Best Biblical Practices: Works of Jubilee Justice

Best Biblical Practices: Works of Jubilee Justice

Introduction

A quotation from the Poverty and Justice Bible(CEV), Insert, page 21, "Sabbath."

"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, 'time off', 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)."

"And every fiftieth year there was a Jubilee, a kind of Sabbath of Sabbaths, where the entire social structure of Israel was to be reset. Every Israelite became, once again, a free citizen. Everyone could wipe the slate clean and start again, and significantly, the year began on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 25:9)---the day of national repentance and reconciliation. So, fresh starts spiritually and physically [socially]---a whole life view."

Note the following from the Bible:

1. Worship without justice is dead (Amos 5:21-24).
2. Faith without works [of justice] is dead, a religious corpse (James 2:14-26).
3. Grace without works of justice is dead (Ephesians 2:8-10).
4. Love without works of justice is dead (I John 3:10-14).
5. Spirituality without works of justice is dead (Isaiah 58 and the Sermon on the Mount).

Mass Incarceration: Best Practices and Underlying Causes

The church should be heavily involved in drug rehabilitation; a friend of mine, now clean for years, told me that counselors told him that drugs are only five percent of a drug addict's problem. The underlying personal and emotional issues are 95 percent of the problem; the church could and should excel in dealing with the 95 percent.

The church should also be heavily involved in prisoner re-entry programs. But since I don't have experience and expertise in this area, I will let others speak to best practices in this area. But I would like to present ideas regarding underlying causes and possible solutions regarding mass incarceration.

Michelle Alexander, author of the best-selling (over 400,000) The New Jim Crow, asserts that America never really ends systems of oppression such as slavery; it only redesigns them. And, she says, that even if America ends mass incarceration but does not address the underlying causes, it will soon create another system of oppression to replace mass incarceration. True, but a correction. The fourth system of oppression already exists alongside mass incarceration. The two systems interact, each making the other worse. The existing fourth system of oppression is the racial wealth gap---white households have 20 times the wealth as black households---which has existed since the founding of this country.

Ivory Phillips, an expert in black history, declares that at no point in American history have blacks experienced anything close to economic justice/equality; a measure of temporary freedom---Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Movement---but never economic justice. Martin Luther King, in a December 1967 speech that I have dubbed "I Live a Nightmare" asserted that his "black brothers and sisters were perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity."

Martin Luther King has also addressed the underlying causes behind mass incarceration---a trinity of racism, capitalism and militarism. Most of the American church has either tolerated or sanctified these underlying causes so the church is a part of the problem. American theology has not yet dug into the extensive biblical teaching on oppression and justice, on the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of God. Therefore, American theology is deficient, unable to identify and change these underlying causes. Other descriptions of these underlying causes are: 1) the rich, male, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and 2) the American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism, and hyperethnocentrism.

Justice and Reconciliation

Attempts at reconciliation without works of justice is justice lite or cheap reconciliation; many blacks smell a rat and don't want to have anything to do with reconciliation which avoids the justice issue. This is why faith, love, grace and works MUST be closely tied to works of justice.

Works of Jubilee justice must precede or accompany efforts at personal reconciliation. In order to move from economic oppression to economic justice, repentance and restitution are REQUIRED (John the Baptist, Luke 3:10-14, and Zacchaeus, Luke 19:8). Both Roman and Jewish law required that a person must pay back four times the amount that was taken. But, in American churches, repentance and restitution are seldom even a part of the discussion. Wilberforce left out the repentance/restitution package in his political compromise to get rid of slavery. Britain paid reparations to slave owners, not to slaves.

Another way of putting it is that Jubilee justice requires action in order to achieve release and restoration. Justice is not a theological abstraction. Reconciliation is not a theological transaction devoid of works of justice.

The biblical principles of justice and reconciliation are both important to John Perkins. But a hint. The titles of John Perkins first two books are: Let Justice Roll Down and Justice for All. For a poor and oppressed person from Mississippi, biblical justice, Jubilee justice, kingdom justice, is of prime importance. Perkins defines biblical justice as: "Justice is an economic issue, an ownership issue, a management issue, a stewardship issue. Justice has to do with equal access to the resources of God's creation."

In my opinion, most of Perkins' closest disciples have put reconciliation ahead of justice; none of them have fully developed and applied the extensive biblical teaching on oppression/injustice---the 555 OT references to oppression and the anti-rich teaching of the NT. For expert help, I highly recommend first Thomas Hank's book For God So Loved The Third World: The biblical vocabulary of oppression. Then read Parry Yoder's book Shalom which is excellent on oppression, justice and shalom.

John Perkins wants us all to be biblically based; do your own biblical research.

Suggested Papers for the Best Practices Conference

1. Oppression in the OT.
2. Oppression (rich) in the NT.
3. Justice, reconciliation and shalom (peace) in the NT.
4. The Holy Spirit and the kingdom of God.
5. King's trinity of racism, capitalism and militarism; my American trinity of hyperindividualism, hypermaterialism and hyperethnocentrism; or the rich, male, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant.