Justice

Ezra Craker 12-01-2023

Graphic by Mitchell Atencio / Sojourners

At their strongest, films and TV shows can help us pay attention to — and by extension, love — the people and the world around us.

Mitchell Atencio 10-10-2023

Rev. Mae Elise Cannon. Graphic by Tiarra Lucas. Original photo courtesy Cannon. 

“We had a prayer meeting [Monday] morning with dozens and dozens of people from all different traditions, from bishops to people sitting in the pews,” Cannon told Sojourners. “We’ll have another prayer gathering on Wednesday morning. We’re grieving, we’re lamenting, and we’re also working really hard.”

Rose Marie Berger 10-09-2023

A rescuer reacts as he works with others to remove Palestinians from under the rubble of a house destroyed in Israeli strikes, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa 

“They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain...” —Isaiah 11:9

Robert L. Foster 4-27-2023
A vibrant illustration. On the left, Zechariah is portrayed with brown skin, a white beard, and yellow robes. The center shows hands reaching up. Among them, there's a scroll, bird, and three women hugging. To the right, there's a city on a tall mountain.

Illustration by Thiago Límon

IN 1991, FOUR Los Angeles police officers beat Rodney King, a 25-year-old African American man, nearly to death. It was caught on video. All the officers were acquitted of assault with a deadly weapon. The acquittals were followed by six days of rebellion with more than 50 associated deaths. At that time, I and many other white Christians fixated on our desire to see “peace” restored. Even in the face of graphic police brutality, I was unable to see the pernicious racial injustice that created the context for the riots. The white Christianity of my upbringing did not equip me with a biblical lens through which to discern the truth about racial injustice in the U.S. It would be nearly a full decade before I could finally begin to perceive it.

Nevertheless, in light of the role white Christian nationalists played in the Jan.6 riot, the number of pastors who preach against Black Lives Matter and critical race theory, and the deafening silence and stubborn inaction of many white Christians in the face of explicit cries for racial justice, I have to ask: Will this generation of white American Christians be just another in the long line to embolden racial injustice?

Where do we turn to find hope, inspiration, and guidance to help white Christians finally commit to our God-given vocation to do justice instead of holding tightly to our idolatrous commitment to white supremacy? I look to the little-known biblical prophet Zechariah and how he called a generation returned from exile to live out God’s call to do justice.

Mae Elise Cannon 12-27-2022
A heavily filtered photo of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in chest armor with "PRESS" emblazoned across the front. She is surrounded with illustrations of Arabic text, plants, and a microphone with doves flying out from the mic.

Illustration by Rami Kanso

PALESTINIAN AMERICAN JOURNALIST Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed in May 2022 while covering an Israel Defense Forces raid on a refugee camp in the Palestinian West Bank village of Jenin. Abu Akleh had been standing with a group of other journalists and was wearing a blue vest with the word PRESS printed across it when she was shot; her producer was shot in the back but survived. Hours after Abu Akleh’s death, Israeli police went into her home, took away Palestinian flags, and prevented the singing of Palestinian nationalist songs.

In mid-November, the FBI opened an investigation into Abu Akleh’s death; Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Israel would refuse to cooperate since, Gantz said, the IDF had already investigated the IDF actions in the shooting. The U.S. State Department commented, “Not only was Shireen an American citizen, she was a fearless reporter whose journalism and pursuit of truth earned her the respect of audiences around the world.”

Before her death, households throughout the Arab world knew Abu Akleh’s work. Nicknamed “the daughter of Palestine” — and “the voice of Palestine” — Abu Akleh had worked for Qatar-based news outlet Al Jazeera for a quarter century. Viewed as courageous and thoughtful, Abu Akleh inspired many, including women interested in pursuing a career in journalism in the Middle East. A common signoff for her broadcasts summarized her motivation for being a journalist: “I chose journalism to be close to people. It might not be easy to change the reality, but at least I can bring their voices to the world. I am Shireen Abu Akleh.”

Mitchell Atencio 12-08-2022

A pride flag hangs at the First Congregational Church United Church of Christ after a mass shooting at LGBTQ nightclub Club Q in Colorado Springs, Co., Nov. 23, 2022. REUTERS/Isaiah J. Downing

Thom Andreas was a gay Christian kid in the 1990s when his hometown of Colorado Springs, Co. was becoming known as the “evangelical mecca” or “evangelical Vatican.” And this gave Andreas a front-row seat as the movement advocated against LGBTQ rights and dignity in politics and faith.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) speaks with reporters after attending the signing ceremony of “The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” at the White House in Washington, D.C., Aug. 16, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis

Three weeks ago, it seemed impossible that this Congress and this president would be able to get anything significant and lasting done to confront climate change. But this week, President Joe Biden signed major climate legislation — the Inflation Reduction Act — into law. It’s a bittersweet moment.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson reacts as she meets with Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., March 29, 2022. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court in a milestone for the United States and a victory for President Joe Biden, who made good on a campaign promise as he seeks to infuse the federal judiciary with a broader range of backgrounds.

Supreme Court Justice nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies on the second day of her nomination hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary panel in Washington DC. on March 22, 2022. Photo credit: Patsy Lynch/MediaPunch via Reuters.

