The Selective Morality of the Christian Social Justice Left and Right

I’ve spent decades—starting long before I founded the Vulnerable People Project—working for apostolates that had me talking to anyone who would listen about the vulnerable and their need for the support of Americans like you and me. We who find ourselves in positions of relative privilege and power owe it to our vulnerable brothers and sisters to defend their dignity when they find themselves powerless and under threat.

But after all these years, I’ve come to a sad conclusion: the bleeding-heart Christian social justice Left and the bold, assertive Christian Right are both willing to vigorously defend the vulnerable only when it doesn’t threaten their first-world privileges. Each side champions the vulnerable, but their fervor comes in waves, and it always stops short when the demands of justice come close to the feet of their most cherished idols.

I have been fighting for legal protection for the child in the womb for over 30 years. I have also been a vocal advocate for noncombatants in war zones, criticizing not only the United States—my article “Flying Into the Abyss on John Brennan’s Drone” being a prime example—but also Russia, and, most recently, Israel for their indiscriminate violence and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. 

As a conservative, I once again find myself in strange company, as I did some 20 years ago when I opposed the invasion of Iraq.

I am embarrassed to point out the inconsistencies of Christians, Left and Right. I know these people, many are my friends, and it’s obvious they’re truly better Christians than I am. Ask my lawyer, who is right now in the middle of getting me out of trouble for a bar fight. It’s baffling that fine, upstanding Christians who live holy lives can cling to opposite but equally violent ideologies while a personally volatile and hypocritical Christian like me is not tempted to either error.It’s baffling that fine, upstanding Christians who live holy lives can cling to opposite but equally violent ideologies while a personally volatile and hypocritical Christian like me is not tempted to either error.Tweet This

It is striking when I am in a church basement listening to a mainline Protestant pastor speak eloquently on protecting the vulnerable. “Every life matters,” she says. I agree with every word. But I find it mind-numbing and incomprehensible when I have to remind myself that this same speaker supports abortion for all nine months. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.

In the same way, when I find myself in a megachurch for a pro-life event, and I listen to the pastor speak beautifully on human dignity, how every life is worthy of protection, and how we must stand with the vulnerable. I have to blink and scratch my head, knowing this same man makes genocidal comments like, “Flatten Gaza!” and declares that “Palestinians have the spirit of Amalek.” The inconsistencies are insane.

The Christian social justice Left is willing to sacrifice economic interests and protest foreign wars, often with genuine passion for justice. They march against the brutalities of imperialism, the exploitation of the poor, and the ravaging of the environment. They seek to hold the powerful accountable when it comes to policies that oppress marginalized communities and violate human dignity.

But their compassion has a blind spot. While they claim to stand with the weak, they refuse to relinquish sexual libertinism for the common good. For all their fiery rhetoric against oppression, they often vigorously advocate for abortion-on-demand, without exceptions. The defenseless child in the womb is the most vulnerable among us, yet their lives are discarded in the name of autonomy and convenience.

On the other hand, Christian conservatives pride themselves on standing firm against moral decay. They struggle hard to conform to Christian sexual ethics, and when they fall short, they at least strive to accept the consequences—choosing to raise a child rather than to kill. They defend the unborn, understanding that true love means embracing responsibility even when it completely upends your life.

But their own inconsistency is glaring. The same Christian conservatives who would never contemplate the evil of abortion will often justify foreign wars and the destruction of innocents abroad in the name of national interests. Even worse, they will sanctify these wars with religious language, painting their own riskless rhetoric as a crusade for good when it is, in fact, a brutal attempt to justify the killing of children in Gaza.

It is a strange spectacle to witness: the Christian social justice Left sacrifices wealth and comfort for the sake of justice but refuses to surrender sexual libertinism. The Christian conservative acknowledges the dignity of the child in the womb but will not lay down wealth, geopolitical power, or even the Christian veneer they use to justify the killing of children in Gaza.

Both sides practice a selective morality that’s willing to defend the vulnerable only when doing so allows their particular idol to remain standing and untouched. And that is the tragedy. The Gospel demands a total commitment to the vulnerable, a willingness to renounce anything—whether wealth, power, pleasure, or pride—that prevents us from serving our neighbor.

We live in a time when selective morality is the norm. The challenge for Christians, regardless of their political alignment, is to embrace the fullness of the Gospel. To love the vulnerable means to love all of them—not just those whose suffering is politically convenient or whose rights do not interfere with our own ambitions.

The call is clear: if we are to follow Christ, we must be willing to sacrifice everything—not just the parts of our lives that are easy to give up but the comforts and privileges we cling to most tightly. Only then can we say, with integrity, that we are truly advocates for the vulnerable.