Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Social Justice Isn't Sexy

Any citizen of heaven attempting to bring gospel-centered "social justice" to bear knows this. Just ask your missionaries or those Compassion bloggers when they get back from the slums of South America, East Asia, and Africa.

Sometimes social justice means lots of paperwork, sorting through legalese, showing up for court hearings, or sitting in dingy government or social services offices, talking to distracted people about messy, complicated things for which you have completely different frames of references for.

5 comments:

richard said...

But...but... this doesn't sound at all like what Sean Penn does! I'm confused! What about the cameras and the sound bytes? (JN)

Anonymous said...

The only time the term "social justice" turns me off is when people try use it to get the government to do something so they don't have to.

Unfortunately that seems to be how "social justice" is used most. At least that is the context I hear it in most. Maybe I'm not listening in the right places.

Jared said...

I'm using it as the popular term to refer to the kingdom work of what James calls "pure religion."

I do not use it to mean the "social gospel" or some other such thing.

Jason said...

You got that right, man.

weary soul said...

well social gospel ain't such a bad thing
broken down
social - society
gospel - good news

so agree about the connection of the Kingdom..and the connection with the practicality [which is spiritual too] of James..that verse and many others in James.reductor