Fighting Injustice: An Alternative Vision

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an un-uprooted small corner of evil.

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Spirituality of Poverty

The fundamental task in laboring in poor communities is spiritual.  This doesn't mean it isn't also practical, but it is a measured practicality that is attempting to uncover the curse of 1) alienation from God, 2) coercive and abusive relationships with each other, 3) hostility, ignorance, and apathy towards creation, and 4) an identity of shame.  These practical acts are spiritual in so far as they uncover the truth of the curse, and simultaneously uncover and introduce the authority and action of Jesus to break the curse,  heal these places of wounding, and tie bonds of love around us and Him, us and each other, us and the world.

The Second Adam is taking on the power of sin and death, defeating it, and re-forming us into His glorious image: favor and freedom with God, table fellowship with our enemies, stewardship of the creation, and walking in our authority and glory as the revealed children of God.

We partner with Him in breaking the power of the curse, healing the wounds, and building the bonds of love.

Charity and relief work are often needed as a precursor to this work, and in deed often constitute this very task.  But they can often also serve to inhibit this spiritual task.

At What Cost?

Is Justice Worth It? feat. Micah Bournes from World Relief on Vimeo.

Combatting Injustice

"We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Gutter by Craig Gross

Craig Gross

The Gutter

From the founder of a group that goes into pornography conventions to share the love of Jesus with people involved in the making, producing, acting out, and consumption, of pornography, comes a book about going into the darkness carrying the bright light of Jesus' love. Full of wonderful stories (including one about City Ministries "Night Strikes" in San Francisco, for those of you back home) about God's people going places religious people wouldn't dare tread; shining love and hope into them. "Don't be angry at the dark for being dark, be angry at the light for refusing to shine in the darkness!"

Justice and Worship

Both in Tension

"This raises a really interesting point, too. One problem I’ve seen in the postmodern/emergent church conversation is you tend to have one of two different kinds of things going on: one is the emphasis on social justice. That’s a great thing unless you over-privilege social action and have no contemplative life. Someone who over-privileges social justice runs the risk of becoming an angry, disillusioned and very often, a smug activist. On the other hand, there are people who ignore social justice and only care about the contemplative life and this leads to a sort of saccharine piety. They start watching EWTN and saying the Rosary without any interest in the fact that so much of the world is starving to death."

Click on the title to read the whole interview

Is Suburbanization Evil?

In my mind, there is no question that it is.

It is only the conservative values ingrained on the mind of the evangelical church that blinds us to this. The suburbs were formed when technology gave people the ability to commute; and hence to choose to live apart from where they work. People were beholden to the cities for jobs and economic infrastructure, but did not want to live with the problems that such environments create. In moving to the suburbs they could have the benefits of the city without the problems. They could share in the resources of the City without taking responsibility for the City.

Were this all there was to suburbanization it would be bad enough...

Unfortunately there is an explicitly racial component to the entire structure as well. The suburban environment is vastly different than the urban one in terms of ethnicity. This means that our economic system treats people of different ethnicities vastly different. Conservatives argue that it is okay that we treat minorities worse than whites because we don't treat minorities bad because they are minorities; we only treat them bad because they are poor.

It is the same argument used to disenfranchise minorities historically. "We aren't preventing blacks from voting, only illiterates!" Intentionally ignoring that blacks largely couldn't read because our nation had set up the educational system to educate whites and not blacks...

The real question is, will we see that no matter what has caused the problems the poor face, whether that is the actions of evil men with power, or well-intentioned but ignorant men with power, or the apathy and sin of the poor themselves; as Christians it is our duty and our joy to be among them!?

Judgement

18 Jacob will be a fire
and Joseph a flame;
Esau will be stubble,
and they will set him on fire and destroy him.
There will be no survivors
from Esau.”
The LORD has spoken.

Obadiah 1:18



The flame of Jacob, and the Fire of Joseph will destroy Esau...

Is the presence of the righteous, itself a part of God's judgement upon the unrighteous?

I know I get scared around holy people sometimes. ;-)

Systemic Evil

Thanks to Chris Lamm for getting me back in the saddle...

Paper Pt XIII: The Purpose of the Church

In claiming justice as the mission of the Church, we are rethinking commonly held beliefs and practices. This does not negate the need for evangelism, and compassion ministry, but rather places these essential pieces in their proper, more comprehensive, context of ‘salting and lighting’ the earth. The purpose of the Church is to proclaim the Victory of the Cross to the powers,37 but also to participate in and implement that victory as both a manifestation of the presence of the Kingdom, and a sign of its future consummation.

