Biblical Justice vs Social Justice

Amen. All right, Well, let's get started here. It's been very interesting trying to put this session together, particularly because, as you just heard, I have a book coming out on this topic, so trying to deal with this in one session. I've yeah, okay, all right, but we need to deal with this question of social justice and biblical justice, and really this concept that has become so common and so familiar among us, and still is often not very well understood. Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek once said, I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I could make the speakers and writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term social justice. And I could not agree more with that sentiment. I think it's a term that we need to avoid to any and every degree that we can, and I think it's a term that we don't get. One of my all time favorite movie characters is in Yego Montoya, and if you don't know who he is, you might need to go reevaluate your faith and watch The Princess Bride. But Yego Montoya has this famous line, you keep on using that word I do not think it means what you think it means, and I think for many Christians that's true when it comes to the idea of social justice. We keep on using that word, but I don't think it means what we think it means, and most people who use it they mean well. But we need to understand that the term social justice, the concept of social justice, is a concept that has a very specific and well defined meaning. And my desire and my intent here is not to build a straw man and say, you know, here's what social justice means and pour my own meaning into it. Nor what I intend to do is to allow those who have defined this term to do so for themselves. So when I'm talking about social justice, I'm not talking about a version of it that I'm presenting. I'm not talking about a version of it that I want to sort of, you know, narrowly define in as negative a way as I possibly can. I want us to understand this term and this concept from the perspective of those who have developed it, and who have written thousands upon thousands upon thousands of pages and articles and books on the topic. It's a well defined concept, and what is the meaning of this matter It matters because God demands justice. It matters because injustice is sin. And if social justice is truly justice, than anything that is not align with it is sin. And this is why the term is incredibly problematic, and this is why so many of us fall prey to it, because we know that God demands justice. Amen. Micah, chapter six, verses one through eight. Here what the Lord says, Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Here, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth. For the Lord has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israel. Oh my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied? You? Answer me? For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery. And I set before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam. Oh my people, Remember what Bailak, king of Moab, devised, and what Balem the son of Beor answered him, And what happened from Chatim to Gilgaual that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord. With what shall we come before the Lord and bow? Or with what Shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on High? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul. He has told you, oh man, what is good? And what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. Justice is not optional. God demands justice from his people, and so it is imperative that we understand what justice is because injustice is sin. Amen. So it's imperative that we be clear about this. And that's why as people sort of throw out this terminology and this ideology of social justice, it's important for us to understand what it is. Because if social justice is justice and injustice is sin, then we must be about the business of social justice. But what does social justice mean? Kevin DeYoung wrote, social justice is a nebulous term, unassailable to some and arousing suspicion in others. And I understand what he means by that in terms of the way we use the term and common parlance. However, as I've said before, the concept of social justice is very clear and completely and utterly unambiguous. We know exactly what it means. Oxford Dictionary of the English Language. Social justice so noun chiefly politics and philosophy, justice at the level of a society or state as regards the possession of wealth, commodities, opportunities, and privileges. And it says see distributive justice. Again, this is not me. This is the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, and it says social justice is distributive justice. It's distributive justice, and in politics and philosophy, it's justice at the level of a society or a state as regards possession of wealth, commodities, opportunities, and privileges. That's what social justice means. That's not what I say social justice means. That's what the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language says social justice means. I'm not building a straw man. There's a lot of academic literature that lays out and defines social justice. We am young academic social science and social justice, he writes. While often and a MorphOS term social justice has evolved to generally mean state redistribution of advantages and resources to disadvantage groups to satisfy their rights and social and economic equality. Social justice is state redistribution. That's what social justice means, state redistribution. It is not a heart issue. From a Biblical