Justice – Engaging the Powers

Now that I am back from a week at the Chautauqua Institution, I am ready to resume my blogs based on “Christianity for the Rest of Us” by Diana Butler Bass. In this installment I will be writing about the seventh of the ten healthy Christian practices she identifies: Justice – Engaging the Powers.

Many of us grew up in a time when the American Christian Church was an integral part of the social fabric of society. From one perspective, this was good. Social acceptability of church participation caused many congregations to have full pews and healthy budgets. As with anything real, however, there is always another side to the story. Diana Butler Bass argues that even liberal/progressive congregations tended to base their activism in the secular Enlightenment values of fairness, equality, and human rights without much awareness of their spiritual dimensions. These legitimate values have existed for millennia as the backbone of Judeo-Christian faithfulness. The prophetic tradition in the Bible makes it clear that these are God’s values, and that they are based in the growing capacity of humans to enter into loving relationships and to base their morality and ethics in love.

For millennia, Judeo-Christian activists have believed that God was more interested in how societies treated their poor than how religious, obedient, or even generous people might be. Said differently, any religion that is not embedded in the social issues of justice and mercy is not worth much.

These words are easy to say, but their implications are huge – and difficult. Consider how much separation presently exists between the rich and poor in our culture. As global climate change and the world economy remains precarious, the pressures to hoard and to create enemies to fight against will be great. As fear becomes rampant, destructive reactivity will likely increase. At Chautauqua last week, Professor Ralph Williams (from U. of Mich.) referred to an idea originally put forth by Primo Levi (Italian Chemist). Levi said that once we identify some group as “strangers”, they soon are seen as enemies, and the logic of this dynamic leads eventually to death camps at the end. In other words, we tend to try to eliminate those we have identified as a threat to us.

So what is a healthy liberal Christian to do?

Bass suggests that healthy progressive ideas may not have sufficient staying power without being rooted in spiritual life and practice. Justice and Mercy then become expressions of a spiritual journey rooted in relationship with God and Neighbor. These values are the heart of most major religions. So we engage in open dialog, always seeking truth. We pray and contemplate together in order to move out of our more narrow, self-protective views. We enter into mutually supportive relationships. Justice and mercy are not simply individual perspectives. In fact, it is most difficult for us to act according to justice and mercy without the support of the community.

The challenges of the next few generations will be massive. Chances are that our governments and multinational corporations won’t be guided by divine love,

but will we be so guided?

Remember that we will not be able to work for justice and mercy without engaging “the powers.”

Time will tell.

Wayne Gustafson
“Don’t place a period where God has placed a comma.” Gracie Allen
The United Church__of Christ

PS. If you are not familiar with the Chautauqua Institution (or if you are and want more information), you can learn more at ciweb.org.
The theme of the Chautauqua lectures last week was “What Makes Us Moral? – from an Abrahamic perspective (Jewish, Christian, Islamic).”