Biblical Justice: Comprehensive and Radical

Biblical justice is:

* Jubilee justice---Lev. 25
* kingdom of God justice---Mt. 6:33
* love your ethnic neighbor justice---Luke 10:25-37
* generosity justice---Acts 4:32-35

Implementing Jubilee justice releases the oppressed; incarnating kingdom of God justice releases the oppressed.

The following quotation about the Jubilee is from the Poverty and Justice Bible (CEV, page 21 of the Insert section):

Leviticus is often viewed as a book full of obscure rules and ritual, yet it contains one of the most astonishing pieces of social legislation in history: the Sabbath years and the Jubilee. Every seven years, the land had a sabbath, allowing it to recover. During this year slaves were to be freed (Exodus 21:2) and debts were to be cancelled (Deuteronomy 15:1-11). [Noble: Debt economics and slavery could quickly become systems of oppression; Sabbath/Jubilee laws prevented lifelong, even generational, systems of oppression from taking hold.] And every fiftieth year there was to be a Jubilee, . . . where the entire social structure of Israel was to be reset. Every Israelite became once again, a free citizen [Noble: "under God, with liberty and Jubilee justice for all."]

Everyone could wipe the slate clean and start again, and significantly, the Jubilee year began on the Day of Atonement [forgiveness] (Lev. 25:9)---the day of national repentance and reconciliation. So fresh starts spiritually and physically [socially]---a whole life view. . . . The Jubilee idea survives. Today it is being applied to global debt. The Jubilee Campaign recognizes that there are countries who have fallen so far into debt that only drastic action can get them out.

Application to the United States

Very little white evangelical American theology takes the above biblical teaching seriously; as a result American evangelicals are often participants in ethnocentrism and oppression, often neglect justice and the love of God. One of the best American theologians to make this point is James Cone, author of God of the Oppressed, 1975.

In my opinion, James Cone is the most provocative thinker among Afro American theologians. He knows white theology so well he is able to make informed comparisons and contrasts with his version of Black theology. He is bold and incisive in his analysis of White theology, especially it limited and ethnocentric assumptions. Cone is equally bold and insightful as he develops an alternative Black theology which is not only drawn from the Bible, but also from the experience of being an oppressed black person.

As Cone struggled with the insensitive white response to the Detroit riots, he discovered the "theological bankruptcy" of white theology he had learned in graduate school. Out of desperation he began to search the Bible, Black history and culture for some theological answers. Cone writes as an angry person, justifiably so, and often makes a sharp and radical departure from standard theology. He writes as a prophet critiquing the "existing order of injustice." A prophet is concerned about oppression and suffering. Few white theologians are; it doesn't show up in any depth in their theology. The central concern of Black theology is liberation from socioeconomic oppression.

In the midst of oppression, before full liberation, the personal presence of God through Jesus Christ provided the "affirmation that enabled black people to meet the Man on Monday morning and to deal with his dehumanizing presence the remainder of the week, knowing that white folks could not destroy their humanity." Why did white theology fail to address the issues of oppression and justice? Cone asserts:

Unfortunately, American theology from Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards to Reinhold Niebuhr and Schubert Ogden, including radical and conservatives, have interpreted the gospel according to the cultural and political interests of white people. They have rarely attempted to transcend the social interests of their group by seeking an analysis of the gospel in the light of the consciousness of black people struggling for liberation. White theologians, because of their identity with the dominant power structure, are largely boxed withing their own cultural history.

During slavery the social limitation of white theology was expressed in three main forms: (1) some white theologians ignored slavery as a theological issue; (2) others justified it; (3) only a few spoke out against it.

First, it was not uncommon for Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptist, Methodists, . . . to do theology as if slavery did not exist. For example. Jonathan Edwards, often called America's most outstanding theologian, could preach and write theological treatises on total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irrestible grace, and the perseverance of the saints without the slightest hint of how these issues related to human bondage.

Probably the best chapter in the book is chapter four, "Biblical Revelation and Social Existence," in which Cone shows how central oppression and justice are in both the Old and New Testaments. The kingdom of God concept, central in Jesus' ministry, includes the idea of justice and liberation for the poor and oppressed.

Another fine chapter is chapter 10---"Liberation and Reconciliation." Cone vigorously opposes cheap reconciliation which he defines as superficial reconciliation which ignores the prior need for liberation from oppression. White Christians often want individual reconciliation "without changing the balance of power" in society. They want to preserve the benefits of the status quo and at the same time love the oppressed. Love without liberation, without justice, is a mockery:

Because black liberation is the point of departure of my analysis of the gospel of Jesus, I cannot accept a view of reconciliation based on white values. The Christian view of reconciliation has nothing to do with black people being nice to white people as if the gospel demands that we ignore their insults and their humilating presence. . . . We Black theologians must refuse to accept a view of reconciliation that pretends that slavery never existed, that we were not lynched and shot, and that we are not presently being cut to the core of our physical and mental endurance. [Think mass incarceration and the racial wealth gap]