perspective, justice is a heart issue and a law of God issue. Amen. It is a heart issue and a law of God issue. If the law of God says this and you do that, it is unjust. If the law of God says this and your heart goes towards that, it is unjust. Social justice, by definition. Is not a heart issue. It's a state issue, and it's about state redistribution and redistribution againantages and resources to disadvantage groups. Social justice is not about individuals. It's about groups. It's another very important distinction. It's not about individuals, it's about groups and outcomes for groups. In teaching for diversity and social justice, by the way, these are these, these books and academic papers that I'm referencing. These are and if any of you are have gotten a degree specifically in education, that add's probably the area where these things would be most common or in what's commonly referred to as grievance studies, if you're doing ethnic studies, African American studies, Chicano studies, feminist studies, queer studies again, lesbian studies, you know all of these. Yes, you can get a degree in all these things. By the way, if you're doing any of these, then then these these books, these papers, these articles, they're their mainstays in those disciplines, and also in political science. So teaching for diversity and social justice an analysis of how power, privilege and oppression impact our experience of our social identities. Let me just run back over that sentence, and again this is academia. So social justice is an analysis of how power, privilege and oppression impact our experience of our social identities. Not the reality of our social identities, but the experience of our social identities. What you will find, by the way, is that in many of these academic disciplines there's not much academia at all. In fact, i'll give you a prime example of this. The seminal paper on white privilege is Peggy McIntosh's paper of nineteen eighty nine that she published, White Privilege, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack right and the idea was put forth long before McIntosh, but that's the article that really everybody goes to and refers to when they're talking about the concept of white privilege. There's not a single footnote in her paper. There's not one source in her paper. It is purely observational, that's all. That's all, and it's the foundation for the academic understanding of the concept of white privilege. So again, an analysis of how power, privilege, and depression impact our experience of our social identities. Full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs, to meet the needs of whom groups. Social justice includes a vision of society in which the distribution of resources is equitable. Now there's a difference between equality and equity. We'll talk about that. And all members of a space, community, or institution or society are physically and psychologically safe and secure. Again, these are academic sources. Okay, I'm not defining social justice. I'm allowing these sources themselves to define social justice. Here's a warning, a stark warning about social justice. This is from New Discourses, which I'd recommend to you highly. Social justice. By the way, this is a little bit lengthy, but I think worth it. Social justice is the ultimate trojan horse term where it seems to mean one good thing as most people to understand it, social justice are more fair and equal society, but actually means something else. That something else is very specific, and most people, if they knew what they were encountering, would be unlikely to accept it. The idea advertised by the phrase social justice doesn't match the ideology and worldview bearing the seemingly identical name continues. Social justice means something more specific. It means critical social justice. And I believe I told you yesterday about that term critical social justice, and. This term is used. This term critical social justice is not just used by opponents of social justice. Robin DiAngelo. If you know anything about social justice, you know that name. Robert de Agelo, most famous for her book White Fragility, but also in her book with Sensoy, her book is Everybody Equal, which is used in a lot. Of schools of education. They make it clear that they are referring to critical social justice, and they use that terminology because they want to connect their understanding to critical theory and critical race theory and intersectionality. Use critical social justice in order to be clear that they are referring to social justice as it relates to the literature, to the longstanding academic literature about social justice. This is, in fact an ideology that very aggressively pursues the social, cultural, institutional, and political installation and enforcement of a very specific and radical understanding of social justice as derived from various critical theories and their specific analyzes of socially constructed dynamics of systems of power. As such, they do not necessarily seek to achieve social justice in the broad sense or the sense that many people would assume of the term. Instead, they seek to empower and enforce their particular worldview that revolves around one arrow and authoritarian interpretation of the concept. You keep on using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means. And this is why Hayek says he wishes he could use all of his energies and efforts to make the writers and speakers that he could influence ashamed to use the term social justice. All right, what about the mission of social justice? Part of us understanding the difference between justice written large and social justice this concept of social