Finding Justice in the Bible

Recently, we began a conversation at Hope Reformed Church regarding justice. Turning through the pages of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, we sought to find a definition of justice that was theological rather ideological; a definition that was faithful to God's hope for the world. As a pastor I learned a lot in the time it took to study and put the outlines together. These posts will serve not only as a reference for the congregation, but as a reference for me. I hope to summarize over various posts what was covered in the class. The Bible was my main source, but here are some others that were especially helpful:

Old Testament - THE LIBERATING IMAGE, by J. Richard Middleton; THE PROPHETS, by Abraham J. Heschel; THE PROPHETIC IMAGINATION, by Walter Brueggemann.

New Testament - ENGAGING THE POWERS, by Walter Wink; THE WORD ON THE STREET, by Stanley Saunders & Charles Campbell; CALVIN'S FIRST CATECHISM, by I. John Hesselink; THE UNAFFORDABLE NATION, by Jeffrey D. Jones

It's always helpful to begin any conversation about "what the Bible says about..." at the beginning of the Bible. The conversation concerning justice is no different. In fact, much of what the Bible means about justice is rooted in creation and, more specifically, in the image of God. At Genesis 1:26-28, we find God saying, "‘Let us make humankind in our image…So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion.’ Whatever the image of God is, it is applied only to human beings in a way that sets them apart from the rest of creation. There are very few references in the rest of the Hebrew Bible that offer much more help to understanding what God means and how it informs justice.

The next reference is in Genesis 5:1-2 where the descendants of Adam are being introduced. “When God created humankind, he made them in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them.” We find repeated here a connection of the image to “male and female.” It could be said that the image has something to do with the interaction of both genders (more on this later). A further reference is found in Genesis 9:6-7, “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind. And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.” As in Genesis 1, this passage highlights God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply,” offering further clues as to what it might mean to say that humans are made in the image of God. The context of this verse is important in understanding more of its meaning, but we’ll return to that later as well.

Another reference in the Hebrew Bible is found in Psalm 8 where the Psalmists speaks of God making humanity “a little lower than the gods,” crowning them with “glory and honor,” and giving them “dominion.” We find here a very high view of humanity and, as in Genesis 1, the notion that God has given humans dominion over the animals of the land and sea. So, from these few references we have some clues as to what it means to be made in the image of God. First, it is somehow connected to “male and female.” Second, the image of God is related to the command “be fruitful and multiply.” Finally, the image of God sets humanity apart from creation and gives them “dominion.” The Christian tradition has done much with the image of God, but not all of it has been helpful.

More often than not, the image of God has been taken to mean that we share some sort of substance or inner quality with God. Whether it be conscience, reason, immortality, or a soul, many Christians have offered this possibility. St. Augustine, for example, considered God in Trinitarian form and related the human capacities for memory, intellect, and will to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Helpful as these ideas are, many of them are overly influenced by philosophy and take little consideration of the Bible itself. Many of them also neglect the role that our bodies play in the image of God. Beginning with the Reformation, some theologians began considering the image as human behavior or as our capacity for relationship. Still, while more faithful to our bodies, they still lack connection to the creation story itself.

In his book THE LIBERATING IMAGE, J. Richard Middleton, defines the image of God as designating “the royal office or calling of human beings as God’s representatives and agents in the world, granted authorized power to share in God’s rule or administration of the earth’s resources and creatures.” In other words, the image of God has to do with our function here on earth, the reason that God has placed us in this creation. If God created the world by ordering the chaos and bringing forth beauty on the earth, we are called to join him by continuing that creation. It turns out that God has put us here, “male and female”, to act as his representatives by “being fruitful and multiplying” in the earth, to have “dominion” by bringing order and beauty to the earth. When compared with competing notions of humanity’s place in the world it turns out to be a revolutionary revelation of justice. But that’s for another post.

Finding Justice in the Bible

Some members of The Micah Center have requested that this series on justice and the Bible be moved to a time that allows more people to attend. So, we're going to try to oblige this next month.

