After successfully negotiating the strange format for presenting an article at Catalyst Leadership and managing to read the whole thing (why didn't you just print it here?), I'm a little confused. Troy attempts to clairfy the difference between mercy and justice with this MKLJR quote, “It [justice]seeks to clear the Jericho road of its robbers as well as caring for the victims of robbery.” Context: the Biblical account of the Good Samaritan. I'm all for bringing justice to road safety but Troy seems to morph that into the expansion of government programs to help those Troy sees as being in need of it. I submit that when an individual is helped by a government program, dependence on God is the last thing on his/her mind. I fail to see any Biblical mandate for government intervention in peoples lives (and certainly not in the Good Samaritan account) - even if it is for their own good. On the other hand, people in need, like the victim on the Jerico road, are able to see the love of Jesus in us when we involve ourselves personally in their lives. Nobody sees the love of God in a government program. In fact, the government program will seek to prevent us from sharing the love of the Lord to the receipients of the program.

The so called "trend" may be the church trying to better do her job. It stinks that the body, largely responding with sincerity and conviction to the call of God is labeled a trend once it actually begins to catch on. And it stinks that once we actually satisfy everybody's definition of Biblical Justice, the church will be internally criticized for having neglected some other Biblical thing. Wow we waste a lot of time correcting each other....(hmmm, did I just do it too?).

love well.

The confusion of charity with justice stems from the underlying idea that someone is "owed" something.
Perhaps the Spirit is quickening the Bride to do some chores. It would be about time, we have fallen far behind.

This is just 1960's liberation theology rehashed. How we act out "Biblical justice" IS through acts of compassion and mercy. It has nothing to do with changing what the government does. To claim otherwise is to play word games.

It fascinates me that no one who references "the least of these" ever means themselves.

As if "the poor" are some kind of prop in the theatre of our lives for believers to use to prove their salvation.

As I've read elsewhere, I'm the wretch the song is talking about.

Brian said "How we act out "Biblical justice" IS through acts of compassion and mercy. It has nothing to do with changing what the government does."

Ok then using your logic, over the years Christians such as Wilberforce should not have fought to abolish the Slave Trade. Shaftsbury should have shut up about children working in mines and factories in appalling conditions. Emancipation of slaves should have been ignored. Martin Luther King should have sat quietly by as Civil Rights were trampled on. Desmond Tutu should have never said a word about apartheid. I could go on but you may have the point by now. Read the Prophets...they're not shouting about charity...they don't imprison you and persecute you for starting a soup kitchen...just when you get question why soup kitchens need to exist in the first place in a world God has filled with enough for all.

Heather, you have a good point, and I would like to add that acts of justice and compassion are two different things. One can however bring the other. Certainly, bringing justice to a situation such as bringing down a tyrant leader is also an act of compassion on his/her people, but that compassion is brought about by an act of justice. Showing love and compassion is giving something of ourselves (money, time, etc.) to others in hopes of providing them with something we have that they don't.

Justice is both bringing consequences to those who deserve them, and freeing those who are suffering injustices at the hands of others. This freeing of the enslaved usually entails bringing justice to the person/people enslaving them. This might mean using force through a variety of means.

I think justice and compassion will meet whenever we can address to root sins below social ills.

"Ok then using your logic, over the years Christians such as Wilberforce should not have fought to abolish the Slave Trade. Shaftsbury should have shut up about children working in mines and factories in appalling conditions. Emancipation of slaves should have been ignored. Martin Luther King should have sat quietly by as Civil Rights were trampled on. Desmond Tutu should have never said a word about apartheid."

Using my logic? Stop putting words in my mouth. I'm tired of these agendas. I'm tired of people who don't actually believe any of the things, the believing of which for millenia have been the very definition of what a Christian is, manipulating the language of the Bible for one political agenda or another. Maybe that isn't what is going on here, but I'm familiar enough to know that the basis of liberal Christianity is that people shouldn't actually believe that any of that stuff about Jesus literally being the Son of God, or literally dying for sins, or literally rising from the dead are literally true, but the themes in the story are really nice and timeless and when used as metaphors evoke reactions in people that motivate them to do nice things. So when I see the same kind of language that infiltrated the church in decades past from people who didn't actually believe in any sort of orthodox Christianity, now coming into what's left of the church again, I don't trust the messenger.

Acts of mercy are part of my faith because of who I believe Jesus to be... not because I creatively redefine biblical words to manipulate people to serve a political agenda. What I see happening today is that a lot of Christians who still believe in that Jesus stuff are waking up to the realization that they were being manipulated by one kind of political agenda, and so the other kind of political agenda in America is swooping in to try to co-opt them before they figure out what is going on. The former agenda tends to reduce Christians to crippled materialist slaves; the latter drives them to outright apostasy.