justice is to understand that that with what the mission of social justice is. Because our mission of justice as Christians. For example, as Christians, if we're if we're following what the Bible requires of us in justice, Uh, what is our mission? Our mission is to align ourselves with the law of God. Amen. That that's our. Mission in justice is to see to it that things align with what thus saith the Lord. That's that's not that's not the mission of social justice. In fact, in order to understand the mission of social justice, you have to understand a couple of concepts. And when you understand these concepts, when you understand that they're talking about critical theory and critical race theory and intersectionality, and when you understand the roots of these concepts, then you then you discover something very interesting as it relates to Biblical justice. And how social. Justice is inherently incompatible with biblical justice. For example, the idea of critical social justice, the idea of critical theory, critical race theory, intersectionality. These terms are part of a very long line of ideas and ideology. We go back, for example, to Carl Marx and Marxist concept of conflict theory. And conflict theory from Marx basically was his way of explaining sociology and the relationships between people and Marx really saw at bottom the root of relationships between people as a conflict over limited resources. So the whole idea of the bourgeois and the proletariat, the whole idea of the haves and the have nots, this whole idea of Marxism versus capitalism, right, it's rooted and grounded in conflict theory. Later on the Frankfurt school develops this idea and we and we get to critical theory, which again the critical part of critical social justice. This comes to us. By way of a guy by the name of Antonio Gramshee. Grahams Sheet was an Italian Marxist, and gram She's part of a he's part of this bridge. Grams Shee looks at for example, I mean Marxism was supposed to spread by way of revolution, right, the revolution was supposed to come, and we see the Bolshevik revolution, but we don't see revolutions after that. We don't see the proletariat uprising all around the world overthrowing capitalism. What's wrong? And so gram she thisaling Marxist who you know, is in prison and in his prison notebooks he's thinking through this whole idea. Obviously, there's something that is keeping people from seeing how evil capitalism is, and they're not overthrowing capitalism. And Graham, she comes up with this idea of of hegemony. Hegemony is this this concept of that there's a there's a ruling group in a culture and in society, and they establish the rules of the game, and they establish the rules of the game in order to benefit themselves and those like them, and to oppress all other groups of individuals. This power structure, this power struggle, oppressors and depressed upon what groups you belong to. We see the whole idea of being really brought forth and manifested in critical theory, through the Frankfurt School and eventually through the institutions and even studies and things like this. Now, what does all of that have to do with this idea of social justice. Well, when you get into the literature, here's what you discover that the hegemony today if you look, for example, at America, generally we think about the oppressor oppressed paradigm, this very Marxist paradigm, this paradigm that says you divide all the world and all reality into oppressors and the oppressed. And for most people, if you say Okay, well, in America, if you're thinking in those terms oppressor and oppressed, who would the oppressor be? Right? Somebody say rich people, somebody say white people. Okay, that's part of it. But according to critical Social justice, the hegemony in America, the oppressor class in America is white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered, able bodied, native born. Christian. Now there's several other that make the list. Right, And most people have heard of white privilege, and you heard of male privilege. In fact, Macintosh in her paper on white privilege, she's coming at this from the feminist studies perspective and dealing with male privilege and equating male privilege with white privilege. So most people have heard of white privilege and male privilege, but they haven't heard of Christian privilege. And you may think, I mean Christian privilege. That's, of course, that's something that you're making up. No, absolutely not. In the literature and readings for diversity and social justice, for example, Christian privilege is identified as a major source of oppression in Western culture in general and in American culture in particular. Christian privilege is as evil as white privilege. Christianity is the oppressor. So if Christianity is the oppressor, and social justice is about alleviating the oppression. Then social justice has to be opposed to what Christianity. Absolutely necessary for social justice to be opposed to Christianity, because Christianity in this culture is a major, and for some people, the major means of oppression. Okay, all right, let's continue to look here at the mission of social justice. This is from Joe Fagan as I see it, social justice requires resource equity. Now, equity and equality different things. Remember we talked about So equality has to do with people being viewed equally and treated equally under the law. Okay, that's equality, That's not equity. Equity is about outcomes. Equity is about outcomes. Equality says, regardless of who you are, regardless of where you come from, regardless of the color of your skin, regardless of any of those things, you are viewed the same