Article and picture from CNN: Evangelical leader takes on Beck for assailing social justice churches
An evangelical leader is calling for a boycott of Glenn Beck’s television show and challenging the Fox News personality to a public debate after Beck vilified churches that preach economic and social justice.
The Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians, says Beck perverted Jesus’ message when he urged Christians last week to leave churches that preach social and economic justice.
Now here’s what’s sad/funny about this article.
First, the United Church of Christ, as a denomination, is “pro-choice.” So they’re for “social justice” for everyone but the most innocent among us, who apparently do not deserve legal protections of any kind. And as a member in good standing of the National Council of Churches, they never saw a South or Central American socialist/communist dictator they didn’t like. Which means, of course, that they weren’t for “social justice” for the people in political prisons (or dead) in those places. I mean, how bad can a communist dictator be if he has national health care in his country?
Second, when they show a United Church of Christ sign, and quote “evangelical” minister Jim Wallis, they create by association the notions that the United Church of Christ is evangelical, and that evangelicals as a whole have any serious disagreement with Mr. Beck. Both are false.
Third, “social justice” is a euphemism for statist solutions to “social problems.” Otherwise, churches that use the term would be talking about Christian charity, love, mission and service, which are wonderful, old and uncontroversial ideas, not “social justice.” And, of course, the origin of the term “social justice” had nothing to do with any church, being an artifact of Marxist thought and its intellectual descendants. (And isn’t Mr. Beck taking heat for pointing that out.)
It’s interesting that by pointing that out, Mr. Beck has become the subject, instead of the perversion of the concepts of Christian charity, love, mission and service into “social justice” that is preached by the “Christian Left.”
Fourth, the United Church of Christ is shrinking, fast. It is simply dying out. Along with most of the rest of the “mainline protestant” groups. That’s what happens to Christian groups that abandon their central teachings and moral values to appeal to the world. So in a few years or decades, it’s likely that no local congregation will be around to maintain the sign above.
Some churches are converted to skating rinks when they’re sold due to lack of interest, or lack of surviving members, if the building is big enough.
That sign looks big enough to list prices and hours of operation.