When you use the word "biblical" justice, I have a quite reasonable right to expect the concept to reflect what the words "hesed" or "dikaiosune" are depicted to mean in Scripture. I don't expect it to refer to what various social crusaders in Western history did. There is a world of difference between affirming what those people did, and binding the conscience of every Christian to follow the 21st-century American left-wing social agenda as though those are the same thing. And I think I've read enough to know that those words when used in Scripture have absolutely nothing to do with lobbying the state.

Yes I certainly have read the prophets... seems to be there is a lot of denouncing of Israel first and foremost of all for failing to worship God as he commanded them to do. And when the prophets castigate the people for failing to care for the orphan and the widow and the sojourner, I see nothing about their failing to exhort the king to set up a social program for them.

John Chrysostom preached on this topic long ago. Sure, the Empire could distribute alms to the poor -- after all, did it not build the hospitals and soup kitchens? -- but that had nothing to do with what Christians were commanded to do. The needy stand outside the very doors of this church, he said. Don't call upon the Empire to feed them; take them in and feed them yourselves.

If we refuse to love people, shame on us. If the state has to stand in the gap because the "church" refuses to fulfill its calling, then the "church" is hardly the church. But "biblical justice" is hardly the church calling upon the state to do the church's job for it.

Sorry... "tzedek" not "hesed."

Noticed the line about bringing consequences to those who deserve them. At what point is the line crossed? Not suggesting social reform is forbidden merely that justice is one of those slippery words - MacIntyre's test on "Whose Justice" is worth reading again.

Brian...you seem very angry. Do not for a minute doubt that I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the second person of the trinity..and that he came to redeem this world..all of it (including you and me)...by his death and resurrection, and yes I believe those actually happened.

While I agree that the church is the place where most outreach and charity happens, and it should be, it is not enough to stop there. We are called to right the tremendous inequalities that are at work in this world. The prophets did indeed berate Israel for falling away from God but you have to be very selective in your reading if you do not hear the cries again and again for the widows, orphans, aliens and poor. Sodom's great sin was not acts of perversion but ignorance of the poor. I cannot read Matthew 25 and be satisfied with just giving to my local food pantry. I cannot read Mary's song in Luke's Gospel and sit by while those without voices or influence in our world are ignored. I cannot recite the Lord's Prayer and be satisfied with the Status Quo when we pray "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" when its quite clear what's going on earth is quite contrary to that. Now I don't believe that any political system or viewpoint will bring us to the point of God's Kingdom here on earth but I still believe that we are called to speak truth to power whenever we see abuse of power. If our faith can move mountains, it can certainly change political systems and governments too. In a democracy governments are our agents in the world. We elect them and we are responsible for their actions. It is a nonsense to believe in government "of the people and by the people" and then to abdicate responsibility for the actions of that government. So yes i do believe we should lobby the state when necessary. I also don't see any difference at all between what the social crusaders I listed did, and biblical justice. It's all part of one seamless garment called the Church. While I don't believe a social gospel is enough for anybody, I do believe it is, nonetheless, part of the gospel and our witness to the world.

I am your sister in Christ and you are my brother. I'm sure our political views differ greatly just from what you've written but nonetheless we are part of the same family and that's what really matters.

Peace, Heather

I think maybe one thing that Christians (like myself) who believe strongly in the kind of justice which "clears the Jerico road of robbers" is affirm to our nervous brothers and sisters that we believe the bible and the historic confessions of the church. An evangelical call to justice will avoid the splitting of the gospel into a "social gospel", which deals in entirely "this-age" terms, and a "pie-in-the sky" gospel, which deals entirely in "the-age-to-come" terms. See Carl F. Henry's "The uneasy conscience of modern fundamentalism" as a classic example from a scholar with impeccable evangelical credentials.

Another thing Christians that are looking to get invovled with justice need to do is challenge political divisions so that rather than a political agenda, it looks as though they are carrying out the gospel agenda which has political implications. For example, Christians who are looking to get involved with politics can do things like affirming pro-life positions while simultaneously speaking out against economic exploitation. Having something contrarian to say to both political parties can go a long way towards making sure that the gospel agenda is not co-opted by a political agenda. The danger of being co-opted is a very real one, and I sympathize with Brian's nervousness: it is indeed rare that Christians get this right. We are very easily impressed with token access, token power, and token influence. But our call to be gospel people not just in our "spiritual" lives, but in our communal and political lives as well, remains. We have to continually pick up the pieces from our failures, try to learn from them, and then try again in faith to affect justice, trusting God to work in this world, the world that he loves and gave his Son for.