under the law, and you are given the same opportunities. That's equality. Social justice is not about equality. Social justice is about equity. So equality would say we are going to you know, we're going to have entrance exams and we're going to take the best students. Equity says, you know, we looked at our entrance exams. And when we look at our entrance exams, we end up with a less than representative group of individuals. That's not equity. So we have to continue to add factors until we end up with equity, not equality. And so both Harvard and Yale, for example, right now, are being sued because of their admission policies. Why because those admission policies discriminate against Asians. Because the ivy leagues are noticing that they have too many Asians. That's where equity gets you. That's where equity gets you. So, as I see it, social justice requires resource equity, fairness, and respect for diversity, as well as the eradication of existing forms of social oppression. By the way, Christianity is an existing form of social oppression. Social justice entails a redistribution of resources from those who have unjustly gained them to those who justly deserve them, and it also means creating and ensuring the processes of truly democratic participation in decision making. It seems clear that only a decisive redistribution of resources and decision making power can ensure social justice and authentic democracy. You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. So what is this mission? First identify disadvantage to groups. There's a there's a there's a holy trinity of social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion. It's the holy trinity of social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Diversity has to do with identifying these disparate groups, and they. Continue to multiply. I mean, it makes sense that these groups would multiply, especially when there are advantages that you know, advantages to be gained by belonging to these particular groups. Equity we've already talked about, right, Equity has to do with outcomes, and then inclusion is the way that we pursue the inclusion of all of the diverse groups and whatever the thing is that we're doing. So, first identification of disadvantaged groups. And by the way, if white male, heterosexual cis gendered, able bodied, native born, Christian, so on and so forth, if this is the hegemony, if this is the oppressor, then then who are the oppressed? If white is oppressor, non white is the oppressed. Male is the oppressor. Non male is the oppress. Heterosexual is the oppressor. Non heterosexual is the oppressed. Cis gendered is the oppressor, non cis gendered is the oppress you follow, and so on and so on and so on. Okay, so what diversity does is diversity looks at all of these identifies as many of these groups as possible, and says, Okay, our goal is to have the inclusion of as many of these groups as we possibly can. By the way, this is where intersectionality comes in. Because intersectionality is really the idea that you multiply oppression to the degree that you multiply participation in oppressed groups. So, if a black man is oppressed, a black female is doubly oppressed because she has two intersections of oppression. Well, if she's a black female transgender, now she adds a third intersection of oppression if she's black female, transgendered, not able bodied. Do you see? So here's here's where intersections come in. Where this gets interesting is that intersectionality is of great benefit to those pursuing the holy trinity of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Here's why. I can either try to find one member of ten, fifteen, twenty. Groups, or. I can get multiple points in one fell swoop by getting somebody who's a member of multiple groups. I'll leave you to your imagination with that one. So first identify these disadvantaged groups. Secondly, assess group outcomes. Assess group outcomes. Thirdly, assign blame for disparate outcomes. If we see disparate outcomes, we have to assign blame, and then finally redistribute, redistribute power and resources to redress those grievances. That's the mission of social justice. That is, that is not the mission of biblical justice. That is antithetical to the mission of biblical justice. What are the top social justice issues? I'm just going to give you a few examples here. Social Work Today they had an article several years ago identifying the top social justice issues. Number one celebrating diversity, number two child welfare, number three healthcare reform, number four poverty and economic injustice, and number five affordable housing. Those are the top five issues. Maryville University had their own list. Number one climate change or climate justice. Have you noticed that used to be global warming. Now it's not global warming, it's climate change. And now we've moved from global warming to climate change to now climate justice. Now climate justice is a form of social justice. Social justice has to do with redistribution. What does climate justice have to do with redistribution on a global level? So number one climate justice. Number two racial equity, racial equity, not equality equity. Equity has to do with outcomes. Number three LGBTQ plus rights and number four affordable health care. We see affordable health care again Yeshiva University. What does Yeshiva University's list look like? Number one Justice, two healthcare, three refugee crisis, four racial justice, five income gaps, six gun violence, seven hunger and food insecurity, and eight equity. Beginning to see a pattern here, education for justice. This is a long list. We'll just with their list