Do We Avoid Responding to Injustice Because it May Threaten Order?

As we approach Christmas, we think about our world that Jesus came to. In the last post, we used the words of Jesus in Luke 4:18 “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come”

In his book “Transforming Power”, Robert Linthicum describes how Jesus’ words were a threat to the order of the day. The religious leaders – the Pharisees and Sadducees were the wealthy ones, they had good connections with the civic leaders – the Romans. There was good order in society from their perspective. Jesus’ words gave hope to the majority of the people who were oppressed by the civic and religious rulers.

There are many Bible texts on God’s thoughts on injustice – Isaiah 58 is a great example “Do you really think that your fasting [your religious rituals] will please the Lord?…Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them and do not hide from relatives who need your help.”

There are a lot of injustices in the world around us. They are present in our own communities, and in our churches.  Sometimes we not only tolerate injustices, but we actually promote them! There is a great quote in the book “Journey Toward Justice” by Nicholas Wolterstorff. The quotation is about his experience at a conference in South Africa in 1975. If we substitute the words “the poor”, or “the homeless” or any other oppressed persons in place of the “blacks” or “colored”; and substitute current “community policy”, or “unwritten rules” or “church” in place of the word “apartheid; and “us” or “we” in place of “Afrikaner”  we can perhaps better understand injustices in our own communities better.

“The response to the “blacks” and “coloreds” by the Afrikaners at the conference who spoke up in defense of apartheid took me completely aback. They did not contest the charge of injustice, but neither did they concede the charge and resolve to join the oppressed in the struggle to right injustice. They insisted that justice was not a relevant category. Order and disorder were the relevant categories. South Africa was threatened with disorder….

Why was it so important to the Afrikaners who spoke up in defense of apartheid at the conference that they resist thinking of the situation in terms of justice and injustice, and think of it only in terms of order and goodwill? Because for them to concede that the “blacks” and “coloreds” were being treated unjustly would require putting brakes on their own passion for order and on their self-perceived paternalistic benevolence; it would require advocating the rejection of the whole project of apartheid. And that was something they could not bring themselves to do. Not only were they inspired by the great good that apartheid would supposedly yield, they were satisfied with their own position in the situation; they were calling the shots and living comfortably. Of course, they did not themselves make this last point, that they were calling the shots and living comfortably.”

“What is it about justice that puts brakes on paternalistic benevolence? And why, more generally, does justice matter? Why are goodwill and benevolence not enough?” Nicholas Wolterstorff addresses this more in this book, which I am looking forward to reading. In the meantime, I will be thinking about how my need for order may unjustly affect others around me. I also have to reflect on why Jesus came to earth.