Generous Justice? A Critique of Tim Keller’s “Third Way”
The Bible often presents economics alongside justice (Lev. 19:35–36; Prov. 14:31; Jas. 5:4; etc.), but what is justice, and how can our economics be both Christian and just? Tim Keller popularized an answer to this question that merged biblical exegesis with soft progressive social justice in an effort to treat the right and left “equally.” But this position is both unsatisfying and misleading. Keller’s third-wayism not only fosters apathy among the common Christian toward politics but also actively creates an opening for louder anti-Christian voices, especially in economics. Leftwing economic theory is fundamentally opposed to the Christian worldview. By presenting each side as equal and surrendering the guard posts, Keller and his followers allow biblical words like “justice,” to be hijacked. As a result, some Christians are now voting for policies that undermine God’s law and subvert the gospel in the name of compassion, while their pastors encourage them to do so and ease their consciences from the pangs of rightly-ordered guilt.
Generous Justice?
Keller has argued rightly that justice and righteousness are comprehensive (this is critical), yet now he wants to say that the unregenerate with their visions of justice can be ‘partly righteous’ or ‘partly just’. This is in flagrant contradiction to the word of God, “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7–8). This is unambiguous and categorical. Sinful man cannot truly do justice (righteousness) because he cannot submit to God’s law! This is the very foundation of the gospel. Only Christ can make us just in order that the “righteousness requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:4). None of this means that Christians and non-Christians cannot cooperate on social projects, or work to a common purpose to end prostitution in an area, or find housing for the homeless, or rescue girls sold into sexual slavery, or save the local parkland for children—we can and should do those very things. But not because we share ‘values’ that non-believers can embrace as well (for that is increasingly not the case as Christianity has faded); not because humanistic visions of justice are ‘partly right’ as far as they go; and not because we can learn more about what justice is from non-believers’ competing visions of justice. We do it because God requires it; we do it to glorify him by letting our light shine before men; we do it because of the love of God and neighbour. Certainly we cannot restrict ourselves to articulating values that the non-believer can agree with because at bottom, there are no neutral values, we don’t ultimately agree about anything, “for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14). According to Paul in this text, true justice is doing what the law requires, but the unregenerate man in his heart, “does not submit to God’s law” (Rom. 8:7). Scratch the surface of any social activist and you will soon discover, if they are not Christians, that the values which drive them are far from biblical. We don’t need to share the same values or even goals to respectfully cooperate on many issues. In the Houses of Parliament or Congress parties can be completely at odds with each other’s values but still have the House function properly and harmoniously. We need to rid ourselves of the notion that working with unbelievers requires or implies shared visions of righteousness. We are to be salt and light in the world (Matt. 5:13–16), and when a given social project or endeavour has an end congruent with God’s word, using means that do not violate God’s word, we can participate gladly.We are to work to conform all of life to the word of God and his law, so that increasingly, the laws and structures of our social order reflect the law of God, and the influence of the gospel changes our communities.
Keller’s arguments, in the sincere desire to see Christians meaningfully and generously contribute to social well-being, are pragmatic and not theological, so what emerges is a knotted mess. He seems so concerned to appease non-Christian readers that biblical truth is compromised.1 We see then that Keller’s ill-conceived definitions of justice inadvertently lead to an implicit denial of the Bible and the gospel (an outcome he certainly does not want). In fact Keller’s idea of ‘generous justice’ … him to a redefinition of the very marks of a true believer, ‘All this … out in doing justice for the poor is the inevitable sign of saving faith.’2 Although helping the poor is certainly part of the Christian’s calling, it is not ‘the inevitable sign’ according to Scripture. St. Paul states:
1. It seems to me that the other possibility is that as a student during the sexual and social revolution, like many of the boomers in the emergent church movement, Keller himself has simply not self-consciously cut himself loose from some of the cultural baggage that he has acquired in liberal America. 2. Timothy Keller, Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just (Dutton, 2010), 189.Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God . . . God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom. 5:1–5).
The first mark of true gospel faith is peace with God, hope and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The fruit of this inner working of love, hope and the gift of the Holy Spirit is obedience. Thus, the apostle John says, “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected” (1 John 2:3–5). Peace with God, hope and the word are therefore the inevitable signs of a true believer. One aspect of keeping God’s commandments will be mercy, manifest in part by a concern and care for the poor.
