My wife and I watched a video of a white police officer who stopped a black man for driving “under the speed limit” that took place in February 2020. Ace Perry had the good sense to turn on his camera phone to record the injustice. You must watch this:
The officer is an idiot and should be fired. Driving five miles per hour under the speed limit? There is no such traffic violation.
You don’t need the academic side of Critical Race Theory to tell you that what this officer did was morally and legally wrong. The officer was not applying the biblical standard of justice equally. Equal justice under the law is an American principle derived from biblical law. The sad fact is, many Christians have abandoned the basis for the principle, and Critical Race Theorists can’t account for equal justice under the law given their secular/materialist/evolutionary worldview. Even so, many churches are embracing CRT because they are ignorant of biblical law, or they don’t believe it applies outside the church. Modern-day Evangelicalism and Reformed Theology, generally speaking, have created a dual citizenship ethical structure with dual ethical norms.
Restoring the Foundation of Civilization
There are many Christians who will not participate in civilization-building efforts that include economics, journalism, politics, education, and science because they believe (or have been taught to believe) these areas of thought are outside the realm of what constitutes a Christian worldview. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Buy NowAs a result of this ethical dualism, there is little direction the Bible can give to particular issues beyond worship and a personal relationship with Jesus. To apply the Bible beyond its intended sphere means that “culture is sacralized and cult [the religious realm as distinct from the secular realm] is trivialized, all in the name of a notion of relevance that God has nowhere promised to bestow.”[1] This view makes God an interloper in His own creation! Is it any wonder that Many Christians look outside biblical revelation for answers to the questions and crises of the day? As a result, Christians do not “have their senses trained to discern good and evil” (Heb. 5:14), and if they did, that training only goes so far.
The Bible is clear about applying the law unequally: It’s a sin. Why anyone would go to the secular anti-Christian world to make a case against injustice baffles me. The Bible explains it all by demanding equal scales of justice should apply to everyone no matter who they are (Ex. 23:2; Lev. 19:35–36; Deut. 25:13–16; Prov. 16:11; Ezek. 18:24; 45:9–10; Micah 6:10–14). In biblical law, there are not two standards of justice, one for the “sophisticated” and another for the unsophisticated:
· “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great but judge your neighbor fairly” (Lev. 19:15).
· “Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the innocent” (Deut. 16:19).
The following comment on Leviticus 19:15 is interesting since it can apply to the way white and black people are pre-judged in different ways:
Nor honour the person of the mighty.—Jewish juries, in their extreme desire to be impartial, have gone so far as to urge, that whilst the case between a rich man and a poor is being tried, they should both be dressed alike, both alike should either stand or sit, both should have the same right of speech, and both should be addressed by the judge in the same courteous manner. [Maimonides, Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 21. sect. 1, 2, 3.] “If ye have respect to persons,” says the Apostle, in allusion to this passage, “[you are committing sin and convicted by the Law as violators]” (James 2:9).
Gary North deals with “No Judicial Respect for Persons” in his economic commentary on the Epistle of James:
Here, James [2:1–7] applies a judicial principle from the Mosaic law: no judicial respect for persons. “Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous” (Deut. 16:19).[2] This law governed all of Israel’s judges, civil and ecclesiastical, when they presided over legal cases. A judge was not allowed to bend the law in order to benefit either a rich man or a poor man in a dispute. “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour” (Lev. 19:15).[3] The Mosaic law had authority over all men living inside the boundaries of Israel. God mandated that His law would be honored rather than individuals.
Martin Luther King, Jr. made the point by referencing the biblical prophet, Amos:
No, no, we are not satisfied and will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations (5:4).
Amos goes on to describe judicial inequity:
They hate him who rebukes in the gate,
And they despise him who speaks with integrity.
Therefore because you impose heavy rent on the poor
And take a tribute of grain from them,
Though you have built houses of cut stone,
Yet you will not live in them;
You have planted beautiful vineyards, yet you will not drink their wine.
For I know your offenses are many and your sins are great,
You who are hostile to the righteous and accept bribes,
And turn away the poor from justice at the gate.
Therefore at such a time the prudent person keeps quiet, because it is an evil time.
Seek good and not evil, so that you may live;
And so may the LORD God of armies be with you,
Just as you have said!
Hate evil, love good,
And establish justice in the gate!
Perhaps the LORD God of armies
Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
The above is the message the church should have received and acted on for centuries. Biblical law is not popular today. Instead of biblical law, we are getting anti-biblical law dressed up as social justice. There is no justice let alone social justice among the pagans. There is no accounting for it.
One more point needs to be made. So-called Academic CRT is not what CRT has become. It’s like how the word Democracy is misused today. Even the word “government” does not conform to how Noah Webster defined and applied it in his 1828 dictionary. Who was against Black Lives mattering? But the BLM movement is about something very different. How CRT is being defined and used today is what’s at issue. This has been explained over and over again. It’s not that some people don’t get it; they don’t want to get it.
The Church needs the vaccine of God’s law if it’s going to have any real-world relevance. God’s law is relevant and practical. To reject it will only mean the Church will be brought under the laws of the fallen, and their understanding of justice will be deadly for the least of these, as in Federal Funding for University of Pittsburgh Human Fetal Organ Harvesting Project Including Viable and Full-Term Babies, to the rest of us. “What should be mercy and love are in an evil man only hard-heartedness and cruelty. Proverbs 12:10.” (Pulpit Commentary).
Worldview 101: A Biblical View of the World
Utilizing audio, video, and printed material, Worldview 101 will equip the student with the tools necessary to ‘think God's thoughts’ about the world and the created order. It will reveal and re-direct the humanistic thought patterns that exist in each of us. The Enlightenment promised freedom, but brought slavery to man's ideas instead. Worldview 101 points the way forward to true freedom of thought in Christ.
Buy Now[1]Jason J. Stellman, Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2009), 32.
[2]Gary North, Inheritance and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Deuteronomy, 2nd ed. (Dallas, Georgia: Point Five Press, [1999] 2012), ch. 40.
[3]Gary North, Boundaries and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Leviticus, 2nd ed. (Dallas, Georgia: Point Five Press, [1994] 2012), ch. 14.