again. For most Christians, and when most Christians get sucked into the social justice movement, usually think about one area and one area alone, and they think about and think about race. You think about race as Christians, we love the brethren. As Christians, we don't wish. Racism is ugly to us, it is evil to us. So when somebody says there's issues here related to race and justice, we go where where point me in the right direction? And let's go to war? And the social justice. Movement comes and it sounds innocuous, right, social justice, racial justice and bam, here we go, and we're on board, having no idea that the social justice movement is like a train with multiple box cars and there's an engine driving the train. The engine driving the train is critical theory, critical race theory, intersectionality. That's the end driving the train, and then right behind it comes racial justice, right, and as Christians, we're like, no, we're one in christ there's no room for racism. And so we jump on, you know, because we see that box car, and then right behind that box car is the lgbt Q A I plus box car, and then right behind that box car is the climate justice box car, and right behind that and then there's all these box cars. And many Christians think that they can jump onto the racial justice box car and not be attached to all those other box cars. And you can't. You can't. Anyway, we won't go through the list, well, yes we will. Education for social justice. Here's their list, consumerism, death, penalty, education, genocide, homelessness, human traffickingtion, intergenerational justice, land grabbing, mental health, natural disasters, racial justice, restorative justice, sexual abuse, crisis in the church, terrorism, US elections, water, climate change, hunger, migration, Signs of the Times economic justice, inequality, torture, gender equality, interfaith, US poverty, war, healthcare, sustainable development, refugees, human rights, liberation, theology, global poverty, integral ecology. And racism. And it goes on and on and on. In other words, everything is a social justice issue. Why because social justice is about redistribution until you see equity, which means anywhere that there's not equity, not equality, but equity. Anywhere where there's not equity, there is injustice. So you go to any area and anything COVID nineteen, for example, COVID nineteen. We look at COVID nineteen deaths and we see black people, minorities disproportionately dying from COVID nait social justice. There. It is inequity, inequity, we see it. It's there. What we know We know that that is racial injustice. How do we know. We know because the numbers aren't equal, And anytime the numbers aren't equal, the answer is in justice because in a just world, every disease would kill people in perfect accordance with their demographic representation. Never mind that nothing else in nature works like that. Amen, There's nowhere in the natural universe where you see an exact representation percentage wise of anything, period, full stop. It doesn't exist. For example, first borns have an advantage over second borns and third borns and so on. So it's it's not equitable. It's not equitable. Does that mean that there is inherent injustice in birth order? So here's another thing. When we and I sort of bring this to a close, one of the big differences is the way that the social justice movement gets to its conclusions, and it has to get to its conclusions by force. When we say this and we're like, you know, straw Man red hair, you're making that up. No. First of all, that is that is a logical extension of this argument, right, But secondly, I don't have to make it up. Do you know the name Ibram x Kindy. If you know the literature at all on this, then you know the name ibramex Kindy. If you don't know his name, you probably know the title of his book, How to be An Anti Racist. Now, his book How to be an Anti Racist is being used, you know, in government agencies and universities, Fortune five hundred companies. Probably the two most popular books that people are using for diversity training are Robin DiAngelo's white fragility and Ibramex Kindy's How to be an Anti Racist? Okay, And if you don't know his name and you don't know his book, you certainly know his ideas because they are everywhere. In fact, they're beyond everywhere. They're era. Okay. There are Christian organizations in Christian ministries now who are using Ibramex Kindy's book How to be an Anti Racist. It is pure critical race theory. It is critical theory, critical race theory, intersectionality on steroids. It is antithetical to biblical thinking, biblical theology, biblical ideology, and it is being used in churches all over this country and ministries all over this country. In diversity training. Ibramex Kindy proposed an amendment to the Constitution, and anti racist amendment to the Constitution. Listen, this is again. Remember this is the guy. By the way, he makes between twenty and forty thousand dollars an hour for his presentations. That twenty to forty thousand dollars an hour. Fortune. Five hundred companies are falling all over themselves to book this man to come and speak to them on diversity training. And here's his proposal to fix the original sin of racism. Can we just pause right there? Many have said, and I have said, I call it the cult of anti racism. It is a religion. It is a religion. They have their own doctrine, they have their own saints, they have their own canon, they have their own priests, theologians, and Kenny's one of the theologians of this movement. But notice that this is an amendment to the. Constitution, and it starts with to fix the original sin of