It's nearing the end of the academic year and most of my peers are worn out, but I'm rather pumped up. I've been itching for months to have someone come and talk about consumer justice at my chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF/IV). The night finally arrives and I'm trying not to let my feelings of excitement overwhelm my ability to listen. I knew some things about justice and how consumers could be a contributor in gross injustices with the purchases they make, but I had not heard most of the information that night. I don't even remember specific talking points from that night except that it is important to take baby steps. Fast-forward about three weeks and I'm trying implement what I had learned. I had determined that my baby step was going to be replacing my belt at a thrift store instead of buying a new one. I spent a few hours just looking for thrift stores and as it turns out there aren't a whole lot of them in Minnesota. Since I live in Chicago I take it for granted that there's a thrift store around almost every corner. In Minnesota where my parents live I had just one thrift store within a reasonable distance from their house. I went there hoping to be able to buy dress clothes for church, but if all else failed I just wanted to get a belt to replace my rusty old one. After about an hour and a half of searching through shirts, pants, shoes, and belts I came out of that store with dress pants, a dress shirt, but no belt. I felt like I had wasted my time even though I had gotten a shirt and pants there. I ended up getting my belt at Walmart.
Folks, I hear a lot of people talk about justice in terms of systemic injustices that exist across the globe in an all-encompassing nightmare we contribute to with the things we buy. If you're like me, you hear these things and are immediately moved by the shock and horror within you to find out that something you consume or a service you rely on is responsible for unethical and unjust actions. A younger me would get upset as soon as the shock and horror had passed, because there's no quick-fix to systemic injustice. Eventually that upset feeling would turn to apathy which would lead me to throw up my hands in surrender to the fact that I contribute to an injustice that harms someone else in some unseen place. While these feelings of being overwhelmed by the vastness of the injustices in our world are normal, they are not an excuse for apathy. The other feeling which I've had after learning that there is an injustice committed every time I buy something or pay for a service is resentment. I resent the fact that in order to live more justly I have to give up something I use regularly. This is also a legitimate feeling, but we need to recognize that our slight discomfort is not because we're being deprived of a necessity; we're learning to live without something we're accustomed to.
But why should justice matter? I can't give you a straight answer because I believe it is something you must be personally convicted of before you can engage in it. I'm not going to force justice down your throat. I'll point you to Isaiah 58, the book of Amos, Matthew 5-7 (Sermon on the Mount), and James 2; yet I don't believe for a second that reading a few passages of Scripture or a convincing argument about justice and righteousness is going to turn anyone to my point of view. Why? I think that, as someone coming from an evangelical ultra-conservative faith background, I see the issue of justice being a very skewed issue. No longer is about doing what is right, but rather it has become a political game. What should have been a focal point of faith in action has become a secular and liberal issue. In our minds, the issue of social justice is for liberal Christians and we have certain assumptions about Christians who are into that. This is a sad state of affairs because in searching the Scriptures with an open mind and heart, I have come to understand that God's desire for justice and righteousness is a calling for all His children. The divide between justice and righteousness are not so great, moreover they are not simply things that can be done and checked off on a list of to-dos. Justice and righteousness are synonymous words describing of lifestyle of Christ-like living in direct opposition to the broken systems of injustice and cruelty in our world.
I invite you all to laugh, cry, and struggle with me as I blog about my honest journey to living justly in this broken world.
James
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