I began writing for the Odyssey three months ago, and premiered with an article deconstructing the debate over free speech versus safe spaces. I took what I hope was a fairly balanced look at both perspectives and concluded that they both suffered from internal inconsistencies. I wrote that article fully aware that I was in danger of hemming myself into a familiar archetype for online writers - a white, heterosexual, middle class male jaunting his way through identity politics while not really being their target demographic nor appreciating the real impact they have for an enormous number of people. Reflecting on this disparity has led me to view social justice more abstractly in some cases than normal. My thoughts on social justice are jumbled, yet I hope I can lay out a case in this article for one specific idea and its implications: Social justice, as an ideology, operates as a secular reassertion of latent Christian undercurrents in American progressive circles and has a genuinely noble and important mission to democratize power in society.

Let's start with the notion that many progressives may immediately balk at: That there is a link between social justice and Christianity. This is a fair concern, as progressives have spent years associating Christianity with American conservatism - doing their best to ostracize and reject Christianity as a valid world-view as a result. There is irony that one big exclusion is considered necessary to facilitate many small inclusions, but let's put that aside for a moment and ask: What fundamentally, is social justice? If I had to define it in an elevator pitch, I'd say it is the belief that everybody is fundamentally equal and the socially constructed divisions which create inequalities must be identified, removed, and compensated for by the privileged for the betterment of those lacking privilege. Power ought to be redistributed so that all can co-exist on the same level in an equal society. Most importantly, the possession of privilege is not something to be proud of - it must be identified both by society and by the self, and compensated for through social work.

Does that sound familiar? In a lot of ways, what I've just described is also the teachings of both early Christians and many different reforming movements throughout the religions 2,000+ years of history. The most successfully of these, Protestantism, infused the founding principals of American thought and culture. Protestantism declared the ritualized, deeply hierarchical institution of Catholicism had fundamentally strayed from what Jesus Christ intended through his teachings. This is important context, because the idealization of reformation and egalitarianism is what has driven almost every distinctly American movement away from its own hierarchal institutions. Social justice is the most recent iteration of this process. What gives it its distinct impact and potential for the world at large is its paring with the fundamentally democratizing capacity of social media. The internet cannot, at a basic level, reflect the divisions of society. Therefore, the ambitions of social justice can be realized eventually, depending on how widely the ideology can become openly accepted.

This is where the most outward function of social justice comes into play - a mechanism I'll refer to as 'social evangelism'. Social evangelism demands the conversion of those unaware or skeptical of social justice into the ideology by following the model set by Christianity. A negative concept applicable to many elements of somebody's life is introduced, and the salvation from that concept is introduced alongside it - a salvation tied directly into adherence to the ideology. Christianity has sin and social justice has privilege. Recall that social justice is reapplying more specifically Protestant notions - this is why there is no greater 'church' of enlightened progressives who offer the only viable option, but instead each person must come to terms with their own privilege and seek communal forgiveness for it. Just as Christians follow the mandate of evangelism to convert and grow the flock, social evangelism demands that it is the duty of the enlightened progressive to teach others, despite ridicule and ostracism by an ignorant world.

Having spent far too many words linking social justice to Christianity, I must stress that I do not intend this link to be devaluing to either. Rather, I've noticed several trends of interesting correlation between the two and thought it would be interesting to explore this more deeply. I also think social justice has a chance to actually realize many of the positive elements of Christianity which have not come to fruition. If social justice is a religion, it is a religion for democracy - one which takes the democratizing spirit of early Christianity and removes the religious barrier. Christianity had saints and prophets who stood high above the masses because it was a faith born in the age of kings and despots, where single beacons into a sea of darkness were familiar and comfortable social symbols. Social justice makes every one of its members a prophet because it is being born into a world waking to the idea of true, democratic equality. Social justice may be the system the world needs to begin transitioning out of an age of violent, pointless religious division.