Justice vs. Charity: when the church and government switch roles

The judgments of God, postmodernism in American evangelical church

Five ways the church gets God’s judgments wrong

October 29, 2024

Justice and mercy; G K Chesterton, Planned Parenthood abortion

“It is for the king to ensure justice, and the saint to ensure charity.” G. K. Chesterton

Scripture designates the role of government as an institution designed to punish wickedness:

“For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God,an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:3-6).

Secular government is designed to be God’s servant to carry out His justice against wrong. When wrong is condoned by government and righteousness is punished, one is then living under a rogue government that has gotten away from its God-ordained role.

Over the last one hundred years in the United States, the government has usurped the role of the church, offering “charitable benefits” in the form of many social programs. Robbing Peter to pay Paul secures the vote of Paul, it’s been observed. Moreover, government “benevolence” ensures that the bloated monstrosity of bureaucracy grows unchecked, thereby acquiring ever more power and less accountability with its citizens.

The government increasingly is revealing itself hostile to the nation’s Christian roots, and slack on crime.

Meanwhile, what is the trend of modern evangelicalism?

“Justice.”

Dr. E. Daniel Martin, a former bishop in the Mennonite Church, described his recent experience peacefully praying outside a Planned Parenthood clinic with members of his church. He offers a glimpse of how the church can lose sight of its glorious Head and make a gospel out of justice – and specifically, the worldly version of it:

“As we prayed around the [abortion] clinic, I noticed that the name of this clinic was the Dr. X Health Center. I knew this Doctor X. In fact about a month and a half ago, I attended his memorial service. I had known him over the years; we had a similar evangelical Christian background. He was raised in a Christian home, as was I. His father was a pastor. We both received our specialty training at Penn State University College of Medicine.

Dr. X went on from his training to establish a successful practice of medicine in the Lancaster area. His practice allowed him to take medical mission trips all over the world, but especially to Honduras. He took modern medical care, even into the remote mountain areas of Honduras.

Periodically over the years I would encounter Dr X on a local hiking trail as he was biking and I was walking. I became aware in these encounters that he was moving away from his evangelical faith and was no longer focused on bringing a message of salvation through Jesus Christ. Rather he had become focused on justice, a good concept, but if taken out of a biblical perspective, it becomes toxic. He had become very concerned for women who were carrying unwanted pregnancies. He came to believe that justice required providing these women with medical/surgical means of terminating their pregnancies. He became a strong supporter of establishing an abortion clinic in Lancaster. He contributed significant amounts of time and money to this endeavor to the extent that the clinic was named after him.

At Dr X’s funeral, there was nothing mentioned about Jesus Christ, except in a song and one of his high school friends mentioned Jesus in his comments. There was no mention made of the resurrection or the after life; there was no mention made that faith in Christ is the only way of salvation. Rather, there was a strong emphasis on the good works of this man. It was stated that he wanted to be remembered for having fought for justice for women with unwanted pregnancies by helping establish the abortion clinic in Lancaster.

So there was Dr. X giving his life to establish an abortion clinic and here I was, giving my life to pray that God would bring an end to abortion and close this clinic.

How did this happen? How does a man start out in faith and end in unbelief?

The Bible says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God” and that everyone who comes to God must believe that he is and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.

It’s possible to lose your faith if you stop diligently seeking Him. Instead of seeking Him, you accept the world around you as the ultimate reality. You become impressed with medical science; you begin to believe that there is a scientific solution to every problem.

You no longer seek God‘s answers in prayer. You rely on your own insights, education and experience. And you surround yourself with people who look at it the same way.

And you begin to believe that the world we see is the world we have; there is no world beyond this.

And we lose our biblical worldview which believes there is an unseen world; that God came into our world in the person of Jesus Christ who was crucified, buried and resurrected and is coming back again to claim a glorious church. We lose our belief that God wants us to invite him into our world; that he delights in answering our prayers and partnering with us to bring heaven to earth. We lose our desire to seek His face in prayer to determine His way of bringing justice and righteousness into our world.

We restrict ourselves to making decisions based on our own best judgements. We become like King Saul in the Old Testament, who when Samuel was delayed in coming to offer the sacrifice, offered the sacrifice himself. It was a good judgment call; his assets were being depleted, and his liabilities were increasing and he felt he had to do something. He had to bring justice. But in bringing Justice, according to his best judgment, he stopped diligently, seeking God and lost the anointing and favor of God…”

Thank you to Dr. E. Daniel Martin for permission to use this excerpt from a recent newsletter in exploring this topic of justice becoming “a different gospel with a different spirit” (2 Corinthians 11:4). Dr. Martin’s bio and other articles can be found at The Expanding Shrink.

Emily Tomko

Emily writes with fierce compassion and a deep desire to see people freed from the miry clay of this world and walking in the truth. Emily is available to minister at women’s retreats and youth functions, college fellowships, and business women meetings.