When justice is a joke in the church, then injustice becomes a nightmare in society. The kingdom of God is hovering on the horizon, waiting for the people of God to see it and then bring it nigh to the oppressed poor. The incarnated kingdom of God could restore the crushed, give dignity to the humiliated, humanize the animalized, liberate the enslaved, and stop the killing.
The answer is at hand. Why is it delayed? The people of God need the Spirit of God to incarnate the kingdom of God among the oppressed poor. To do this, the church needs to ponder H. Richard Niebuhr's insightful observation: "The character of a religious movement is probably more decisively determined by its definition of the sin [personal sin or social evil] from which salvation is to be sought than by its view of that saving process itself." Are we even asking the right questions?
In order to write Journey Toward Justice, Nicholas Wolterstorff, a committed Reformed Christian who is well-educated (a Harvard PhD in philosophy) had to experience a second conversion, a transformation, a paradigm shift in his understanding of justice/injustice. He had supported, from a distance, the civil rights movement, and had opposed the Vietnam War, but even so, Wolterstorff writes:
"I was first awakened from my oblivion to justice---my 'slumber,' one might call it---by my [searing] encounter in South Africa in 1975 with Afrikaners [also Reformed, but Reformed oppressors] and people of color; I was further awakened by my [searing] encounter with Palestinians in 1978. These encounters have looming importance in the narrative that follows." Wolterstorff was about 40 years of age at the time; he is now 82.
Based on almost 88 years of living and having had my own second conversion to a biblical understanding of oppression and justice, I would hazard a guess that 95 percent of white evangelical theologians have not yet experienced this deep transformation.
Journey Toward Justice is Nicholas Wolterstorff's third and most recent (2013) book on justice, and his most readable book on justice; see also Justice: Rights and Wrongs and Justice in Love. Though Wolterstorff never mentions the Holy Spirit, it is obvious to me that the Spirit of Truth has called and anointed him to be a messenger of truth on justice and injustice for the highly deficient, English-speaking, church world. The Spirit carried Wolterstorff to the oppressed of South Africa (Nick thought he was going for an education conference) for a searing, unforgettable 1975 face-to-face encounter with the horror and pain of black South Africans. Then a few years later the Spirit led him to a conference with mostly Christian Palestinians for another searing, unforgettable face-to-face encounter with the horror and pain of Palestinians.
With a Harvard PhD in philosophy, the brilliant Wolterstorff could have thought he already knew it all. Ideological boxes with half-truths could have led him to clever arguments to refute these passionate but uninformed people. But fortunately brilliance was combined with humility and empathy, allowing the Holy Spirit to transform Nick's understanding of injustice/oppression and justice. Forty years later the Spirit's flame of wisdom is still anointing Wolterstorff's precise pen. Possibly I can see this in Wolterstorff because in April 1968, at the time of Martin Luther King's assassination, I experienced a similar anointing from the Spirit of Truth. Strangely, the two best American spokespersons about oppression and justice are Wolterstorff and John Perkins (Nick and J.P.) Both are anointed by the Spirit though neither writes much about the Spirit. Through both, the Spirit of Truth has anointed them to preach good news to the poor, to release the oppressed and to call the church to practice Jubilee Justice.
Next, Allan Verhey's evaluation of Journey Toward Justice:
"Nick Wolterstorff is one of my 'heroes of the faith'---not just because he is a brilliant philosopher (although he is that), and not just because he is a careful and attentive reader of the Scripture (although he is that too), but because he is an advocate for justice. His concern for justice is a lived concern, not just a theoretical one. His encounters with people who had been treated unjustly decisively shaped his life and re-formed his analysis of the concept of justice and his reading [interpretation] of Scripture. I hope this book is widely read. It just may prompt others to listen both to the oppressed and to God---and to hunger for justice."
Both Wolterstorf and John Perkins start with injustice/oppression as they first try to understand oppression and then implement justice. Ken Wytsma and Timothy Keller, in their books on justice, do not begin with a deep understanding of injustice/oppression; therefore, compared to Wolterstorff and Perkins, their understanding of biblical justice is flawed---much better than most white evangelicals, but flawed by biblical standards.
Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world full of sinful individuals and evil societies. Social evil is far too often the norm. Systems of oppression are the norm, even lifelong or generational systems of oppression. Justice actions are needed to stop oppression, to release the oppressed and to re-establish just norms or fair and equitable social relationships.
Just judgments by leaders (judges, kings, pastors, churches) are needed to release the oppressed by implementing Jubilee Justice---freeing slaves every seven years, canceling debts every seven years, restoring land to families every fifty years.
Thomas Hanks, a Hebrew scholar, renders the Hebrew word mispat as just judgments; justice is an action. Hanks translates sedeqah as justice, not righteousness. Steven Voth, a professional bible translator, agrees with Hanks. See The Challenge of Bible Translation, chapter 14, "Justice/righteousness." So instead of justice and righteousness, they prefer just judgments and justice. Just judgments are actions taken to restore broken social relationships, to restore a standard or quality of justice. Or in the words of the Pledge of allegiance "with liberty and justice for all." John Calvin used a Latin translation of the Bible that was full of justice; this is the primary reason why he tried to organize the city of Geneva around what we today would call socialistic principles.
OT Hebrews were not highly philosophical as Greeks were; instead they were action oriented people. Jubilee Justice is the best phrase that captures this action emphasis. Justice is not an abstraction; it is a principled action.
In a poor, illiterate society, education is an act of justice; education empowers women; they become the key to family self-sufficiency and community development. Educated girls and women are less susceptible to domination and sexual exploitation. Education and faith are a powerful combination---key steps toward justice.
Because most English-speaking people and Christians have such a shallow understanding of oppression and justice, we must place an adjective alongside justice---Jubilee Justice---to constantly re-emphasize this biblical thrust. Traditionally, Amos 5:24 is translated "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Or this paraphrase based on the context: "Let Jubilee Justice flood the land so that fair and equitable social relationships can be restored for the oppressed poor. If your worship does not produce Jubilee Justice, it is deeply flawed."
Since systems of oppression crush, humiliate, animalize, impoverish, enslave and kill people created in the image of God, strong action is needed. Wolterstorff has chapters entitled "Justice in the Old Testament" and "Justice in the New Testament." But unfortunately, not chapters entitled "Oppression is the Old Testament" and "Oppression in the New Testament." Jesus calls us to release the oppressed; we need to know who the oppressor is---Roman (external) oppression or the Jewish religious rich (internal oppression); and we need to know the type or system of oppression; is it landlord oppression (James 5) or religious institution oppression (the Temple)? Or the type of oppression might be slavery or segregation or debt slavery or the criminal justice system (mass incarceration) or the racial wealth gap or gender oppression or ???
As you investigate systems of oppression, watch out for political ideologies which misrepresent or even sanctify systems of oppression. Watch out for widespread half-truths, half solutions. Wilberforce and colleagues stopped the slave trade and British slavery, but they compromised by paying reparations to the slave holders, not to the slaves. Lincoln and the abolitionists got freedom for slaves but not equality and justice for blacks. Most Jews asserted that the Romans were the oppressors, but Jesus, however, "ignored" Roman oppression and focused on internal Jewish elite oppression.
Wolterstorff is very clear and precise and comprehensive on justice but not as much so on oppression, though he has a good basic understanding of oppression/injustice. Without a clear, precise and accurate understanding of systems of oppression, our attempts at solutions will be partial or even misguided. For example, many well-meaning people identify the supposed voodoo curse or corruption as the primary cause of Haitian poverty. Wrong. The primary cause is 500 years of oppression, first by the Spanish, then by the French and now the United States.
The ancient philosopher Plato and the modern John Rawls, Plato's disciple, saw order/disorder as the basic categories of social life---ideal society. But these analyses were limited to philosophical abstraction. For Wolterstorff, justice/injustice are the basic categories of social life in a fallen social order. The NT actually addresses both order/disorder and justice/injustice. Stephen Mott in his article entitled "Biblical faith and the reality of social evil," states: "Whereas for classical Greece [philosophers like Plato] cosmos protected values and life, . . . cosmos [in the NT] represents the twisted values which threatened genuine human life, For Plato the [social] order stood guard against licentiousness; now the order is the intruder bearing immorality." The answer to an evil cosmos social order is a just kingdom of God social order.
