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slippery concept. The idea seems intuitive, but definitions abound, and they don’t all mean the same thing. Justice in the Bible can mean the meting out of punishment for crimes, practices in the marketplace, and how society treats its most vulnerable people. These expectations are not just for God’s chosen people. In the book of Amos, we read of God’s judgment on the injustices of Israel’s neighbors, Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab.
e are trying to help. Simon is a 15-year-old who lives in a one-room structure in a Nairobi slum. His home has no electricity or running water. The floor is compacted dirt. He has lived there with his grandmother since both of his parents died from AIDS.We learned about Simon through an AIDS program called Beacon of Hope that our church supports.Those who run Beacon of Hope believe that education is the most reliable road out of the slum. Since 2003 Kenya has provided free primary school education to all citizens. But the term “education” has to be interpreted loosely.When the government opened the school doors to all young children, it didn’t add the needed number of teachers. So the existing teachers doubled the number of students in their already full classrooms, reducing the schools to warehouses for young children.To provide real education, Beacon of Hope sponsorships enable children to attend private schools.The sponsorships often carry a child beyond elementary school into secondary school and sometimes into technical training or college. Sponsorships are a common way to help children in need. Many people sponsor a child through an organization like Compassion International or World Vision. Churches that promote child sponsorship programs will sometimes place them under the umbrella of “social justice” ministries. Other programs that are often under the same umbrella are feeding the homeless, visiting prisoners, and building affordable houses.
The essence of justice We tend to think of justice as a domain of governments. After all, they establish laws, maintain courts and prisons, regulate some aspects of the marketplace, and provide public education and other services. But businesses can also be just.Witness, for example, the fair-trade coffee movement. Starbucks knows that its customers care about the wages of the coffee pickers, so it prominently displays a few fair-trade coffee selections. That Starbucks would provide coffee according to the desires of its customers shows that individuals, too, can shape justice by choosing to abstain from unjust systems or, alternatively, enable them by turning a blind eye. During the time of apartheid in South Africa, I was living in a remote area of the Congo, running a nutrition rehabilitation program out of a missionary hospital.The range of local foods in our area was extremely narrow and the diet monotonous. But that could be fixed by flying in fresh fruit and vegetables from South Africa. The missionaries were divided over whether to buy food from a country sanctioned for its unjust racial policies. Eventually, some did and some didn’t. In our small way, we could participate in or abstain from an injustice. Scholars argue over what justice is, but a number of common themes emerge. Key among them is the exercise of power — power to engage in war, to build roads, to provide sources of clean water, and to pay a fair wage. Most theories of justice apply to large groups of people.With large groups, a customized decision for every person on every matter is impossible. There must be preset decisions for common circumstances. For this reason, we don’t negotiate how fast we can drive in a certain part of town and what will happen when we’re caught
The Bible tells us so God wants his people to be just.The prophet Micah explained that what God wants of his people is that they act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly. Amos, another prophet, said it more forcefully:“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies … Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:2224). In other words, your praises are empty words unless they flow from a life that strives to reflect God’s nature. If justice is so important to God, we’d best understand what it is and be sure that we are doing it. But justice is a
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missionary organizations have been doing for decades by providing schools and hospitals in places of need? Not if we stick to our definitions. It is the Kenyan government, not people outside of Kenya, that has the power and the mandate, expressed in its constitution, to provide education to its people. When the government fails at that task, others — be they Kenyan citizens or outsiders — may act charitably and provide for those who lack, but they are not establishing justice in doing so.
speeding through a school zone. Justice, then, often has to do with systems of allocation and decision making.
The limits of justice Laws and policies are appropriate for most circumstances, but in some cases there is a legitimate reason for breaking them. I know, for example, that I broke a law or two when I was rushing my wife to the hospital for the delivery of our second son. This is where mercy comes in. Sometimes a law or policy needs to be waived in light of the circumstances — or at least that is what I would have pleaded to the judge had I been caught. Mercy is just punishment withheld. I rely heavily on God’s mercy in my relationship with him. Knowing how to act justly and when to allow exceptions is immensely difficult and requires great wisdom. One of the cornerstones of wisdom is humility: the humility to admit when the answer is not clear, to seek advice, and to acknowledge when a mistake has been made. This is one reason God groups “walking humbly” with “acting justly” and “loving mercy.”
Keeping our eye on the ball Not only is charity not justice, but charity can also impede justice. If enough outsiders step in to fill the gaps in education and healthcare, some of the load is taken off the government, thereby relieving it of pressure to carry out its full responsibility. With thousands of charity organizations active in Kenya, the net result may actually be less justice for the Kenyan people. To paint an even bleaker picture, the Kenyan government and the charities may be in a codependent relationship. Each depends upon the other’s pattern of behavior in order to maintain its own. I point this out not because I am against charity — I will continue to support Simon’s education — but because justice is important to God, and I want to be sure his church doesn’t neglect justice by doing something else and calling it justice. We attend to justice when we examine our own exercise of power, when we hold others accountable for theirs, and when we advocate for just systems.When International Justice Mission (IJM.org) works to hold perpetrators of child slavery accountable in their local judicial systems, it is strengthening justice. A Tanzanian organization called the Women Emancipation and Development Agency (WOMEDA.org) is pursuing justice when it advocates for the land rights of widows so they won’t lose the land they rely on for their food and livelihood. And Beacon of Hope (BeaconAfrica.org) in Kenya is acting justly when it helps its employees establish savings accounts and provides them with a fair wage and vacation time. My own church, which is nondenominational and evangelical, is doing much in the way of charity but little in the way of justice. In my role as a lay leader, I will advocate that we continue to be charitable, that we not call charity justice, that we examine the justice of our own church policies and our individual consumption patterns, and that we learn how to hold other institutions accountable for maintaining systems that are just — because justice is close to God’s heart. n
Back to Kenya What about Simon, then? Are my family and I “acting justly” when we support his education? He is not part of a group of people over whom we have authority to exercise power. As a professor, I have that kind of authority over my students; and as a physician, my wife has that kind of authority over her patients. But Simon is neither a student nor a patient of ours. He is not subject to my system of grading or my wife’s system of providing medical care. As people who are wealthy on the world scale, we have the power to affect Simon’s life by sharing from our abundance. God calls his people to compassion and generosity, as we see with Jesus’s parable of the good Samaritan. But in selecting Simon as a beneficiary, we are reaching outside of our sphere of official authority to share a portion of our wealth with him. This is neither an act of justice or mercy but one of charity. Does this mean then that sponsoring Simon’s education is not an act of social justice? Yes, I’m afraid it does. In the case of education in Kenya, an act of justice might be publicizing the corruption of officials who divert into their private accounts funds intended for teachers and schools. Or it might be supporting the work of Kenyans who lobby for government reforms. For people who do not have the power to allocate resources in Kenya, these are ways of holding accountable the people who do have the power. But by paying for Simon’s education, aren’t we assisting with the distribution of resources? Aren’t we filling a gap where the Kenyan government’s resources run short? Isn’t that a contribution toward justice for those in need? Isn’t that what
James Thomas (JCThomas.me) is an associate professor of epidemiology and director of the public health ethics program at the University of North Carolina. He is also the founder and president of Africa Rising (AfricaRising.org).
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