About Justice: Trying Too Hard and Generational Justice

Justice of various sorts has certainly been a hot topic of late in church circles, what with pushes for “social justice” and even for reparations.  That and the use and abuse of the word “justice” in ACNA has me thinking of late – I do that sometimes – and I’m especially thinking that one can try too hard to get justice. Yes, I know that may sound awful but bear with me.  

That one can try too hard to get justice goes double for generational justice.  Let’s take the push for reparations as an example since that is an especially hot topic now and a prominent current effort to bring about generational justice.  I will assume for purposes of argument that those who push reparations are genuinely seeking justice.  But it is very questionable that reparations would be just given that in the U. S. today, no one is legally a slave nor a slave owner. (Yes, there is human trafficking on an alarming scale, and that should be severely punished as well as prevented at the border.)  One could argue, “Yeah but your great great great grandparents were and you benefit/suffer.”  Were they?  Most whites in the South were not slaveholders, and some Blacks did own slaves. There were well over a hundred Black slaveholders in South Carolina at one point. (Jon Harris has much more very interesting history of slavery.)  So if you have reparations, you will be taking from families who did not own slaves and giving to those who did!

It would rightly be seen as unjust – and you are already taking from those who never owned slaves as it is – and would only heighten grievances and create new ones.  It is questionable whether this would genuinely improve the situation of Blacks anyway – look at the effects of the massive wealth transfers of the welfare state on Blacks. In a way, we’ve already had reparations, and they have failed!  

And, yes, the push for reparations is very divisive in the church and distracts from the gospel.  Some go further and contend it’s part of a false gospel, but that’s another subject.  I will say that if you say it is “a gospel issue,” you will make me wonder what gospel you are talking about.

In short, even if motivated by justice, reparations would bring about more injustice and worsen division.

I’m picking on the reparations push, but similar things could be said about almost any push for generational justice, for justice for the wrongs committed by those of past generations, especially those no longer alive.  So it’s not for nothing that God commands against trying to bring about generational justice.

Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.(Deuteronomy 24:16)

The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.(Ezekiel 18:20)

God certainly retains the prerogative to exercise generational justice, but we humans are awful at it.  When we push for it, it only brings about worse injustice.  See White farmers being driven off their lands in Zimbabwe and South Africa (which has been an economic disaster in the former and threatens to be one in the latter).  See any number of bloody feuds, wars, and pograms in history.  To all this, including reparations, God clearly says, “Thou shalt not.”

Just about any effort to bring about generational justice is indeed trying too hard to bring about justice.  Some forms of justice we had best leave to God lest we only make matters worse and more unjust.