Whose Social Justice?

            I have always refrained from including religion as a factor in any discussion of issues. I must now make an exception to this self-imposed rule.

            I will not take a position on abortion, contraception, or same-sex marriage. Enough has been said on both sides of these issues. But I would like to address the question of social justice, a term that, in my view, has been used and misused by both our government and our religious institutions.
            In the context of our Judeo-Christian heritage, social justice has come to mean how we approach equality, fairness, and compassion, specifically with regard to the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged. Christians, in particular, turn to the teachings of Jesus as a guide to the love and care of others. In the extreme, he would have us sell everything we own and give the proceeds to the poor. Unless we have the convictions of a Francis of Assisi,  we are not likely to find this advice terribly practical. So we form communities that translate our good intentions into programs run by civic and charitable organizations. Fortunately, Americans have been most generous in this regard.
            The church--and I use the term in the most inclusive sense--also seems to support social justice as a function of government. I cannot recall any sermon objecting to welfare in its various incarnations, to redistributive policies to achieve equality of outcomes, to calls for fairness through increased taxes on the rich, or to the role of government in defining what's good for every segment of our society.
            On the surface, these two methods of achieving social justice seem to be compatible: if individuals can't do it, then let the state do it. There is a flaw, I think, in that view. Jesus never appealed to the Romans or to the Jewish state to care for its citizens; he preached directly to individuals to love and care for the least of their brothers. He said the rich should be generous; but he did not advocate forced redistribution to achieve fairness.
            More importantly, Jesus would not have viewed equality of outcome as a goal of social justice. His parable justifying unequal pay for workers in the field would not be viewed as fairness by our government. Further, his parable on talents underlines the fact that we are not equally gifted, but that we should make the most of our opportunities. This sounds to me very much like the principles underlying capitalism and free markets, not the progressive policies of president Obama and the Democrat-controlled Senate.
            Is there a moral argument to be made here? I think so. Is it not more moral to achieve fairness through individual freedom than to compel it through coercive methods? Is it not more moral to allow people to keep more of what they earn than it is to take more and more of it in increased taxes? Is it not more moral to create opportunities for individuals to succeed than to pursue policies that enslave half our population in a hopeless cycle of dependency? Is it not more moral to give citizens confidence in their leadership's fiscal responsibility than to saddle them with a debt they and their offspring cannot hope to repay?
            In sum, it is more moral, in my view, for a government to achieve social justice by encouraging individual talents and resourcefulness that benefit society as a whole than to mandate it through over-taxing, over regulating, and punishing success. And It is more moral for our churches to preach individual generosity than to support elected officials who cynically espouse a phony compassion to ensure their survivability.