|  Justice

Biblical justice is “the heart of who God is and what God does.”1 It is “known, not primarily through philosophical speculation, but through observing God’s actions to liberate the oppressed, and through heeding God’s word in the Law and the Prophets to protect and care for the weak.”2 In practical terms, this might mean, for example, ensuring that the vulnerable in our society have a safe place to live, enough food to eat, access to education, protection from exploitation and discrimination, basic freedoms, meaningful work, and a healthy environment.3

If justice is an integral part of who God is, and “if human beings, as God’s image-bearers, are called to emulate God’s justice in the way they live with one another in community, it follows that justice is all about relationships” –the “relationship of human beings to each other and to the larger created order.”4 When these relationships are distorted or broken, justice requires us to continually ask the question “Why?” to get at the underlying societal root causes. Justice then requires us to seek to change those societal root causes in such a way that the individual is again able to live out his or her God-given calling within a community.

“When we pursue social justice, we’re working to restore right relationships, and to rework and redeem the structures and systems that can trap people in poverty, hunger and oppression. So we follow the call to ‘speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,’ to ‘defend the rights of the poor and needy’ (Prov. 31:8-9). We aim to ‘do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly’ with the God of justice!”5
_______________________________________________________

Footnotes:

1 Marshall, Chris.  The Little Book of Biblical Justice (Intercourse: Good Books, 2005) pg. 11.
2 Marshall, pg. 25.
3 Kits, Gerda.  Just Basics (Office of Social Justice, 2003) pg. 2-3.  This handbook may be found at http://www.crcna.org/site_uploads/uploads/osjha/justbasics.pdf
4 Marshall, pg. 35.

5 From the website of  the Christian Reformed Church’s Office of Social Justice: http://crcna.org/pages/osj_socialjustice.cfm