by Dr.Robert

Created on: June 10, 2010

A Christian View of social justice

            A Christian living out what they preach (social justice) is rarely found, but to understand what a Christian is supposed to do we look at Christ and his words. First of all, what is social justice anyway? My professor describes social justice as : “A society in which individuals and the whole community reflects the ideals of God's kingdom. The degree to which a society reflects those ideals is the degree to which a society is just.” Christ describes social justice in Matthew 22: 37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind . . . The second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.” Another definition is found in James 1:27 “to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep one self unstained by the world.”

            Adults can be orphans also. Not only small children like Oliver Twist. Believe it or not adults still need to be taken care of. Our call as Christians is to look after these people. Our call is to look after all people. Whether you realize it on not you influence a large community of people.

            The people that you interact with every day are your circle of influence. Also known as your community. The girl down at Starbucks, the man in your small town convenient store. The mailman that you see maybe twice a month is in your community. You influence them everyday. You can either leave a positive or negative influence in their lives. These people are your neighbors. Your neighbors make up your community, but we must remember that they have their own community also: their family and their friends and their mailmen, and classmates. When you produce a positive Christian influence into your community they will leave one in theirs, but we must make the conscience choice of living out our lives as Christians and showing them that, thus choosing to continue the cycle. We may not simply continue living our lives like we have been in the past. Our calling as Christians is to make the whole world just by following the great commission: “Make DISCIPLES of ALL nations TEACHING them to obey all I have commanded you.” A disciple by definition is: one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrine of another, as one of the twelve in the

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