This is a very well organized book to help Christians think through the current social justice movement. Williams approaches the topic by asking three questions in each of four areas: worship, community, salvation and knowledge. By giving us questions rather than dogmatic statements, Williams guides the reader to carefully think through what are very complex, nuanced and sometimes controversial issues.
The two major categories that Williams uses are “social justice A,” which is concerned with biblically compatible justice concerns, such as helping the poor, building hospitals, “upending racism” and protecting the unborn (4). There are also “social justice B” movements, however, which seek justice in various areas but with root convictions that conflict with a biblical view of reality. This book does a terrific job exposing the serious errors of the social justice B approach.
In reality, most Christians who are concerned about social justice are probably a combination of A and B, so we should be slow to pigeonhole anyone exclusively in one category or the other. This is why it is so important to think through this issue carefully, and from numerous angles, and this books leads us through it.
In chapter 9, Williams very helpfully clarifies that social justice is not one and the same with the gospel, as many Social Justice B proponents would claim. “If we confuse the gospel – the indicative announcement of the salvation accomplished on our behalf through the death and resurrection of Jesus – with the imperative to help human trafficking victims, then the good news is no longer good news. We find ourselves right back in the hopeless plight of works-based righteousness.” (113). While Martin Luther sought justification before God‘s law, today people are terror-stricken with guilt as they seek justification before the social justice demands of their fellow creatures (115). Apparently the doctrine of justification is still just as relevant as it always has been.
Through it all, Williams keeps the gospel central as the main lens through which we should view all social justice issues: “Any and all righteous status we have is solely in Jesus, not our color, not ethnicity, not gender, not the amount of oppression we or our ancestors have or haven’t experienced, not our good works, our ticking the right squares on the ballot, or our height on a hierarchy of privilege or pain; it is nothing but Jesus. The cross of Christ forms the spear through the heart of both far right and far left ideologies.” (51).