Hawley's accusation that Jackson is soft on crime reveals a troubling perspective on people who enact harm. Hawley is one of several Republican senators who sorts the world into two types of people: People who are evil and, if given the chance, will commit horrific, reprehensible crimes over and over again, and people like the rest of us, people who need to be protected from the evil people. According to this line of thinking, ensuring this protection shouldn’t rule out the harshest measures of isolation and punishment the state can enact. We separate “them” from “us” by forever marking them as dangerous.

Olivia Bardo 3-16-2022

In Genesis 2, after spending six days forming the earth, God rests “from all the work,” setting a sacred precedent. In Exodus 20:8-10, God instructs the Israelites to embrace patterns of rest. In Matthew 8:23-26, Jesus rests in a boat during a torrential downpour, despite tides rising and crashing against the boat’s hull, threatening to capsize the passengers. We can take comfort in this: If the son of God needed to take a break every now and then, so do we.

Olivia Bardo 12-08-2021

At its core, the Christmas story is radical. Christ enters the world in the form of a marginalized infant — a story about finding hope amid brokenness by pushing forward into the darkness. We cannot find the true light of Christmas without understanding what it means to be in the dark, opening our eyes to the injustices in our neighborhoods.

A woman reacts outside the Glynn County Courthouse after the jury reached a guilty verdict in the trial of William "Roddie" Bryan, Travis McMichael, and Gregory McMichael, charged with the February 2020 murder of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, in Brunswick, Ga., November 24, 2021. REUTERS/Marco Bello

A jury in Brunswick, Ga., found all three defendants guilty of murder Wednesday for chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery while he was out on a run in February 2020. Faith leaders across the country showed gratitude for the verdict while noting the grief for Arbery’s family and the work of justice still to be done.

Myles Werntz 10-19-2021

How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace, by Melissa Florer-Bixler. Herald Press

THE WORK OF peacemaking has been long beset by the stereotypes of it being “nice” work, polite to the point of being inoffensive. In her new book, Melissa Florer-Bixler wants to disabuse us of the idea that making peace means having no enemies. If anything, as she argues, Christians should have enemies well. Having enemies does not mean that the Christian who pursues justice incurs the resentment of others, but that their witness is direct, pointed, and takes sides.

The church, she writes, is “not to unify as a way to negate difference or to overcome political commitments,” but to sharpen those disagreements between the gospel and the world, particularly where reconciliation conceals power inequities. It does no one any favors, she suggests, to resolve moral disagreements within the church in a way that “disregards how coercion and force shape the lives of enemies.”

Danté Stewart 5-25-2021

People take part in a march calling for justice for those killed by police officers near the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., May 24, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi

I recently spoke with a good friend who was in the gospel choir with me at Clemson University. He sang. I played drums. During our time there — in between meals and practice and concerts — we felt the suffocation. That suffocation was in between the Black gospel choir and white Fellowship of Christian Athletes meetings, between Black Clemson and white classes. It was not the type of suffocation that kills you; it was the kind that smiles in your face and puts arms around your shoulders and waves hands in praise and sways your body side to side while never getting rid of slaveholding names and memories and theologies. It was the type of suffocation that enjoys the feeling of your presence but fails to embrace the fullness of your humanity.

Hannah Bowman 5-03-2021

The U.S. prison system is an afront to human dignity and in sharp contrast with God's vision for justice on earth. Christians' commitment to love, hope, and justice should inspire us to work toward abolishing the prison system.

Jenna Barnett 11-09-2020

In president-elect Joe Biden’s acceptance speech on Saturday he “pledge[d] to be a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify. Who doesn’t see red and blue states, but a United States.”

Yet over the weekend, some social media users used their platforms to warn pastors not to conflate peace-building and unity with forced reconciliation.

The Editors 9-28-2020

A Thousand Freedoms

The film A Thousand Cuts profiles journalist Maria Ressa, who has worked to hold Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte accountable for his authoritarianism. Documentary filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz captures Ressa’s fight against suppression of the press and the people’s struggle against a deadly man. PBS Distribution.

Dennis J. Kang 6-18-2020

Motives are clearly important in the Bible.

Prior to this moment, new allies have preached a gospel of Jesus devoid of justice. They failed to make the theological connection that Jesus and justice are, in fact, mutually inclusive. To invoke Jesus and then to invoke justice is redundant. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we commit ourselves to the ministry of justice. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we declare the psalmist’s decree that justice and righteousness are the foundations of God’s throne. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we summon the messianic prophecy that the spirit of the lord was upon Jesus, to preach the good news to the poor, to set the prisoners free from the Roman industrial complex, and to proclaim liberty to those who were oppressed. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we remember that Jesus was convicted of a crime he did not commit, received an unfair trial, and was sentenced to a state-sanctioned lynching on a tree. The ministry of justice is the ministry of Jesus. We cannot divorce our theology from the ministry of justice. To do so is to divorce ourselves from Jesus himself.

Aaron E. Sanchez 2-10-2020

A commitment to justice or equality cannot be purely voyeuristic or touristic.