So Glenn Beck says:
“I beg you, look for the words “social justice” or “economic justice” on your church web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, the idea, hang on, am I advising people to leave their church… yes!… If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish.”
And the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good responded.
Beck needs to get out more. I don’t know about the Book of Mormon, but here are just a few of the Bible verses concerning the poor and believer’s responsibility toward them:
- Leviticus 19
- Deuteronomy 15
- Deuteronomy 26
- Psalm 10
- Psalm 140
- Proverbs 19:17
- Proverbs 14:31
- Proverbs 22:9
- Proverbs 29:7
- Proverbs 31
- Isaiah 10:1-3
- Isaiah 25:4
- Isaiah 41:17
- Isaiah 58
- Jeremiah 5:28
- Jeremiah 7:5-7
- Jeremiah 22
- Ezekiel 16
- Ezekiel 22:29,31
- Matthew 5:42
- Matthew 6:2-4
- Matthew 6:24
- Matthew 19:20
- Matthew 25:31-46
- Luke 1:46-55
- Luke 3:11
- Luke 4:16-21
- Luke 6:20-33
- Luke 12:33
- Luke 12:44
- Luke 14:12-14
- Luke 16:19-25
- Acts 2:44
- Acts 4:32-35
- 2 Corinthians 8:9
- 2 Corinthians 9:7
- Ephesians 4:28
- Galatians 2
- 1 Timothy 6:10
- James 2:5
- James 5:1-6
- 1 John 3:17
Now, this is just a quick and dirty list that I stole from what appears to be some hippie site. But that’s just the point: you can’t read the Bible for very long before you stumble into some concern for social or economic justice. The damn thing is riddled with all kinds of socialist or fascist ideas, in Beck’s terms.
Not that any of that matters. This hasn’t a thing to do with logic, or faith, or really anything other than Beck’s need to validate the teabagger ideology. My advice to any pastors who get confronted with this kind of crap? Hold firm to the faith and tell them that if they don’t like social or economic justice, they shouldn’t just find a new parish, they should get a new religion. Objectivism would be the name of that idol.
