Elsa Tamez is the rare theologian who understands both oppression in the OT and oppression in the NT as well as justice in the NT. I do not know of a single white American evangelical theologian with any expertise on oppression in the Old and New Testaments nor justice in the NT. The result is that white evangelical scholars, pastors and lay persons are largely ignorant about the extensive and important biblical teaching on oppression and justice.
Enter Elsa Tamez who has written a book on OT oppression---Bible of the Oppressed. Her first language is Spanish which turns out to be very important for a theologian. A Spanish NT contains around 100 references to justice whereas the English KJV NT has zero references to justice and the NIV has only 16. Tamez grasps the importance of oppression and justice in the NT. To my knowledge, she is the only theologian to do so. Wolterstorff has declared that the English NT has been dejusticized.
So every white theologian and pastor must read not only Bible of the Oppressed (1980), but also The Scandalous Message of James (1989), and The Amnesty of Grace (1993). In Amnesty of Grace, as Tamez discusses the book of Romans, she writes much about injustice and justice but little about unrighteousness and righteousness. She ties justification and justice together. The poor need liberation from oppression followed by justice. See Acts 8:12; 28:23 and 31---think Jesus Christ and justification; the kingdom of God and justice
so those violated. This not to be understood in a behavioristic sense, but in a theological sense. . . . We would like to report to the churches that man is lost, lost not only in the sins of his own heart but also in the sinning grasp of principalities and powers of the world, demonic forces which cast a bondage over human lives and human institutions and infiltrate their textures."
In his book, Sin, Ted Peters agrees with Fung:
"Covert blasphemy: using the name of God directly or indirectly in order to hide evil behind a veil of righteousness. . . . co-opts the goodness of God to cover over insidious injustice. . . . Inherent in sin is the denial of truth. . . . Everyone has a stake in hiding the truth of sin. This makes uncovering the mystery of how sin works difficult, because wherever we dig, lies rush in to fill the hole."
So also Andrew Sung Park book, The Asian Concept of Han and the Christian Concept of Sin:
"Among our family members my mother had suffered the most: patriarchal suppression and repression, the wars, and the hardship of a preacher's wife. Her life was a series of tragedies and human anguish. She was born in han (oppression and the suffering that follows) and died in han. She is the reason I write about han, so that fewer people might have to suffer as she did.
"The deep pain of human agony has been a primary concern of my theological reflection. The issue of han [oppression] has been more significant in my life than the problem of sin. . . . The doctrine of repentance is for the oppressor and the doctrine of forgiveness is for the oppressed. The doctrine of justification is for the oppressor and the doctrine of justice is for the oppressed. . . .
"Seeing [the social other] is a visual dialogue and understanding arousing sympathy. Staring is a visual monologue and unpleasant leering."
Comment by Noble: Due to ethnocentrism and segregation, socially we don't know the ethnic other. We stare at each other from a distance. As we stare, we mostly see their weaknesses, faults and flaws. Then we compare these perceived weaknesses with our strengths, our goodness. Excluded others become evil others.
Back to Tamez. She quotes the Kairos document from South Africa:
"In our situation in South Africa today it would be totally unChristian to plead for reconciliation and peace before the present injustices have been removed. Any such plea plays into the hands of the oppressor by trying to persuade those of us who are oppressed to accept our oppression and to be reconciled to the intolerable crimes that are committed against us. This is not Christian reconciliation, it is sin."
The purpose of the gospel according to Romans 6:13 is to make "human beings instruments or weapons of justice in the service of God."
"The faces of women are found in all communities and cultures. Women are discriminated against gratuitously, not for anything they have done against others. They are discriminated against mercilessly solely because of their sex, just as the Black and the indigenous person are discriminated against because of who they are, because of their color."
On Paul, the freeborn artisan:
"artisans suffered scorn and marginalization by their society. They were stigmatized by the aristocracy as slaves, uneducated, and useless. They were treated like slaves, because the majority of them in fact were. . . . In Greco-Roman society generally, manual labor . . . without dignity."
"There were variations in the social circumstances of the different categories of slaves. For example, marked contrasts existed between city workers and those in the fields. Those from rural areas lived in worse conditions than those in the city. In Italy and in other provinces, for example, the slaves who constituted the majority of workers in the mines and agriculture were brutally exploited and despised, while slaves in the city who worked in households lived in better conditions [more like servants]. The latter at least were able to aspire to manumission at age of thirty. . . . Closely parallel to the situation of agricultural slaves was often that of freed slaves and freeborn persons who, because of their extreme poverty, found themselves obliged to work under the same conditions and to endure the same suffering as slaves."
Paul and the gospel:
"Paul contrasted the power of God with the power of sin manifest in the concrete injustices of history. The gospel is a force in which the justice of God is manifest . . . in a world plagued by injustices. . . .
Paul arrived at the conclusion that people had imprisoned truth in injustice. . . . injustice had usurped the place of truth."
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