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Topic of the Week – What Place Does Social Justice Have in Orthodox Christianity?

 

“The Christian gospel, beloved, is not a social gospel, 

aiming to solve the various social problems (to procure social justice.) 

 

Christianity’s primary purpose is the salvation of the human existence. 

 

Based on this, it cannot be said that Christianity has not fulfilled its purpose 

because it failed to solve the problem of social justice. 

 

This premise is totally false from its inception, 

because it lowers and degrades Christianity to some earthly social system….

 

Christianity is the true faith, not a social political system….”

 

Excerpted from Volume V – Revelation – The Triumph of the Lamb pp80-82, Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios

 

Adult/Family:

 

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; 

for the first heaven and the first earth passed away and the sea was no more.” [Revelations 21:1] 

 

“…After the renewal of the universe, the holy Evangelist sees the inhabitation of New Jerusalem, which came down from heaven. This New Jerusalem is the Church. The action of the renewal of the universe and of the pious people, who will resurrect with their incorrupt bodies, has been called by the Lord regeneration, and was promised to the disciples and through them to the faithful of all ages…. 

 

This promise of regeneration is the final purpose of all the struggle, toil and endeavors of our Christian faith. Our life goal is to become citizens of this new world. The elimination of the eschatological reality – the absence of the faith in regeneration – subtracts all the sense and meaning of the gospel.

 

The Christian gospel, beloved, is not a social gospel, aiming to solve the various social problems (to procure social justice.) Christianity’s primary purpose is the salvation of the human existence. Based on this, it cannot be said that Christianity has not fulfilled its purpose because it failed to solve the problem of social justice. This premise is totally false from its inception, because it lowers and degrades Christianity to some earthly social system. 

 

One only needs to have some elementary knowledge of the gospel to discover the grand truth that makes up the backbone of Christianity in the spiritual and moral aspect of the gospel. Truths such as Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you that hunger now for you shall be satisfied. [Luke 6:20-21]. What social system would praise voluntary poverty? For you have to have the ability to amass wealth and riches or live and eat luxuriously, and then to be taught and told that you would be very happy and comfortable if you would deny the material wealth? What political party ever spoke like this? None. I have mentioned this a number of times, but I will ask you again. Who would vote for me if I ran for a political office (congress) and my campaign slogan was, “Vote for me and I will see to it that all of you become poor.” Who would elect me?

 

Beloved, these are the words of the Gospel. How then is it possible for Christianity to solve social problems?

 

Christianity is the true faith, not a social political system. 

 

In reality, no one asked the Buddhists of Muslims to solve the social problem (the inequitable distribution of the planet’s resources) simply because they are religions. 

 

Christianity is the true faith based on facts that lead to salvation and the resurrection of the dead. Furthermore, the Kingdom of God is not food and drink, as Saint Paul clearly teaches. When we resurrect and enter the Kingdom of God we will not occupy ourselves with eating and drinking; we will not marry and develop civilizations. All these belong to the aspiration of this age. When we say that Christianity must serve worldly materialistic states, we are in the area of heresy.

 

The denial of the doctrine of the Trinity is a heresy on the theological level. The acquittal of fornication (adultery, homosexuality) is a heresy on the moral level. All heresy – theological, moral, or social – degrades Christianity. The inequitable distribution of the planet’s goods cannot be blamed on Christians. Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. If the renewal of the universe and the resurrection of the dead does not take place, then we can claim Christianity failed. Those who wish to limit and reduce Christianity to a form of this age are in the service of the spirit of the Antichrist. 

 

People can say whatever they want, but we must not be a servant of a Caesar. Christ clarified these matters beautifully: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Matthew 22:21). We will exercise our right to vote and we will pay the required taxes. Equally we will render the things that are God’s to God. Let us not mix these things up, my brethren….”

Excerpted from Volume V – Revelation – The Triumph of the Lamb pp80-82, Archimandrite Athanasios Mitilinaios

Preschool:

 -“Geronda, how should we consider someone who treats us in an unfair way?”

-“How should we consider him? We must treat him like a great benefactor [kindly helper] who makes deposits on our behalf in God’s Savings Bank.  He is making us eternally wealthy. This is not a matter of minor importance. Are we not supposed to love our benefactors? Shouldn’t we express our gratitude to them? In the same way, we must love and feel grateful to the person who has treated us unjustly because he benefits us eternally. The unjust receive eternal injury, whereas those who accept injustice with joy will be justified eternally….

A pious family man had suffered many injustices at work. But he was full of kindness and endured it all without complaining. He came to the Kalyvi once and told me all about it and then asked me, ‘What do you advise me to do?’  ‘What you should do,’ I said, ‘is to expect the divine justice and the divine return and to be patient. Nothing is lost. In this way, you are putting ‘money’ in God’s Savings Bank’. You will surely receive dividends in the next life, for all the trials you are going through now. You should know that the Good Lord rewards the unfairly treated person even in this life. And if He does not always reward him, He will surely do so with his children. God knows. He has providence for His creature. When there is patience, things fall into place. God provides. We need patience, not logic...“

Excerpted from  Vol. 1 – With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man (Elder Paisios) part 1, Chapter 4

Elementary School:

Question: “Elder Paisios, when I am asked to do a job, I immediately think that I have other jobs to do, and I react.”

Saint Paisios’ reply: “If one acquires nobility [being high in character], one surpasses all that. He does not put logic, because nobility is out of logic. You are going to settle things with human reason, with worldly justice.

Where is spiritual justice? Have I not said that the more spiritual a person is, the less rights he has in this life? That the spiritual man only gives and never asks to receive?”

Taken from Saint Paisios: The more spiritual a person is the fewer rights has in this life

Why would a spiritual person have less rights in this life? Does this sound ‘equitable’ or fair? What does the world say of this way of thinking? Doesn’t the world teach us to demand our ‘fair share’? Why does Saint Paisios emphasize it is less rights in ‘this‘ life? What about the next life in eternity? Which life is the spiritual man mostly concerned about?

Read this story about the Fool for Christ, Crazy John. During his lifetime, he had less than others but what did they realize about him after his death?

Middle/High School:

“First Caveat: Christ does not endorse any specific form of government

“…. the Church does not  endorse or conform to any particular governmental system: democracy, dictatorship or theocracy are all spiritually neutral. That is to say, they [the governments] are themselves outside of the Mind of Christ and the Church. Christ, Himself told us: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Mt 22: 21)  The key to spiritually judging any particular governmental system, (including Caesar’s) is if it conforms to the Mind of Christ and the Church. This is seen in St. Paul’s instruction to the Colossians (4: 1) “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”  By implication this means thus all governments and leaders, no matter a president, king, emperor, dictator, priest or bishop must treat all they govern “justly and fairly.”

Second Caveat: The Mind of Christ is based on Divine Justice not Human Justice

One primary example of Divine Justice-Human Justice distinction is found in the parable of the workers in the Vineyard Mat 20: 1-16):

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.  After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.  And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went.  Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.  And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’  They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’  And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’  And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.  Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.  And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’  But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?  Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you.  Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’  So the last will be first, and the first last.” 

Why this parable violates human justice and is so repugnant to many is easy to see.  By human standards it is “unfair.”  It violates human sensibility and law.  Why should someone who worked only one hour be paid the same as one who labored all day and bore the scorching heat?  In the United States, labor unions would run to court and such a human injustice.  Regulations and rules should be the same for all. 

But this is not how God operates.  Starting with the incarnation itself, we merit nothing.  God, “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever existing and eternally the same,”[i] emptied Himself for our salvation.  Recall St. Paul’s words to the Philippians (2:6): “…who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped…”  Grace is freely given. No one has a right to anything.   

 

By trust in God, and conforming our minds and hearts to His, by adopting the Mind of Christ and the Church, we trust based on His Love and Mercy that we will be deified and be one with Him not only on earth, but in eternal life. 

Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain gives us the following example: “The person who has trust in Divine Justice is neither upset when treated unfairly, nor seeks his justice; on the contrary, he accepts the false accusations as if they were true, and does not try to convince others that he has been slandered; instead he asks to be forgiven. Some or our saints called themselves intemperate, without of course being so, because they hoped and trusted in divine justice.” The Elder’s constant reminder was to always seek God’s justice “…and all these things shall be yours as well.” Mt 6: 33)….

Anyone who is a true Christian will take all the above to heart. 

Consensus without Christ means nothing.

Christ with or without consensus means everything.…

 

Jesus tells us:  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. ” (Jn 14: 16)….Many, in today’s world look to the consensus of secularism to justify individualistic non-Christ-like living. In this individualistic, “I am the judge of all things,” “I do not need the Church” world, all the more reason that the Mind of the Church and the Church has to be proclaimed and be the guide of all of our lives. If Christ, the Messiah on the Cross was a scandal to the Jews, (Morelli, 2009), so too is the Church a scandal, and to be ignored, changed or ignored by some individuals in our secular, politically and religiously correct contemporary relativistic society.”

Excerpted from Secularism and the Mind of Christ and the Church | Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese

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