The Mystic Way

Social justice, according to Wikipedia, “is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals’ rights are recognized and protected.”

Listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:41-46:

“Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’) Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.”

Social justice is a moral obligation for all Christians. This is justice, not only for those that are Christians, but for all people. This is part of loving our neighbor as ourselves. It’s about being God-like, for “God so loved the world” (John 3:16). Not just Christians!

A Christian is a person who accepts and seeks to follow the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. That means that Catholics, Orthodox, Protestant, Latter-day Saints, Christian Science, and Jehovah Witnesses are Christians.

Now members of these very broad groups do not believe the same things. Many would not consider members of the other groups to be “true” Christians. But each would consider themselves to be real Christians.

Are They Saved

A second question, is what does it mean to be saved. This is more complicated, because it requires us to interpret Scriptures and list criteria. I can only answer that from my own belief system.

Salvation

A person is saved if and only if they have turned from a self-centered life to a God-centered life through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and God. Let me unpack that.

Conversion, in my view, is turning from a self-centered life to a God-centered life. This is also the core idea of repentance, a change of mind. The change is from loving self first to loving God first.

Faith is trust. You must place your trust in the person of Jesus and accept what he did for you on the cross. He died for your sins so that God can forgive you and give you citizenship in his kingdom. And unless Jesus is somehow God in the flesh, none of this makes sense.

Now how all this is possible is part of the Christian Community’s struggle to understand the gospel and apply that to our lives. It is when we reach a collective consensus that a creed becomes authoritive or a canon gets closed. I am simplifying this a lot.

True Christians

Now back to our question. Now if we mean by true Christian one who is also saved, then members in each one of these groups will have Christians who are saved and Christians who are not saved. This is exactly what Jesys taught:

“Let both of them (saved and unsaved) grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn” (Matt. 13:30).

Osmosis, as I am using it here, means “the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge, etc.”(Oxford English Dictionary).

I’m using osmosis instead of assimilation, because I want to emphasize the unconscious nature of that assimilation. The ancient authors lived and breathe in a cultural background. They were not aware of its influence on them. It is only later in the modern and postmodern period that we have become more self-critical.

Unconscious Assimilation

By cultural osmosis I’m talking about the early Christians unconscious assimilation of ideas, values and perspectives of the culture in which they lived. The obvious example is patriarchy.

In the process of trying to understand the Bible, we need to separate cultural contamination from genuine revelation. This is not always clear.

The Law of Love

In ethical issues, I would argue the best way to discern what is a cultural contamination and what is a general revelation, is to go back to the principle behind the ethics of Christianity. Christianity. That is, love.

If we truly understand. Love, then we will truly understand what ethics derive from that. Love does no harm (Rom..13:10). Therefore, if an action harms somebody, it is most likely wrong. It is not just a cultural construct, but a universal application of the moral law of love.

Modern Cultural Osmosis

But equally true, we need to be careful of our own cultural osmosis. It is very easy to unconsciously accept the modern and postmodern ideas. We must carefully discern what is truth and what is cultural assimilation.

How we do discern what is the cultural assimilation? It is by following the evidence. First, we have to realize our tendency to be biased. Second, we need to understand confirmation bias. And third, we need to honestly evaluate the evidence for and against a position.

Personally, I find it most helpful to try to prove the opposite point of view. Instead of trying to confirm what I already believe, I try to confirm what I don’t believe. That way I’m more honest with the evidence.

Many people mistakenly think that Progressive Christianity is liberal Christianity. And to many people, this may be true. But not to me.

The Middle Way

Progressive Christianity is the middle path between conservative Christianity and liberal Christianity. It recognizes that truth is not conservative or liberal. The truth is the truth.

The conservative aspect of progressive Christianity, as I understand it, is that we ought to hold to the traditional faith until evidence forces us to reconsider.

At the point of reconsidering a traditional doctrine, you must be careful to conserve the truth of the doctrine while contemporizing its expression.

Translate and Transform

This goes back to the old adage of translating the faith versus transforming the faith. It also goes back to try to discern the essential aspects of the faith from the non-essential aspects of the faith.

We must translate when we can, and transform when we must. But we should not abandon the essentials of the traditional faith. Which means we have to carefully discern what are the actual essentials of the faith, and what is an artifact of the cultural context in which it was declared.

Not Easy

This is not an easy process. But it is a process that must be done if we want to be honest with the facts of science, history, and modern scholarship.

The liberal aspect of progressive Christianity, is that we translate and even transform the faith based upon the best available evidence. Ultimately we are in the pursuit of Truth, because all truth is God’s truth.