Paper Pt XI: Implications for Purpose

Kingdom Justice and Ecclesiastical Purpose

The good news of the Kingdom is the proclamation of the Kingship (Messiah or Christ) of Jesus.31 The Kingdom of God is the powerful advancement of God’s agenda, His ‘making all things good again,’ through the victory of Jesus over all other powers on the Cross. The resultant state of this victory is justice; God’s manifest ‘good.’ This victory has power over sin in all of its manifestations, within individuals, between individuals, between ethnos, and even where it is found ensconced within the power structures of our societies. If the Kingdom purpose is justice, then the Church’s purpose is to further that justice, through proclamation and participation in God’s ‘good.’

6) Personal Transformation – If Jesus has conquered sin through the Cross, then by being joined to Him, individual humans are being transformed. We must acknowledge that when the gospel is preached women and men will be “taught to obey everything (Jesus) has commanded”32 as a result. Therefore notional and nominal assent to certain doctrinal statements will be replaced by confidence in, and reliance upon, Jesus’ victory over all powers. Justice (God’s ‘good’) will be manifested within us individually.

7) Deep Community – If Jesus has renewed the covenant people, and reconciled people to each other through the Cross33 then there will be a resulting experience of community within the Church. Mere coexistence will not suffice; attendance at the same events will be replaced by intimacy; participation in the same programs will be replaced by sharing common resources; receiving services from paid church workers will be replaced by laboring together for common goals; we will move to a place of vulnerability and submission before each other. Justice (God’s ‘good’) will be manifested in us communally.

8) Multi-Cultural Expression – If the Cross has “destroyed the dividing wall of hostility”34 between Jew and Gentile, then the Christian community will be marked by extreme diversity. A diversity that goes beyond ethnic diversity, and brings together people who share little except their common commitment to Jesus. The gospel demands true multi-cultural expression, where diverse backgrounds, value-systems, and even languages, must be brought together in common submission to the King.

9) Social Justice – The Church must go beyond individual conversion, and even personal and communal transformation, and work to see justice effected in any and every arena where systemic evil is present. The victory over the powers at work in individuals is also accomplished within the various economic, social, and political systems of the earth. This rebuts our conservative rejection of the social ramifications of the gospel, and the political alliances we have allowed ourselves to be co-opted into in some contexts. Global income inequalities, environmental degradation, human trafficking, urban segregation, minority disenfranchisement, etc. are all issues that speak to the veracity and effectiveness of the gospel. Justice (God’s ‘good’) will be manifested on the earth.

An Interesting Atheist

Paper Pt IV: Justice and Purpose

Kingdom Purpose: Justice and God’s Good Desire

We see in the opening verses of scripture the repeated refrain, “God said” and, “God saw that it was good.”3 This is the opening salvo in God’s Kingdom story; the Kingdom project begins with creation. God creates a world of marvelous diversity; creative explosions of sound, smell, and color; a wonderful harmony and plentiful provision abound. God’s creative activity realizes His goodness, and His desire for goodness.

This same creative goodness is revealed under different circumstances in the second great Kingdom initiative; God calls Abram from the ranks of sinful humanity and makes a deal with him. God promises to bless him, but also to bless the whole world through him; “I will bless you, and you will be a blessing.”4 The Kingdom project goes forward in Jesus. He fulfils Israel’s calling on her behalf, redeems Adam’s humanity; and initiates a new covenant community on the earth.

The Church lives in the tension of proclaiming the Kingdom promise in the midst of a broken creation. We embrace the vision and mission of the God “who is over all and through all and in all,”5 to “place all things under (Jesus) feet.”6 This is the prophetic future of the New Jerusalem in John’s vision where every wound is healed. This consummates the Kingdom story; it is the ultimate goal of God’s Kingdom project.

31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."

Acts 17:31

It is in this context that we can begin to talk about justice. Something is just when it can be truly said, “and God saw that it was good.” We tend to think of justice in terms of the great problems and evils in the world (in a world broken by Adam’s rebellion this is proper), however, justice has more to do with the way things ought to be, than with the way things are. It is the brokenness of man that required Jesus’ death to undo, and it is the resurrection of Jesus that gives us the foretaste of the New Creation, where judgment will be past tense, and justice will be reality.

Justice is rooted in God’s desire to manifest goodness, and so in the context of a “creation subjected and in bondage to decay”7 we see justice spoken of in the scriptural promises of Creation and New Creation, and in the language of future Resurrection and Judgment; where all wrongs are made right, and we will share in the new heaven and the new earth.

Justice, then, is simply the state of ‘goodness’ that is a reality when God’s rule is implemented. In the now, and in the not yet, justice is simply a description of the state of individuals, situations, societies, and systems that have come under the good authority of Jesus the King. We turn now to a discussion of that authority at work.

Combating Evil

"And Abraham’s a bit of a shaky character too in various ways, because the people who are called to be the bearers of the solution are also part of the problem."

N.T. Wright

Comfort Anesthetizes the Conscience of Justice...