"Finding Justice in the Bible" will meet on Tuesday, October 5th at 8pm. The topic will be "Justice and Creation."

That's AFTER the lecture by Kim Bobo entitled, "Wage Theft in America," which will begin at 7pm.

Wolterstorff Lecture Online.

If you missed Nicholas Wolterstorff's lecture, "The Moral Significance of Poverty" or would like to hear it again. You can find it on Hope Reformed Church's website.

Advocacy Groups meet Tuesday, September 21st.

5:40pm - Light Meal
6:00pm - Advocacy Group Introductions
7:00pm - First Meeting

International Justice
1. Learn about international justice issues in Latin America, Asia, Europe, and Africa, with a special
focus on Honduras and the work of the Association for a more Just Society (AJS). AJS works
include land rights, labor rights, gang violence, methodology, etc. . .
2. Educate others about international injustice and the role of Christians in addressing these issues.
3. Advocate for international social justice and get connected to other advocacy networks.
(Goal: three campaigns a year)
4. Participate in events like: Just Ride or Just Run which supports justice ministries internationally. (Goal: two events a year)

Finding Justice in the Bible
1. Give Christians a basic understanding
of the role that justice plays in the Bible.
2. Provide Christians with the tools they
need to justify justice as a mandatory
practice of the Christian life.

Money and Democracy
1. Study the issue of corporate influence in politics and
disseminate the study results.
2. Promote ways to reduce the lobbyist influence over laws.
3. Join an organized effort to pass laws limiting corporate
influence in the elections.
The Micah Center Advocacy Groups
Tentative Objectives for 2010-2011

Restorative Justice
1. Promote understanding of restorative
justice concepts and developments
through presentations to churches and
other institutions.
2. Join Campaign For Justice in promoting
public defense reform.
3. Work for legislative approval of bills to
compensate those wrongly incarcerated.
4. Join Partners In Crisis as they seek
mechanisms that reduce over-reliance
on the criminal justice system as a
response to mental illness and
emotional disorders while preserving the
well-being and safety of the public.

Poverty/Hunger
1. Promote Bread For the World annual
Offering of Letters campaign among area
churches.
2. Contact local congregations to determine
their involvement in social justice and invite
them to participate in the Micah Center.
3. Visit local agencies identify their needs and
learn what the Micah Centerʼs advocacy
efforts could do to help them.
4.Sponsor at least one poverty simulation.

Health Care
1. Study the recently passed national
health care bill.
2. Identify changes/additions/deletions that
should be made to the health care bill.
3. Print the health care advocacy groupʼs
findings.
4. Make presentations in churches and
other institutions.

Environment
1. Host the “Cool Congregations” workshop led by
Michigan Interfaith Power and Light.
2. Join and attend monthly meetings of WMEACʼs
Religion, Spirituality, and Ecology Work group.
3. Seek signatures on petitions acquired from 350
organizations to cap carbon dioxide at 350ppm.
4. Hold one joint meeting with the Dominican
Sisters Care of Earth Committee.
5. Facilitate and encourage church groups to tour
a water treatment plant, recycling center, and
wind farm.
6. Write, print and distribute meditations on
Psalms which speak to creation care.

Justice and Women

I saw this in a Sojourners newsletter.

by Julie Clawson 09-15-2010

We live in a world full of pain and injustice; there is no getting around that fact. We can hide from the truth or try to protect ourselves from reality, but just because we don’t want to know about it, doesn’t mean it still doesn’t exist. Our world does its best to hide its dark side from consumer’s eyes, and our school boards do their best to hide most of history from our children. It takes work to keep our eyes open wide enough to see reality. Thankfully, there are people out there who do try to be informed, who try to end injustice, to heal past wounds, and to make amends. Yet recently, as I was reading Eduardo Galeano’s classic book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of Pillage of a Continent, I came across an almost casually mentioned atrocity that jolted me with the reminder that, even for the people who are out there actively seeking to fight injustice, there remains one injustice that many would prefer to continue to ignore — the oppression of women. Across the world it is women who often face the worst injustices and yet are often brushed aside as not important enough to seek justice for.

