A defintion of Justice…

It’s been almost a whole week since my class on Advocacy for Social Justice, and it’s been almost a whole week that I have had this tab open in my browser ready and waiting for the inspiration for words to come. This is a final and last ditch attempt at trying to get my thoughts out, but I warn you, they are disjointed and confused even still. I heard from many people about how great this class was, and while it did not disappoint, it’s been frustrating trying to process through it. Because of that, there might be multiple posts on this class and what I am learning still.

Each day, there was a different topic of advocacy studied, and it partnered with a major world issue, which I really appreciated. I felt like it gave a sense of practice to what we were theoretically reading and learning. We had to start from a basic concept of what advocacy truly is and learn to differentiate it from “charity”, which is never easy. When we do justice – we need to know what it really is. We need to do justice that is incarnational. Justice is NOT charity.

The biblical passages on justice are not advocating charity – and we’ve come to associate charity with giving things to people who are poor. But agape (for the poor) was not the same thing as charity. Charity is NOT mercy. It may involve mercy and often, it has to. We are a people who are inequitable and unfair, so if we don’t have mercy in situations we are dead meat! In Micah 6:8 – there is a distinction between justice and mercy. Justice is correcting or righting and injustice takes that a step further – which is to acknowlege that something has indeed gone wrong! So then what is justice? Correcting or ensuring that no wrong is done in the first place. Only then, do we ensure that everyone gets fair treatment. After injustice is prohibited, stopped, or corrected can we be sure that everyone is getting a fair treatment.