christian moral behavior of non-Christians. We assume that Kingdom social behaviors - like forgiveness, reconciliation, love and care for those who have been broken, healing, the wherewithal to subordinate our security and dependence upon money to the Lordship of Christ so as to give sacrificially, etc. – are really only possible in a relationship of trust and dependence upon Jesus and the Holy Spirit’s working. Christian justice is not possible apart from Jesus. In fact it cannot even make sense to many non-Christians. And so we should not assume that what Christians’ believe about justice in and through Jesus Christ can be imposed on a world who does not know him as Lord. Imposing a Biblical justice therefore, as a universal foundation, on society at large is a complicated issue.

[MaxPC]

This would be the standard conservative Reformed position, although that doesn't mean I necessarily disagree with it. I do find the discussion about biblical justice can ring a bit hollow without the Anabaptist perspective that we are meant to be pilgrims and strangers in a very unjust world, and we represent a different kingdom, as opposed to being reformers trying to fix this world's kingdoms.

I agree. This article lays out good reasons for Christians not to buy into secular understandings of justice and sort of brings us through the Old Testament up to the point of Jesus. What I would love to see is someone taking it from there and laying out a New Testament view of justice.

I believe that is what these folks are working to do.
Center for Biblical Unity