Marriage for the 99%: Seeing Family as a Social Justice Issue | Christianity Today

Very interesting — marriage as one predictor of socioeconomic status.  This paragraph blew my mind:

Bill Galston, a senior fellow at Brookings who served as President Clinton’s domestic policy advisor, has explained that an American today must only do three things to avoid living in poverty: graduate from high school, marry before having a child, and have children after age 20. Only 8 percent of people who do these three things are poor, while a stunning 79 percent who fail to meet these expectations live in poverty.

I’m left with a lot of questions, but still food for thought.

Marriage for the 99%: Seeing Family as a Social Justice Issue | Christianity Today.

The Field of Panties: Sexual Violence and Immigrant Farmworkers – Rachel Stone | Gods Politics Blog | Sojourners

Shameful and outrageous.

It’s popular these days to talk about food and justice in terms of local foods and fair trade and animal welfare. But how much of the food on our plates is coming to us from hands that have wiped away many tears over vile and violent abuse?

 

Sandy Brown of the Swanton Berry Farm in California says this: “When people ask about food justice, I tell them, ‘you have to go contact your Congress[person] about immigration.’”

via The Field of Panties: Sexual Violence and Immigrant Farmworkers – Rachel Stone | Gods Politics Blog | Sojourners.

Link

For the past few months Christianity Today has published an excellent series of articles in the category “This Is Our City.”  In this article, the author offers a critique of the Tea-Party movement as represented in a new documentary.  While I felt the article itself didn’t go into as much detail and depth as I desired, I still found it thought-provoking.

Has anyone heard of the documentary mentioned in this article?  I’m intrigued…  I’d love to hear your thoughts and responses.

Why Liberty Needs Justice: A Response to the Tea Party-Occupy Film | This Is Our City | Christianity Today.

On Joseph Kony and Loving Your Enemies

Like much of the internet world in the past couple of days, I have watched and shared the video produced by Invisible Children, which urges us to bring Joseph Kony (leader of the terrorist group the Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa) to justice in 2012.  The video is remarkable — moving and powerful — and if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s well worth the the 30 minutes:

Kony 2012: Share and Watch (scroll down for the video)

However, it seems that the story the video tells might not be completely accurate.  Various bloggers and news sites have pointed out that Joseph Kony is no longer present in Uganda, the Ugandan military and leadership are guilty of equally heinous crimes as Kony, etc.  Here are some of the more helpful articles I’ve come across that give us a more complete picture of the situation:

Christian Ethics, Invisible Children, Kony 2012, and International Advocacy (especially helpful from a theological perspective)

Some Resources on the Invisible Children controversy (very comprehensive list of articles, background, etc.)

My Take on #StopKony (critique from an American who actually lives in Uganda)

It’s important to be informed on issues like this — and to think carefully, rather than simply responding out of emotion and passion for justice (which is a good thing!).  Justice is complicated.

Moreover, the Kony 2012 campaign does not reflect one of the most central and challenging parts of the gospel: loving our enemies —

Jesus says it most unambiguously, “I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44); and in the depth of his agony on the cross, he prays for those who are killing him, “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).  Here the full significance of the discipline of prayer becomes visible.  Prayer allows us to lead into the center of our hearts not only those who love us but also those who hate us.  This is possible only when we are willing to make our enemies part of ourselves and thus convert them first of all in our own hearts.

The first thing we are called to do when we think of others as our enemies is to pray for them. (Nouwen, Show Me the Way, 47)

This is not the easy way.  This is not, I think, the military way.  Nor is this the way that ignores the need for justice.  For when WE were enemies of God, God loved us and sacrificed himself for us.  God loved us, His enemies.  So then, how can we refuse to love our own enemies, knowing the profound peace and reconciliation that such love brought to us?

We are quick to use violence and force in the fight against injustice — such as the military intervention against Joseph Kony that Invisible Children seems to advocate — but can violence truly bring about justice?  Or is there a higher way that followers of God are asked to take?

Yes, I want to see Joseph Kony brought to justice — as well as the many other international figures who have harmed so many human beings, such as Charles Taylor, Omar al-Bashir, Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe, etc.  I’m just not sure that the violent path, nor the American-centric path, is the way to walk…

“The first thing we are called to do when we think of others as our enemies is to pray for them.”  So let us pray.

~~~~~~~~~

EDITED: Here’s a link to Invisible Children’s responses to the current critiques.  I do believe they have good intentions, but it’s good to have all the facts on both sides:

Invisible Children: Critiques

“More than just the passive suffering of an innocent person, the passion of Christ is the agony of a tortured soul and wrecked body offered as a prayer for the forgiveness of the torturers. No doubt, such prayer adds to the agony of the passion. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw clearly, forgiveness itself is a form of suffering . . . ; when I forgive I have not only suffered a violation but also suppressed the rightful claims of strict restitutive justice. Under the foot of the cross we learn, however, that in a world of irreversible deeds and partisan judgments redemption from the passive suffering of victimization cannot happen without the active suffering of forgiveness.” (Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 125)

“The active suffering of forgiveness” – I think this is deeply true. How hard it is at times to give up our desires for vengeance, making the other feel pain as we have felt, or even for visible justice, seeing the other punished for wrongs done to us. But there are times when justice here on earth is not possible. This doesn’t give us an excuse to pardon injustice, but we must also recognize that our own puny ideas of what justice looks like are not equivalent to God’s justice. Is it possible to forgive those who do not even acknowledge they have done wrong, who on the contrary are deeply convinced that they are the victims? I think it is, but it is only possible in Christ.

“When one knows that the torturer will not eternally triumph over the victim . . . , one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and imitate God’s love for him [sic]. And when one knows that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light of God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.” (124)

That’s exactly the point – none of us are fully innocent. Ever. Once again, this does not excuse injustice, but it also should relativize our “righteous indignation.” I am never in a position to judge and condemn another, for we are all equal as we fall at the foot of the cross. Handing over my demand for justice to the One who is completely Just, completely Loving — this is the painful power of forgiveness.