December
2006
A Great Leap Forward: From Charity to Justice in the Congregation
In many moderate to progressive congregations, quite a bit of confusion still persists in respect to the difference between doing charity and doing justice. Many congregations have social witness or social action committees, but a closer look at what that the committee actually does reveals that its operational focus is more on the charity side: connecting church members with various volunteer service opportunities, collecting for the local food pantry, etc. Because these are good and noble activities, it’s easy to see why they would be counted as contributions to social justice.
Consulting the Bible on this may only add to the confusion, because doing justice in the ancient Near Eastern context tends to look like doing charity in our own context. Thus, for example, Isaiah 58–one of the best-known “justice” passages in all the sixty-six books–conflates loosening the bonds of injustice with taking the homeless poor into one’s house and providing clothing for those who are naked.
We in our time have come to understand what is known as systemic injustice: systems and structures of power that actually produce and reproduce misery for many people regardless of whether or not I personally behave in a selfish or cruel or oppressive fashion. An obvious example of this would be the proliferation of jobs that do not pay enough to support an individual and her family with the basic necessities, or a criminal justice system that targets poor communities of color for discriminatory sentencing and other patterns of abuse.
Progressive Christians who view suffering all around them need constantly to ask not just what is happening but why it is happening. We might help ourselves feel good by committing large quantities of time and money to feeding the homeless during the holiday season, but we are still not doing justice and loving mercy if we fail to ask why increasing numbers of families with children are being rendered homeless in our cities, why food stamp eligibility rules have actually been tightening despite greater hunger, why the health care crisis and the homelessness crisis are intimately related, and a range of similar probing questions. Once we are starting to look behind symptoms for underlying causes we will be getting closer to the point when the work of justice can begin.
It goes without saying that a subset of Christians who start asking hard questions about oppressive systems will run up against others in the congregation who object that raising such issues will move the church into forbidden “political” territory. This is why any social action or social concerns committee, or any clergy leader who wants the church to be about justice, needs to proceed with great care and needs to spend a lot of time educating and preparing congregants for the great leap forward.
PCU staff are able to lead an intensive 60- or 75-minute workshop on moving from charity to justice for members and staff of interested congregations. This training is designed to be interactive, allowing participants to pose and answer the descriptive and strategic questions that must be addressed in order for there to be maximum success in reconstituting what the congregation intends to be about in relation to charity and justice. To learn more, contact Executive Eirector Peter Laarman: .