(...sorry about the foul language!)





Good movie, this scene is a great illustration as to how the consent of the willfully ignorant majority is the power that enables a fundamentally unjust system to perpetuate itself. We live in a world where "two-thirds of the world is starving to death, while the other third argue about sex;" we are the top of the food chain, and our cultural prestige is maintained by the efforts of those at the bottom.

Sure, we don't do it intentionally, sure we don't see the injustice. ...but intuitively we know. Our whole system is fundamentally unjust but we try to maintain the status quo by shunning those who question it. We keep our hands over our eyes, and our fingers in our ears, and we get mad at those who try to pull our hands away. We talk about 'individual responsibility' while we shop for sweat-shop-manufactured-goods. We deify 'personal property rights' in an era with the highest rate of slavery in world history. We talk about 'social mobility' when the American poor grow up in the midst of violent neighborhoods, sub-standard medical care, twinkies and doritos for dinner 5 nights a week, and illiterate parents.

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
Rabbi Yeshua bin Yusef
(tortured to death in Palestine for threatening the status quo)

"When I feed the poor they call me a saint, when I ask, 'Why are they poor?' they call me a communist."
Bishop Romero
(assasinated in El Salvador for speaking out on behalf of the oppressed)

Urban Farming

(Check the title link)

Culture pt IX

We may talk about individualism, but we never question it. There is an 'I' that is distinct from what others perceive or desire. I may choose to conform, but this is still an expression of my will. This is a fundamental, unstated, tenet of Western culture that is unquestioned by us.

We filter everything through the grid of justice, this is intricately bound to our individualism. The all important 'I' must not be violated; this bends our mind toward questions of right and wrong. We feel the injustice when we are transgressed against, and we feel the guilt when we transgress. This is so ingrained in us that we are largely incapable of framing things outside of the scope of right and wrong.

Some of the fascinating questions I have been pondering:

What does this signify for theology crafted in Western culture?

What would a theology crafted in another cultural framework look like?

Clearly our notions of sin, salvation, atonement, righteousness, and more, are deeply colored by this aspect of our culture! Our gospel is largely portrayed against the backdrop of individual transgression against the 'right-and-wrong' of God's Law, and becomes a salvation that is largely about setting individuals right with God.

What theological missteps has our culture pushed us into?

What theological insights does our culture lead us to see more clearly?

What theological insights could the Church in other cultures offer us?

Clearly this only deepens the need for a global theology. Dialogue with other cultures are a mirror that allow us to see our own more clearly. We have a great need to interact with the Church in other cultures, and in other eras...

Culture pt VII

There are strengths of each culture and there are weaknesses of each culture.

Our Western emphasis on justice is a strength. It is a genuine insight into the Kingdom of God. Some things cause God to burn with anger. Some things cause God to rejoice in delight. There is an absolute morality. Some things are simply evil while other things are simply good, and it is right to suffer shame, defeat, pain, and even death rather than do evil.

But our strong sense of personal injustice is a weakness. It lends itself so easily to an entitlement mentality. Which is so easily manipulated into outright evil. The root cause of so much of our sexual perversion (including sex trafficking, child porn, etc.) is the cultural mandate that "I have a right to do what I want." Our unwillingness to sacrifice for the sake of global issues like poverty and environmental degradation is rooted in this same enshrining of individual desire. It is, of course, the underlying cause of the impotence and sloth of the Western Church; we have swallowed the cultural kool-aid, and we have embraced the narcissism and unquestioned self-gratification of our host. We truly believe, even after being 'bought by the blood,' that we still have rights and that God somehow is honored by this.

A Western cultural framework causes us to emphasize our own rights which can lead to arrogance and greed, fragmentation and isolation, and ultimately a life enslaved to desire. It also causes us to recognize the rights of others which can lead to advocacy and sacrifice, service and partnership, and ultimately a life poured out for others.

Culture pt VI

It is easy for us Westerners to see how a culture of shame or fear is under demonic influence, it is almost impossible for us to see, however, how our sense of injustice is also a demonic stronghold in our culture.

It is our sense of injustice that impels us to 'stand up for our rights.' It is precisely this intense need to maintain an inviolable sense of self, an identity defined over against everything and everyone else, that leads us to shallow materialism and consumerism, shameful disavowing of our responsibility to the people and the world around us, and even outright perpetrations of evil in the name of self-gratification.

The two essential pieces of our culture that come to the forefront in all of this are individualism and injustice.

These are major aspects of our framework for understanding that are very difficult to hold before our mind as such. It is not that we are unaware of them, but that we have difficulty realizing they are artifacts of culture, not artifacts of reality, and as such are in some sense arbitrary. We are incapable of seeing in a different way, but even more problematic is the fact that we are unaware that our way of seeing is merely our way...