Repentance
If justice is only an implication, it can easily become optional and, especially in privileged churches, non-existent. In the New Testament, conversion happens in two movements: Repentance and following. Belief and obedience. Salvation and justice. Faith and discipleship.
Atonement-only theology and its churches are in most serious jeopardy of missing the vision of justice at the heart of the kingdom of God. The atonement-only gospel is simply too small, too narrow, too bifurcated, and ultimately too private.
Yesterday afternoon I found out that ABC news plans to dedicate it programming today to "Hunger at Home: Crisis in America." It precipitated my writing of this post which I had planned to add as a later addition to a series on tools for prayer.
One important item in our prayer toolkit is knowledge of our hurting world. Not knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but knowledge that equips us to respond. Becoming aware of the needs in our world can lead us into a deeper understanding of the ache in God's heart for our hurting friends and neighbors. It can also connect us to our own self-centered indifference that often makes us complacent when God wants us to be involved. And it can stimulate us to respond to situations that we once felt indifferent to.
It is hard to imagine that it's been six months since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
This oil is destroying the livelihoods of so many people, not just fishermen; our economy is all connected. If our wetlands are destroyed, we will lose even more of our protection from hurricane storm surge. America needs to care because this is their coastline too! Part of what destroyed the coastline was the country's lust for oil. The oil companies cut navigational canals through the marshes to make access easier. This allowed salt water to move further inland, kill the grasses, and now the land dissolves by a football field a day and melts into the gulf. The oil will only kill the marshes faster.