John Perkins and Pope Francis are biblical justice cousins

Pope Francis' exhortation/manifesto entitled "The Joy of the Gospel" is REQUIRED reading. Google "Pope Francis The Joy of the Gospel" and you can read the complete text.  I would have sub-titled his manifesto "Joy Requires Justice."

In my opinion, John Perkins and Pope Francis are biblical justice cousins.  Pope Francis has his own version of John Perkins' three "r's"

Relocation---from the sanctuary to the streets.

Reconciliation---from exclusion to inclusion.

Redistribution---from economic inequality to justice.

I also see Pope Francis reflecting both Luke 4:18-19 and Luke 4:25-30.  Luke 4:18 highlights the oppressed poor and Luke 4:25-30 grapples with religious ethnocentrism (exclusion).

Francis urges the church to move from the security of the sanctuary to the suffering of the streets; the church should be among "the bruised, hurting and dirty," among the marginalized, excluded and oppressed.

Pope Francis, almost thou hast persuadest me to be a Catholic, at least in terms of your profoundly biblical social teaching.  I see you as a desperately needed prophetic figure for today's times.  Martin Luther King was a drum major for justice.  I see you as a drum major for the poor and against systems of economic oppression run by the rich.  Your exhortation is bold and clear.

King was beginning to become a biblical prophet against the rich and for the poor when he was assassinated.  One pundit sees your recent prophetic teaching "The Joy of the Gospel" as the equivalent to King's "I Have a Dream" speech; it also echoes King's "I Live a Nightmare" speech [my title] given in December 1967.  Matthew Fox, a radical priest who was defrocked because of his anti-rich and pro-poor stance, is glowing in his praise of "The Joy of the Gospel."  Fox asserts:

I think that he [Pope Francis] delivered a tremendous message yesterday with this document about justice in the world.  I think it goes far beyond church reform. . . . he is willing to really critique the economic system with strong language and connecting it to the biblical tradition of justice and the prophetic work on behalf of the poor . . . [who are] defenseless against the deified market.

Note some of the powerful phrases Francis uses:  "unfettered capitalism, a new tyranny, idolatry of money, trickle-down economics, deified market, consumerism, covetous heart, feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, blunted conscience, where powerful feed upon the powerless, crude and naive trust in the prevailing economic system, the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root, evil crystallized in unjust social structures."

I also see that Pope Francis, in his own way, critiques the American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism. 

To be continued