I think that John Wesley was the greatest spiritual/social leader since NT times, but he did not understand the biblical teaching on oppression and justice though he excelled on love. Howard Snyder notes Wesley's weaknesses:
"Consider Wesley's reaction to the industrialization of England. He had deep compassion for the laboring victims of their emerging system and worked for its humanization, but he made no fundamental critique of the free enterprise system. A century later Karl Marx did, but unfortunately with a non-Christian bias. It has been said that the Wesleyan Revival saved England from political revolution. Is it possible that a more radical social ethic in Methodism could have saved the world from the Communist revolution a century and a half later by making it unnecessary?" (from The Radical Wesley).
In 2014, we still lack a comprehensive, evangelical social ethic built upon the extensive biblical teaching on oppression and justice. Wolterstorff has taken some giant steps, but there is still more to be done, especially in the NT. Jesus asserted: "Seek first God's kingdom and his justice," (NEB) Seek God's social order and his justice because Jubilee justice is the chief characteristic of a divine social order. Paul echoed Jesus in Romans 14:17 (NEB): "The kingdom of God is justice, shalom and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Noble paraphrase)
Next, a few excerpts from Journey Toward Justice:
"With great passion they [black South Africans] cried out for justice. Not only was I profoundly moved by this cry for justice, I felt convinced that I had been issued a call from God. I did not hear words in the air; it was by the way of speech of the so-called blacks and coloreds that God spoke to me. Fidelity to God required that I speak up for these victims of injustice. . . ."
"But my experience in Potchefstroom [South Africa] in 1975 and on the west side of Chicago in 1978 [with Palestinians] made it impossible for me not to start from the wronged [oppressed] in my reflections on justice. The response to the "blacks" and "coloreds" by the Afrikaners at the conference who spoke up in defense of apartheid took me completely aback. . . . They insisted that justice was not a relevant category. Order and disorder were the relevant categories; South Africa was threatened with disorder. . . . apartheid was an act of good will. . . . benevolence [charity but not justice] was being used as an instrument of oppression."
In terms of American immigration reform, rich, male WASPs often use law and order arguments, but rarely justice arguments.
"Christian Scripture speaks often and emphatically about justice. I would have heard and read many passages about justice; in singing the Psalms I would have sung about justice. But it all passed me by. Nobody called it to my attention; nothing in my situation made it jump out. My church had a benevolence fund; it did not have a social justice committee. . . . [Upon returning from South Africa] The references to justice that had passed me by now jumped out. My encounter with the people of color in South Africa and with the Palestinians had opened my eyes and focused my attention."
Again and again, Wolterstorff writes about "doing justice and righting injustice."
"Plato's Republic is all about justice. But nowhere in the Republic is justice connected to the fate of the widow, the orphan, the resident alien, and the poor." The Bible refers to such people as downtrodden, not unfortunates or inferior or lazy.
"Jesus's listeners and Matthew's original readers, steeped as they were in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, would automatically have connected God's kingdom with the doing of justice and with righting injustice."
Some final thoughts. Americans, like the Afrikaners, have excelled at mislabeling and the sanctifying the social evils of ethnocentrism and oppression. American exceptionalism has been used to cover American ethnocentrism. Manifest Destiny has been used to sanctify American oppression. Westward Expansion has been used to cover Indian destruction.
Instead of focusing on illegal aliens and immigration reform, American Christians should be repenting, engaging in restitution (the real issue is illegal borders and the theft of nearly half of Mexico's land); Jubilee Justice requires that land be returned to the original owner every 50 years; well over 150 years have gone by.
Third generation CCDers need to learn how to identify biblically what ethnocentrism and oppression are and then show how a combination of love and justice, reconciliation and shalom, the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of God can be the answer.
No comments:
Post a Comment