A Kingdom of Justice: Part 2

In the last post I posited several questions that hopefully help guide the Christian to a deeper contemplation of issues concerning justice.

Perhaps one of the more important questions is the one that asks, “Which rationality and whose justice are we operating under?”

Justice is intimately tied to ethical systems. Thus, when we operate under systems of violence it is quite easy to rationalize violence as the primary mean through which wrongs can be righted. After all, when a country or ideology tries to harm or threaten the foundation of modern western democracy it is deemed necessary and justified to either persuade those forces to align themselves with the our ideology, even if that persuasion goes beyond dialogue and enters violent force, which is itself a type of persuasion.

In regards to more secularized conceptions of justice a multitude of theories abound. There is the Rawlsian type which focuses more on an equation of “justice” and “fairness”. Rawls truly does care about equality, and noticing the debilitation caused by inherent caste systems posits a justice system whereby citizens intentionally utilize a “veil of ignorance”. They repress all individual realities and make judgments as purely autonomous and objective entities. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately), we are historically conditioned beings. We cannot just forget the realities that make up our lives, because those realities and experiences are a part of ourselves, they make up who we are.

Other systems of justice exist too, such as those built on the foundation of utilitarianism. Under the roof of this construction it is believed that we can confidently sacrifice the one for the many. If the greater good can be served by a lesser evil, than the lesser evil is an obligation. But, can we make confident calculations such as this? Does this really produce justice? Just as with Rawlsian account of justice problems arise because us moderns believe we have much more knowledge and ability than we actually do. When American policy makers create “justice” they do so with America in mind, primarily. The “infinite justice” proclaimed by Bush, for instance, shortly after 9/11 was met equally by a desire for “infinite justice” proclaimed by Bin Laden.  Both desired acts of revenge, both felt obligated to protect their homelands. This is not to make any sort of justification for the unspeakable acts carried ouy over 10 years ago, but it also is not meant to justify the propagation of violence that has gone on for decades before and after that event.

A Social Ethic

But what about the Christian reality? Do we take seriously the communal standards set forth by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount? Here the followers of Jesus are called to renounce violence, forgo lust, extinguish hatred, stay true to promises, and to love those who seek our destruction; these are both ethical and theological, and thus concerned with justice. We represent a different communal order, a different metaphysic, than the state powers. The Christian way isn’t reduced to forced persuasion in order to propagate, but to spread truth through Community, Cross, and New Creation. The Christian ethic makes no is-ought distinction, but makes a particular claim about what reality is and who people are within that reality. To section off the metaphysical claim to the avenue of “spiritual” is to make a divide where one does not exist. Jesus was no Platonist, and certainly not a Cartesian.

The difficulty is that this is difficult! It is both difficult to live out, but also fundamentally difficult because of lived experience. What do we do about injustice? Is it to be ignored or hugged away? Is it to be stood up to, and if so how? Perhaps we can look to those who came before us and realize the beauty of their resistant nonviolence, even in their sometimes failures. Martin Luther King, Jr. brought about great change. That rumors persist about infidelity (whether true or not) does not negate the impact of one trying to follow Christ, though failing at times. The truth is that violence breeds violence, and justice that is based on violence will not bring about the seemingly evanescent horizon of justice.

While this post does not put an end to the struggle of both understanding the scriptures or how the world works, I hope it is a challenge to take seriously Christian faith as a reality, not merely another choice in the marketplace of ideas.

A Kingdom of Justice: Part 1

Justice? Competing Visions…

Evil acts are committed.

Reaction(s) occur.

The audience applause.

These are the bare minimums, the bare occurrences, within plots; problem, reaction(s), and ending solution. We watch a movie and the plot is introduced with an initial problem. Someone has to do something! Some person must solve this problem which often concerns some sort of evil or immoral act, or other such problem. Stories are ripe with the fruits of cultural engagement, engagement which transcends the story and reaches also into the metaphysical concerns and beliefs of  a culture or cross section of a culture. Thus, perhaps we can look a bit into story to see what seems to me to be the norm when it comes to how justice is understood by our culture.

Take, for instance, a really simplified version of Gladiator. Certainly this film has been seen  by many to be a modern-day classic, and a film which has helped bring about popularity of historic biopics with similar scenery (like Troy and Alexander). It is an amazing piece of cinema and holds up to a variety of interpretations and artful analyses. However, taking an extremely simplified analysis allows one to see the usual good vs. evil motif, or perhaps less strongly, right vs. wrong. Justice must be done, and even if Maximus is not able to see fulfillment in this life, he will meet his family in the next. The ones who did wrong against him are ultimately accounted for and there is vindication.

War movies have similarly been popular in recent decades, especially ones that pit the Righteous Allied against the Evil Axis, or perhaps the Good Western democracies against the Bad Communists. It is all very black and white. It is all very simplified; evil must be defeated ultimately through persuasion or force. Evil is given ontological reality, it is a thing that must be encountered and defeated.

Christians often do the same, especially when aligned with the state or other prominent powers. The Spanish Inquisition, though actually quite limited in scope, sought to bring about the ultimate good through persuasive force. The ultimate goal was to save the soul of the pagan or mistaken Jew, even if they must be forcibly baptized or made to recant their prior faith. We can also see here the separation between the material and spiritual, though such is relatively absent in New Testament literature.

Modern Christians have done similar. Following H. Richard Niebuhr it has become the norm to view Christ’s commands (or imperatives) as unlivable. After all, we live in a fallen and sinful world.  But also, after all, we live within Christendom, right? A sort of civil religion still exists whereby American nationalism and patriotism are seen as connected intimately with Christianity. What is good for America is good for the church.

In fact, when evil is done to America or seeks to dominate swaths of land or influence culture, the American/Christian must intercede. When terrorists cause havoc it is an imperative that we become involved and punish those that do evil acts so that further destruction may not occur. Or so that those who have died are avenged. The soldier is fighting for the country, and for virtues that are at the heart of both America and (supposedly) the Christian faith.

This is the dominant paradigm. Justice involves engagement, and engagement is usually through mediums of force or persuasion.

Do these contentions hold up? Is this the biblical paradigm that Christians are called to live by? Certainly it is rationally justifiable, but which rationality and whose justice are we navigating under? 

Such questions will be further pondered in the second part of this blog.