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Social Justice
Why should we ever need to raise charitable funds to educate our children? To buy supplies and provide technology? Even to provide weekend snacks, if lack of nutrition is keeping a child from learning? We ought to want to educate our children, all of them.
It is the common good – even if we have to pay more in taxes to do it.
Being a successful neurosurgeon is apparently no guarantee you won’t embarrass yourself in the national spotlight. I’m not sure which constitution Dr. Carson had in mind when he opined that no Muslim is fit to be the President. The US constitution guarantees freedom of (and freedom from) religion, and specifies that no religious litmus test shall deter anyone from holding office.
I think of my nation, still divided, still judging one another not by the content of character, but by the color of skin. I think that there are a lot of very complicated factors in this case, but what I know is that this mostly comes down to America’s Original Sin, and unless and until we can finally own it and engage the very hard work of healing we’ll always be waiting on a jury…
But something has changed. I believe this. I believe that we are about to engage in a critically important, and extremely difficult, national conversation about the racial injustices inherent in our society. I am not afraid of the conversation that is coming. And it is coming – and all churches need to be involved in it. It’s too important, and the integrity of our faith will require it.
Trying to reconcile the biblical verse with the desperate plea of a dying man makes my head hurt – and my heart ache. How can we make sense of the frustrations and anger and feelings of helplessness that accompany each new report of another life unnecessarily lost?
Perhaps you feel the same? I know lots of people have doubts and questions about a world where these things can occur. And do occur – over and over. So I offer these thoughts. I wish they were solutions. But all I have are thoughts, ponderings, and a struggle to understand – on those difficult days when it’s hard to sigh; when you can’t breathe.
By Amy Jacks Dean
