In response to this: https://wng.org/articles/handling-a-hostile-culture-1640586880?fbclid=IwAR0R7HJNG1PHWYaMeKWlqvDRbhChP00ryP1m2__bpC98aULigxbIUlVTjW0

I have always admired Keller for his willingness to apply classical white western civilizational techniques on rhetoric to his preaching.  Which is about the most offensive way I can think to say it.  What city people think Christians are is wrong, and going out of your way to accurately correct that is a valuable thing. Soemetimes Christians speak and insider mentality can push people away who are honestly seeking.  I think this is very rare, but still.

On the other hand there are a few clarifications he seems to avoid, in the spirit of not offending city people, which offends conservative Christians.

First, when Jesus talks about justice for the poor and widow and orphan, the thing that needs to be fixed isn’t their poverty.  He is talking about when they have a grievance, they are to be heard by a judge, without partiality, just as if they had been rich.  This is justice. (God shows no partiality)  Our country does a better job of this than almost anywhere on the earth, except that we used to do it better.  He conflates this with social justice all the time.  And it is for sure the bent of the interviewer and most of these city people, so it’s hard to tell exactly where he stands.    Social justice says that the poor are poor because they have been wronged.  And that you are guilty because you have something someone else does not have.  It treats people as part of a class instead of holding them individually responsible.  It is the very partiality Jesus said not to hold.  The law does not treat people differently because they are poor, either for good or ill.

Of course we should discuss charity, and discrimination but they are not issues of justice.  And using the term is just confusing.  If you don’t hire someone because you don’t like their group, that’s not an injustice.  You aren’t the government, you aren’t a judge or a king.  But to pass laws favoring a certain group is injustice.  Calling it social justice is just a lie.  Giving to poor people is not justice.  Requiring people to give to the poor is injustice.  I love how we can’t impose Old Testament laws agains sexual perversion, as almost all Christians have done for 2000 years, but we should impose this simplistic view of gleaning today.  You had to allow the poor to glean on the land because it was God’s people’s land.  You couldn’t sell the land because it belonged to your family and tribe.  This is not a communistic view of all property, it is the theocratic view of property for the people of Israel.

Interesting that elsewhere he quotes Proverbs 31:8-9 as proof that we are all to give the poor more social power.  When the verse is a king, talking to his son, a future king, telling him that he should judge rightly by hearing the poor fairly.  It is not saying to give the poor special social status.  It is not advocating for social justice.

Second, taking a political stand is not the same thing as believing exactly everything ever said or done by one party.  This is the problem we have right now with any group.  We hate groups because groups may or have done things we don’t like, so we float around as individuals because that insulates us from the criticism we hand out for others, because we can’t do anything real.  Criticizing someone for being part of a groups is a logical fallacy, it is unequal weights and measures, it is cheating. Telling people to vote for Trump because he is against the mass murder of babies by their parents in the womb, does not mean you are advocating everything he ever did.  It means you are making the best choice.  It means you want to prevent the insanity that happened this last year.  And a failure to make this statement, isn’t rising above politics, it is being irresponsible and failing to lead your congregation to make wise decisions.  Keller is a good communicator, so be brave and dare to communicate to the city people why half of the country voted for Trump.  Instead he spreads the mantra that Jesus wasn’t political.  Which is just a talking point to make people feel ok about voting for the evil Biden.  Voting for Republicans is being political,  voting for Democrats is social Justic which Jesus would have wanted.  This is just a lie, disguised in the terminology.