Justice

As I stopped my last post, I left with speaking about individual justice. I must say, a good read on this subject is Stanley Hauerwas "A Community of Character." Within the first chapter, he uses the adult novel, "Watership Down" by Richard Adams as a story to help illustrate and illuminate his thesis therefore I recommend that novel as well, it was really good.

To then move on to the theme of justice, within Christianity, we have lost our sense of community therefore we lost the ability to practice justice. Justice has become programs that the local church does while staying out of the daily life of the congregation. Example: the church hands out free diapers to needy moms every Thursday for so many hours at a local parking lot. What does this do? It helps moms out for a short period of time, giving them that financial relief. what else? does it solve the problem? Should it be the church's responsibility to find out solutions to the economic problem of single mothers or just simply needy families? Or is the the state governments problem while the church is just supposed to minister to the soul?

Or picture it this way. How is it that there can be churches that have the business owners and managers that are well-to-do while in the same congregation there are people that go without? Is that community? Is that what we are all about?

I think that we do not know how to live/be Christian, that we have lost our sense of community or our ability for community. Therefore we are not able to perform justice. How can it when it is just a bunch of individuals gathering together for a couple of days to sing? There is no power in the individual outside the individual. What we need is community where we are a part of one another, live around and with one another, share the burdens of and with one another. Not just sing together. Or maybe that is just my individual thought?

what do you think?