In short, Keller overstates the soteriological centrality of identification with the poor or powerless and consequently comes dangerously close to liberation theology in his account of the true marks of faith. Commenting on the thought of liberation theologian Paul Knitter, Diane B. Obenchain writes:
3. Diane B. Obenchain, “The Study of Religion and the Coming Global Generation,” in God and Globalization, vol. 3, Christ and the Dominions of Civilization, ed. Max L. Stackhouse with Diane B. Obenchain (Trinity Press International, 2002), 94.Religion that does not seek to remove poverty and oppression “is not authentic religion.” Like Hick, Knitter affirms that “from their ethical, soteriological fruits we shall know them.” In other words, we can judge whether and to what degree a religion is salvific by the degree those of a religion actually work to remove social injustice. Knitter affirms further that recognizing liberation from social injustice as the center for the evaluation of religions is the first step toward dialogue among the religions. Moreover, that dialogue has a mission. The encounter of one religion with another is an opportunity for self-critique and correction, moving a religion in the direction of “the mystery of Soteria” and thus the centrality of practice over doctrine.3
Whilst I do not think Keller’s desire to help the poor or his vision of ‘justice’ is motivated by this kind of pluralism, the author’s muddled thinking is creating confusion. The reason for this confusion is that, in wanting to make identification with the powerless the essential fruit of being a Christian and the benchmark for doing justice, he has the various views of justice out there in our society perceived as ‘partly right,’4 or simply, ‘incomplete,’5 as opposed to being actually wrong or an expression of injustice. On Keller’s definition of justice, this is logical; after all, lots of people are trying to help the poor by various means, or express solidarity with those deemed disenfranchised or powerless, and on Keller’s reasoning must be practicing ‘righteousness’ or ‘doing justice.’ The same is true of pursuing ‘human rights’ or rallying around belief in the lowest common denominator principle of ‘human dignity’—many people claim to believe in these things, yet in reality they are not even able to agree on what a human being is or when life begins! Now, biblically, and contrary to Keller, justice and righteousness are what God’s law declares them to be, and nothing else. Justice is inseparable from righteousness and law, and these are inseparable in the Christian worldview and covenant. This is the point that Keller—and contemporary missiology for the most part—misses. In Scripture the covenant law represents the righteousness of God. Without this law there can be no justice, because there would be no justice. Mercy to the sinner, the poor and oppressed, the downtrodden and destitute is not antinomian, it is an aspect of God’s righteousness because it is central to his law, as Jesus makes clear (Matt. 23:23). It was an act of mercy that God gave his law to his people. For fallen people in a fallen world, to receive God’s law is an act of mercy and redemption. Mercy is basic to the law because the essence of God’s justice is restitution, the restoration of his order and purposes for creation. God’s mission is to restore all things to their original beauty and goodness; since this is the goal of his justice, salvation, mercy, and compassion are a necessary part of it. If righteousness is to reign over the world, redemption and mercy are necessary. Thus the righteousness of God’s law must reign in the Christian life (Isa. 1:17). Justice is part of God’s covenant faithfulness, and salvation is his covenant act. In response to this mercy, we obey his covenant law and show mercy. We simply cannot separate justice or mercy from the word of God.
4. Keller, Generous Justice, 163. 5. Keller, Generous Justice, 164.Conclusion
Thus, in the end, it is only regenerate men and women who truly know the meaning of justice, and are able to lead the way when God’s law is obeyed because justice is the restoration of God’s order and purposes for creation. Thus for justice to be done in society requires the diffusing of the gospel and regenerate men and women working in every area of life and thought from biblical principles, for the glory of God. It requires whole communities and cultures to come to see that just hearing of the gospel and glad obedience to God’s law, so that justice is made manifest. Some will clearly only obey God’s law as a society, and not as a matter of the heart (true righteousness); some are to be restrained from wickedness (crime) by the law against their will; some will rejoice in the law of the Lord, reviving the soul (Ps. 19:7).
But only when God’s commandments are seen as the bulwark of justice and righteousness will justice be done for the poor or anyone else. When justice is truly concerned with God’s righteousness, poverty is not the defining issue Keller makes it, either in Scripture, poverty is not the defining issue Keller makes it, either in Scripture, poverty seen as the worst thing to befall a person, “Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways” (Prov. 28:6). What matters most is integrity before God and a righteous life. On the other hand, if Keller’s definition of justice is correct, how can the poor themselves live righteously and ‘do justice,’ since they have no wealth to distribute? If justice is primarily about economic redistribution, then how can the poor be just beyond political agitation for themselves? The Bible tells us it is by the gospel we are made rich in God, whatever our social or economic status (2 Cor. 8:9). In fact, the apostle Paul spoke of his own physical and economic poverty in the service of the gospel as “making many rich,” for though Christians face economic hardship, as having nothing, we yet possess everything (2 Cor. 6:10). For St. Paul covetousness is a snare (1 Tim. 6:9), but, “there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world” (1 Tim. 6:7). In addition, the biblical answer to man’s powerlessness is not social liberation and transfers of wealth; a man may be wealthy and exceedingly influential, yet impotent in life (just look at our celebrity culture). The result of all rebellion against God is frustration and powerlessness. There is only one true source of power, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). Rich or poor we can be, “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49), because God gave us a Spirit not of power but of love and self-control (2 Tim. 1:7). Spirit-filled Christians preach Christ as the deliverer and the Holy Spirit as our source of life and power, and when we live these realities out in our lives, it will be clearly seen that, “the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining” (1 John 2:8).