In writing about how the sugar cane industry has destroyed the land and economies of many Latin American countries and led to numerous human rights abuses, Galeano mentioned that in certain plantations in Brazil (at least as of his writing) it was common practice for the plantation owners to claim jus primae noctis, or, right of the first night, with the daughters of their workers. Most commonly known to us from the movie, Braveheart, this is a medieval custom given to the Lord of an area — the right to the virgin night of all the women whom he ruled. Although in Medieval times the actual consummation was rarely if ever practiced, as many families chose the option of “giving” the Lord the bride’s dowry instead (what the Lord was after anyway), Galeano reports that on the plantations, the owners would demand the right to have their way with their workers’ 11 to 12-year-old daughters, in exchange for the worker remaining in their employment.

Reading this affected me in a visceral way. In the midst of a litany of oppression, I was reminded that women truly bear the brunt of injustice worldwide. Their bodies are chattel, they aren’t deemed worthy of education, and, if they get any food at all, they are fed leftovers. Because they are women, their oppression is magnified. Not only must they endure the poverty and the colonialism, but also the objectification of their bodies and the required subjugation of their wills. When voices for liberation or revolution arise, the women are called upon to endure hardships and make sacrifices, but it is never their liberation that is fought for. The few that call out for women’s needs to be addressed and for liberation to come to women are told that, in light of the greater injustices and oppression, their cause is just a selfish distraction. I hear it all the time in the church — there are just too many more important things to spend energy on than trying to bring justice to women. We aren’t even worth the effort of those that make it a point to care about injustice and the oppressed.

Feminist post-colonial theologians are quick to point out this imbalance. They ask: How can we say that we truly desire liberation if, in achieving that liberation, women still remain oppressed? They repeatedly insist that equality and respect for women should never be an afterthought, to be sought sometime after the real work of combating injustice is done, but instead it should be at the very foundation of what it means to seek liberation itself. Nations and races cannot ever fully work for reconciliation and mutual respect if those nations are built upon oppression from within. But sadly, theirs are not the voices that are commonly heard.

In recently reading non-Western theologies (both post-colonial and evangelical), I have in fact encountered the very opposite. Men, who write on combating injustice and prejudice by calling the church to learn from say Korean or First Nation theologies and church practices, insist upon, as part of that process, an affirmation of the gender roles that give men a strong (and sole) leadership role in the home, the community, and the church. They see a firm affirmation of this hierarchy of men over women to be integral to ending race divisions in the church itself. So not only are the needs of women ignored, but healing and justice are also proposed through the continued oppression and sacrifice of women.

Injustice and oppression make me sick and prompt feelings of rage inside of me. But reading about these young girls being raped as pawns in the never-ending cycle of colonial and commercial oppression left me feeling raw. This isn’t just about greed and economics. It isn’t just about racism and power-plays. It’s rooted in a subjugation of women that denies our worth and turns us into mere objects for men to use as they see fit. Most of the Western world hides behind their ignorance of history and injustice (often willfully sought) as an excuse to uphold the status quo. But when even those who claim to care about justice say that speaking out of behalf of women isn’t worth the effort, I can barely respond. How can justice be justice if it is only for men?

Great Kick-off!!

We welcomed over 200 people to The Micah Center at Hope Reformed Church this last Tuesday. It was inspiring to see so many advocates for justice in one room. It was enlightening to hear Nicholas Wolterstorff give us new categories with which to think about those who are poor. Speaking of that...

We'd be happy to have a nice conversation of the idea that withholding help from people who are poor is the same as theft. Very provocative.

If you're not sure where that's coming from or would like to know more, check in soon. We'll have some information on how you can listen to the whole of "The Moral Significance of Poverty."

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it!!

Just Lecture Begins.

Nicholas Wolterstorff will be speaking at Hope Reformed Church for The Micah Center. His lecture is entitled, "The Moral Significance of Poverty."

Come join other Christians passionate about justice on Tuesday, September 7th at 7pm. This evening is free and open to the public.