Justice in Mission Scott Moreau

Justice: Concept Struggling for “Kingdom of God” justice on behalf of those who do not have it.

Justice: Lausanne Covenant Excerpt We affirm that God is both the Creator and the Judge of all men. We therefore should share his concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men and women from every kind of oppression. . . . The message of salvation implies also a message of judgment upon every form of alienation, oppression and discrimination, and we should not be afraid to denounce evil and injustice wherever they exist. When people receive Christ they are born again into his kingdom and must seek not only to exhibit but also to spread its righteousness in the midst of an unrighteous world. The salvation we claim should be transforming us in the totality of our personal and social responsibilities. Faith without works is dead.

Justice: Micah Declaration Excerpt We acknowledge the command to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute in a world that has given ‘money rights’ greater priority than human rights. We recognize the need for advocacy both to address structural injustice and to rescue needy neighbors. Micah Declaration

Justice: Manila Manifesto Excerpt We affirm that we must demonstrate God's love visibly by caring for those who are deprived of justice, dignity, food and shelter. We affirm that the proclamation of God's kingdom of justice and peace demands the denunciation of all injustice and oppression, both personal and structural; we will not shrink from this prophetic witness.

Justice: Battlegrounds: Human Institutions Religion Economics Law/Politics Association Education Health

Justice: Focus: Kingdom of God It is in the world, but not of it (John 18:36). It belongs to the little ones, but those in it are greater than the greatest ones (Matt. 11:11; 18:1-4). It comes as a free gift, but demands all we have (Luke 12:30-33) and only the truly righteous will enter (Matt. 5:20). It is God's very reign, but works in hidden ways (Matt. 13:33). It is already present (Luke 17:21) and yet still coming in the future (Matt. 6:10). It does not consist of talk (1 Cor. 4:20), but it must be proclaimed (Luke 4:43).

Justice: Isaiah 1:16-19 Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. "Come now, let us reason together,“ says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

Justice: Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Justice: Examples Justice Campaigns (Christian Solidarity Worldwide, UK) Fighting human trafficking (International Justice Mission) Pressureworks (Christian Aid, UK)

Economics: Concept Applying Kingdom ethics to all peoples, especially on behalf of those who are disadvantaged.

Economics: Micah Declaration Excerpt Our experience of walking with poor communities challenges our concept of what it means to be church. The church is not merely an institution or organization, but communities of Jesus that embody the values of the kingdom. The involvement of the poor in the life of the church is forcing us to find new ways of being church within the context of our cultures instead of being mere reflections of the values of one dominant culture or sub-culture. Our message has credibility to the extent that we adopt an incarnational approach. We confess that too often the church has pursued wealth, success, status and influence. But the kingdom of God has been given to the community that Jesus Christ called his little flock.

Economics: Micah Declaration Excerpt The concept of Sabbath reminds us that there should be limits to our consumption. Wealthy Christians–both in the West and in the Two-Thirds World–must use their wealth in the service of others. We are committed to the liberation of the rich from slavery to money and power. The hope of treasure in heaven releases us from the tyranny of mammon.

Economics: Manila Manifesto Excerpt The proclamation of God's kingdom necessarily demands the prophetic denunciation of all that is incompatible with it. Among the evils we deplore are destructive violence, including institutionalized violence, political corruption, all forms of exploitation of people and of the earth, the undermining of the family, abortion on demand, the drug traffic, and the abuse of human rights. In our concern for the poor, we are distressed by the burden of debt in the two-thirds world. We are also outraged by the inhuman conditions in which millions live, who bear God's image as we do.

Economics: God’s View of the Poor The poor are people and part of his creation. They have oppressors who keep them poor. While they are sinners, they are also in significant ways sinned against by those who oppress them subvert justice for them. God does “opt” for them in the sense of siding with them in demanding impartiality and justice. He cares for their spiritual and material needs. The same attitude should be found in the Church (e.g., Jas. 2:2-6). That the poor teach us of God or enjoy a special spiritual status is true in the sense that their humble circumstances force them to see more realistically their broken condition before God. That they are somehow automatically saved or members of God’s church simply by virtue of their socio-economic status, however, cannot be sustained in light of the overall biblical evidence. The poor are in need of having the Good News preached to them and thus the thrust of Jesus statements about his ministry in Luke 4:18-20.

Economics: Isaiah 1:16b-17 Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.

Economics: Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

Economics: Mission and the Poor While there has long been a recognition that the poor hold special attention and affection in God’s eyes, the phrase “option for the poor” or “preferential option for the poor” is of relatively recent coinage. It was Roman Catholics who began to wrestle with issues related to poverty in Vatican II. Catholics in Latin America, who felt that the work at Vatican II did not go far enough, convened in Medellín, where the emphasis was changed from seeing the poor as the object of the mercy of the church to seeing them as the subjects of their own history (González, p. 19). The actual phrase “preferential option for the poor” did not appear until the 1970s, reportedly used by Gustavo Gutiérrez in a lecture given in Spain in 1972 (Ibid.). Since that time the term has been used primarily in liberation and conciliar theological circles but also increasingly in evangelical missiology.

Economics: “Option for the Poor” The concept behind the term is one that demands a radical paradigm shift. The poor are not to be seen as objects of mercy, but as people who are particularly gifted by God to represent his justice to the rest of the world. The ‘option’ for the poor is not optional, but required by the very nature of God and the incarnation of Jesus. Because Jesus came to preach to the poor, they have an epistemological advantage in reading the Scripture. They are not weighted down with the presuppositions and agendas of the rich, and they are more free to read (and even interpret) the text as its primary audience. It requires the recognition of structural issues which create and perpetuate poverty and new tools of analysis to understand and change those structures.

Economics: Examples Action Against Poverty (Christian World Service, New Zealand) Micro-enterprise cooperatives (Latin American Mission ) Ten Thousand Villages (Mennonite Central Committee)

Environment: Concept We are stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us to use in ways that glorify Him.

Environment: Micah Declaration Excerpt There is a need for integral discipleship involving the responsible and sustainable use of the resources of God’s creation and the transformation of the moral, intellectual, economic, cultural and political dimensions of our lives. For many of us this includes recovering a biblical sense of stewardship.

Environment: Psalms 19:1-6 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.

Environment: Psalms 102:25-27 In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.

Environment: Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3a; 1:10 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. He also says, "In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.”

Environment: Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.“

Environment: Psalms 8:3-8 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

Environment: Examples Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship What Would Jesus Drive? (Evangelical Environmental Network)

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