Right now, Justice is a big buzz word, and it is also a powerful trump card. The ace of spades, if you will. And yet, I recently came the understand through some reading, that playing that ace is trickier than it seems. I think these groups may experience more trouble than they anticipate in spelling out just what they mean by "justice." I recently finished two books that speak to this theme in interesting ways.
I considered myself someone who had the right ideas and right behavior with regards to justice before reading it, and was both encouraged and challenged to consider things more carefully and figure out how to act more consistently. In case you don't have a chance to read it yourself [it's a nice quick read, so stop making excuses ;) ], one key point he makes that I think is particularly relevant to Occupy Wall Street, is that the roots of our ideas of what justice is are necessarily moral [and therefore religious in at least some sense]. We can not throw around the term "justice" like a sledge hammer or an ace card that lets us win any argument. Justice means differing and often conflicting things to different people. And in a secular society that outlaws public discourse on religious ideas, we can not have a real, resolvable conversation about justice until we start admitting our moral/religious beliefs. I should stop trying to say what he has already spelled out more clearly, so just go read it.
The second book is slightly less direct than Kellers, but I was surprised by how relevant I found it to be. It presents some challenging questions about justice, morality, and integrity in the form of a story. Have you read Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beacher Stowe? It is a classic I had obviously heard of, and pretended to know about more than once, but I had never read it and I've never heard of it being part of any standard curriculums. But when I found out that Harriet moved to the town I live in because her husband was a professor at the college where my husband is now a professor, I felt an affinity with her and wanted to know more about her and her work.
Wow. While it may have taken me a little while to get into, it really caught me up once I did. Turns out, it is a collection of real stories Stowe had either witnessed or heard about slaves, slave owners, and northerners who refused to dirty their hands with slave ownership on moral grounds. And while it may not really make for a terribly cohesive overall narrative, the stories are compelling and engaging, and at times tear provoking. While the character development pulls your heart in, these people who come to life before you hold these fascinating conversations.
It doesn't seem like we need to read a book today to convince us that American plantation slavery is bad (though I realize that modern day slavery is a serious and pervasive problem), but Stowe gets into these subtle particularities of humans engaging with this old problem. She does this in such a way as to challenge my morality today, making me realize that while slavery isn't a moral issue I feel any ambiguity about (perhaps thanks to her - Lincoln credited her as the "the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."), I have some important questions to consider about what justice really is and how I am living that out. For any christians reading this post, you might be interested to realize how Christ centered the book is. She has some challenging points regarding foreign missions. She also points out that moral issues can not be so simply resolved by deferring to the opinion of your local church, or by playing a trump card like, "the bible says . . . " as there can really be so much division even underneath these seemingly authoritative claims. [watching the God in America documentary series while I read this really enhanced both experiences by the way!] Also, the incredible love for scripture that is woven throughout the book is really beautifully displayed.
If you have to pick only one of these books, I might actually steer you towards Uncle Tom's Cabin. I think it will get into your heart in a way that might hopefully spur you towards positive change (if you are willing to use some imagination to consider how to apply old points to modern day) in a way that Keller's smart, rational, well articulated arguments won't necessarily do the trick. Also, classics like that are easy to find for free or for cheap, so that's cool. But both are certainly worthwhile if you have the bandwidth.
Have you read either of these books, Lobsters? What have you thought?
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