Justice in an Unjust World

Justice in an Unjust World was written by Karen Lebacqz in 1987.  Lebacqz wrote her doctoral dissertation at Harvard which was later published as Six Theories of Justice: Perspectives from Philosophical and Theological Ethics.  She essentially concluded that the best of Western scholars who wrote about justice did not fully understand justice  What was the fundamental flaw in their theories?  Where they began to construct their theory; none of them began with injustice, with oppression.  None of them, brilliant though they were, personally knew the pain, the horror of oppression.

Their pursuit of an understanding of justice was too rational, too philosophical.  By contrast, oppression is primarily relationship issue between the oppressor and the oppressed, an experience.  Before one tries to develop a theory of justice, a person must personally listen to the cries, the voices, the stories of the oppressed.  Only after you have personally felt some of the agony of the oppressed, should you begin the pursuit of a theory, a theology, of justice.  Personally, I needed 35 years of living in black communities, including a personal tour by John Perkins of rural black Mississippi.  John and Vera Mae some of their own personal stories of oppression.

Lebacqz is brilliant, wise and radical.  Every reader of her book will be offended at some point; all readers will be forced to rethink what they now know about oppression and justice.   Evangelicals especially will need to heed the message of this book because they lack a well thought out theology of society.  Far too many white evangelicals side with the oppressive status quo which protects their white superiority and privilege.  A terrible thing for professed Christians to do.  There is so much poor teaching, partial teaching or even false teaching in the church that we desperately need a wise, biblical teacher to guide us.

Some fine Christian scholars such as Nicholas Wolterstorff and Stephen Mott have written some good books on justice (Until Justice and Peace Embrace; Justice: Rights and Wrongs; and Biblical Ethics and Social Change).  But the studies could have been much improved by an in-depth biblical study of oppression.  Thomas Hanks is the only Biblical Hebrew scholar who has done a complete analysis of the Hebrew roots for oppression (God So Loved The Third World; The Biblical Vocabulary of Oppression, 1983).  From Hanks I learned that biblically oppression means to crush, humiliate, animalize, impoverish, enslave and kills person created in the image of God.  Hanks summarizes: "Oppression smashed the body and crushes the spirit."  Only after a person grasps the HORROR of oppression, can one understand and develop a PASSIONATE concern for justice.  Few white Christians I know have developed a horror about oppression.

Lebacqz does begin with injustice---the stories of the oppressed.  She lets the oppressed speak for themselves.  For her oppression is a social/historical experience and fact, not primarily a philosophical category.  Only after a person begins with the horror of oppression, can one move to reason, history, tradition and revelation.  Then we can stop oppression and do justice.

Chapter One:  "The Reign of Injustice

Unfortunately, injustice is pervasive, everywhere.  Yet, if a person is middle or upper class, one may be only dimly aware of most oppression because the same system that is oppressing the poor is directly or indirectly benefiting them.  So such a person needs to take a different type of vacation, live among the oppressed for a while, see the "tears from the slums." From the perspective of the slums:

"Mang Juan, a peasant leader, suggests that people live in two different worlds: 'you live in the world of the birds of the air, and we, in that of the fishes of the sea.'  The implications of these two worlds are profound:  birds move fast  'because they fly,' argues Manganese's Juan.  But 'when we fishes move, we move slower because we have to swim in an ocean . . . of usury, tenancy, and other unjust forces'   'very few of the educated people will come into our world and see the reality of our problems and aspirations from our point of view."

Lebacqz claims her book is a genuine attempt to see oppression and justice through the eyes of the oppressed.  A person who tries to understand the poor apart from understanding oppression will likely point out the flaws of the poor (blame the victim) instead of seeing the flaws of the oppressed.  In fact, such a person may indeed from benefit oppression or even be the oppressor but deny it.

Lebacqz tells the story of a black South African woman, Johanna Masilele, who was a victim of "sexual, racial, economic, political, cultural and social injustice."  For the rest of the chapter, she investigates each of these forms of oppression primarily through the personal stories supported by sociological and historical facts.  Even the language, the rhetoric, of oppression is discussed.

"Injustices feed each other.  Political injustice reinforces economic injustice.  Verbal injustice supports ethnic and sexual injustice.  Ethnic injustice is used to undergird political injustice.  The result is a WEB OF INJUSTICE that ensnares and destroys those within it"

To be followed by Part 2 in next blog.