Social Justice

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:24 NIV)

I came across this quote by Helen Keller:

Until the great mass of people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other's welfare, social justice can never be attained.

Very true.  There is no law that we can write that will bring about real social justice.  Legislated morality only causes those who are fearful to be more afraid.  It causes those who love money to hold on to their wealth all the more tightly.  It gives a sense of justification to those who hate.  Legislated morality only brings the opposite of what it seeks.

If we really cared about the welfare of others we wouldn't need guns.  We wouldn't need to be taxed to provide for the least of these. We wouldn't need laws making abortion or certain kinds of marriages legal or illegal.

We only need a change of heart.  And the only way to attain this change of heart is to offer it to God.  I don't mean that we should offer our heart to a selected system of theology or a set of church doctrines. No, these all too often only consist of more moral legislation that teaches fear, anger and judgement.

Instead, we should offer our heart to God and ask him to cleanse it from all the junk that has been put there by the conditioning of our environments... Government, church, family, schools, workplace, etc.  We should ask God to let us feel the pain of those who have been marginalized, pushed down, judged as unworthy, or just plain ignored. And then we should be about the task of bringing other hearts to God... Not to save them from "eternal damnation," but in order to eventually remove hell from the earth we now inhabit and bring about God's kingdom.

Changing our hearts is the only way.

Father,

Give us hearts filled with true compassion and love for one another.  Amen.

Joys: an appreciation for a usually flawless home wireless, now that there is an outage: staying home on a cold, cold night watching "I Love Lucy" series DVDs; productive day at work yesterday.