Biblical Criminal And Social Justice

Social justice is not an automatic reference to "cultural Marxism" or anything else that is contrary to the Bible.  In fact, social justice is an inescapable part of Mosaic Law, as the Torah opposes sexism against both genders, discrimination against foreigners, and biases for or against the rich, to provide just a handful of examples.  It is ironic that the part of the Bible that is often perceived as the most incompatible with any form of social justice (by both conservative and liberal Christians) is actually the part that is most prominently about it!

Whereas many historical laws have prescribed harsher punishments for men than for women, Mosaic Law applies the same punishments to both genders and treats male and female victims the same (see Exodus 21:26-27 for one example).  Whereas many historical laws have treated women as inferior to men, Mosaic Law regards men and women as equals who share the same human rights (again, Exodus 21:26-27 is an example).  Moreover, whereas many historical laws have discriminated against foreigners, Mosaic Law demands that they be treated no differently than those of one's own community (Leviticus 24:22).

More could be said about how Mosaic Law does not trivialize the poor (Exodus 23:6) or those with disabilities (Leviticus 19:14), or about how it instructs people to judge individuals by their own actions rather than by the actions of their family members (Deuteronomy 24:16).  There are numerous ways that the laws of the Torah, many of which do not lose their obligatory status in the New Testament [1], consistently deals with matter of both criminal justice and social justice.  Indeed, the two are often intertwined.

Mosaic Law is blatantly concerned with eliminating the various biases that motivate unequal treatment of individuals across all groups except ideological ones.  In other words, it does not regard people of different worldviews as equal (or else it would not prescribe any punishments for blasphemy, for example), but gender, race, nationality, economic class, and age are all irrelevant factors because they have nothing to do with someone's moral status.  It follows that no one can fulfill their Biblical obligations without fully rejecting all prejudices for or against those of a certain demographic.

Thus, any Christian who says that a concern for social justice is foreign to the Bible has either not read the Bible very thoroughly or is apathetic about their misrepresentation in addition to being unintelligent.  Justice is the primary moral concern of the Bible: we are to treat God, other humans, and animals in accordance with what they deserve given their metaphysical status.  Criminal justice is one of the most obvious parts of this, but social justice is also vital.  Social biases against men, women, whites, blacks, the rich, and the poor are easily used to manipulate the outcome of criminal cases, and the fact that all humans are said to bear God's image (Genesis 1:26-27) necessitates social justice by default.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-old-covenant.html