There needs to be a marriage between the two: Social Justice and Spiritual Disciplines.
From Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's book Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers:
"Here's the good news: prayer and action can go together; in fact they must. Otherwise we have little more than a bunch of inactive believers or worn-out activists."
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9 comments:
This seems so obvious to me, and I have always wondered why Christians seem to fall into the "inactive believer" camp most of the time... how many small groups or Sunday School classes have participated in and heard people asking for prayers about a neighbor's cancer or crime in the neighborhood or prayers for our country, but yet that person has not taken a meal to the neighbor or participated in neighborhood watch or sent an email to their congressman. Sometimes I think that God tires of us offering up all these prayers and yet haven't taken any action that we are capable of taking (somewhere I read that faith without deeds is dead). Thank you for this post, Josh... I find most of Shane Claiborne's writing to be pretty real-life stuff.
So whose social justice are you talking about? Coming from the left it means income redistribution and progressive taxation. From the right it means a free market society which promotes equality of opportunity. Actually, the term makes me cringe.
As I have been searching Scripture about prayer recently, I am convinced that prayer WILL stir us to action.
When I hear the term "social justice", I am beginning to understand it in the sense of seeing everyone through the eyes of God. While politics may have taken the term and mangled it to fit an economic outlook, I believe Christians can take it from an angle of action - of compassion, caring and working among all people whether rich or poor, squeaky clean or criminal, healthy or sick. To me, it indicates a desire to get out of the building and into the streets.
I hope the term will one day mean a host of people, even a country full of people who put the love of Christ into action while politics takes a backseat in our lives.
Missy, right on, sister!
Chris, when I use the phrase "social justice" I do not have politics in mind. I have the justice of God in mind--the God who came in the form of Jesus to release people from bondage...to pronounce liberation...to make things right.
It is hard for us to seperate theology from politics. We live in this tension.
Dad/Rick, you are right.
Jeff, VERY well said.
this is something I am really interested in. it seems that for so many, spiritual disciplines is a luxury for the upper middle class. I wonder what it means for someone who works 3 jobs to practice spiritual disciplines. Casey picked up the book "God of Intimacy and Action" and it looks pretty good (Tony Campolo).
Kasey,
It's a great book! He'll love it!
Josh, it was great meeting you this week. Glad that ministry is going well with you too. Love your flow. You might remember me, I was in for the D.Min program and was in your Wednesday night class. Check out my blog some time too.
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