racism. There's a book by the title America's Original Sin by Jim Wallace, the founder of Sojourners. Jim Wallace is arguing that racism is America's original sin. By the way, the sixteen nineteen Project. You've probably heard of this, right. It's Pulis Surprize winning, horrible piece of history. The sixteen nineteen project. What is the sixteen nineteen project all about? The sixteen nineteen project is about moving the founding of America, or our understanding of the founding of America, from seventeen seventy six to sixteen nineteen. Because if the founding of America is seventeen seventy six, then it's founded on some documents and ideas that are pretty good. But if the founding is seen as sixteen nineteen, when the first slaves came to America, then America is rooted and grounded in the original sin of slavery and racism. That's what the sixteen nineteen project is all about at bottom, getting away from the idea that America is based on what America says America is based on. To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti racist amendment to the US Constitution that enshrines two anti racist principles. One, racial inequity is evidence of racist policy, and two the different racial groups are equals. The amendment would make unconstitutional. Racial inequity over a certain threshold be unconstitutional if you have inca and again, equity is about outcomes, right, if you have outcomes that are disparate over a specific threshold, it would make it unconstitutional. As well as racist ideas by public officials with racist ideas and public officials clearly defined. It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti Racism, comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. Who wants to take a guess at who's going to formally train the experts. The DOA would be responsible for pre clearing all local, state, and federal public policies to ensure they won't yield inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over an again against policy makers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas. It has nothing to do with the heart. It has everything to do with politics and power. This is antithetical to Biblical justice in every way imaginable. And here's what you need to know again. I'll go back to what I said earlier. The church has a big bullseye on her as the source of these iniquities is the root of these inequities. Listen to this from Milton Friedman, another economist. A society that puts equality in the sense of equality of outcomes ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will. Destroy freedom, and the force introduced for good purposes will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests. This is not how we in the Body of Christ function. We are not about gaining political power in order to force people. To do justice. We are about the proclamation of the Gospel, recognizing that true justice must and can only come from hearts transformed through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Our greatest political desire is freedom to proclaim the Gospel in the marketplace of ideas. Amen. But guess what critical social justice will ultimately not tolerate proclaiming the Gospel in the marketplace of ideas, because it is a source and a means of oppression. You keep on using that word. I do not think it means. What you think it means. We must pursue justice, and justice is sin. And what I've come to discover is that the difference between social justice and biblical justice We've been going at it the wrong way. We've been trying to look at it. We've been trying to say, you know, here's here's here's what the Bible would say, you know, is required to do justice here. And here's what the here's what social justice will say is required to do justice here. And what I've discovered is that the difference is not in our application of justice. I mean there are differences there. The difference is in how we define injustice. The Bible would define injustice as that that which that which fails to comply with, to comport with, to to rise to the level of the law of God. That's how the Bible would define injustice. And in my relationship to another, in my relationship to you know, the state, and my relationship with my family, injustice would would come down to the law of God and whether or not I was submitting to the law of God in this circumstance. That's not how social justice defines injustice. Social justice defines injustice as anything that produces or allows an inequitable outcome. So, for example, the parable of the talents would be injustice. In fact, God would be unjust because there's things that he hasn't done equitably. He blessed me with more melanin than most that's inequitable. Are you taller than most people? Inequitable? More intelligent, inequitable? You see what I'm getting at the world the way God designed it would not qualify as socially just because it's filled with inequity. Do we want everybody to be the same height? Do we want everybody to have the same amount of melanin the same level of intelligence, the same kind of intelligence I mean do we want Do we want that? No, but that's at bottom what critical social justice is pursuing through diversity, equity, and inclusion. No, we want justice, but what we mean by that is that Kingdom come, that will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's the justice we want. Let's pray, Father, we thank you again for this time that you've given us, for these moments that you've given us, for this opportunity to set our minds on these issues. Grant by your grace that we would be good stewards of what you've given to the end that we might honor Christ and whose name we pray. Amen.