Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. (Amos 5:15)
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly. (Leviticus 19:15)
In an article about words used in advertising, the list of the 13 words most often used included: now, easy, free, new, saving, safe (secure), proven, love, disover(y), guarantee, healthy, results, and you.[1] Surprisingly, “improved,” “better,” and “best,” aren’t in the list. Nearly half of the words are adjectives used to describe the product, and to differentiate it from all other products of the same name or type.
If a product is “new,” it is better than the “old.” If it’s proven, then the others are unproven. If it’s healthy, the others are unhealthy, etc. This is what adjectives tend to do, to separate this specific item from others with which it might be confused and to proclaim it to be the item you should choose over any other.
This past week, I went to a nature walk led by an herbalist who was nicely informed about a number of herbs. She represented an organization that is seeking “health justice” including by providing herbal aid to protestors – at least protestors who are seeking redress for something within her political agenda. We’re hearing about racial justice a lot. I’ve also heard of financial and environmental justice. I can’t find a list, but there are all sorts of justices out there that somehow can’t be described as just, plain old “justice.” They’ve got to have an adjective that distinguishes, or separates it from justice, because, apparently, justice isn’t good enough. It’s not just. Their brand is new and improved.
The problem is that these new and improved justices all seem to be reductionistic. Racial justice generally means justice that favors people of African descent, or indigenous descent (including Latin-American,) or basically anything that isn’t of European descent. Those of European descent are the criminals every time, apparently simply because they are of European descent. And, for those with a focus on racial justice, race is what determines who and what is just. No other test need be applied. It's sort of like the water test given to accused witches. If they float, they're a witch, therefore they're to be burned at the stake. If they sink and drown, well, they weren't witches.
The same is true of environmental justice. In that form, anything human or even though to be produced by humans is declared criminal. In economic justice, the wealthy are clearly an automatically the villain (unless they’re media celebrities.) In every case in which one puts an adjective in front of the word justice, one is rejecting justice in favor of some special, limited, reduced piece of justice - a microcosm in which that matters more than the “old-fashioned” legal sort of justice.
If one objects that all lives matter, or that racial justice denies regular justice, one is likely to be told that in this case, the Black community has been denied justice for so long. They are hurting. They are afraid. They need to be reassured that they matter, too. Yes, Blacks need to know that they matter, too. The problem is, if one is not Black, it is assumed that either you’re the villain, or at the very least that you don’t matter. You should be strong enough, adult enough, whatever enough to know that you matter, and capable of seeking justice on your own. You don’t need someone to walk beside you. In short, whatever your pain is, go off somewhere and face it on your own. It does not meet achieve the minimum requirements to excite pity or compassion.
And if one dares to challenge this perspective, one is generally told, “Go home, sit down, shut up, grow up, get over it. How dare you be so weak, so needy, so pathetic, so useless…” It is not seen as remotely possible that anyone not of the declared victim group could possibly have a need for justice, or mercy, or compassion that is more pressing, more immediate than this greater cause. The needs of the many always outweighs the needs of the few, or the one – even if that means being unjust to the one, after all.
What does the Bible say? It tells us to do justice, to act justly – not to improve on it, not to reject it in favor of something with adjectives. These reductionistic justices are so much easier. With racial justice, how do you tell who’s the criminal? Easy. It’s the white person. With environmental justice, how do you tell who’s wrong? Easy, it’s the human. With economic justice, how do you tell who’s wrong? Easy, it’s the person who isn’t poor. But that’s not justice. That’s pity mixed with prejudice.
But what does the Bible say? It tells us not to pervert justice by preferring the poor or by favoring the rich. Granted, more often we fallen humans fail by favoring the rich, but the answer is not to favor the poor instead, but by ending the favoring of the rich. Justice begins when neither side is granted special dispensation, not when one is granted it to make up for all the times the other seems to have gotten it. Justice isn’t about making sure the score ends up tied, but about making sure the score ends up right – according to rules that favor no one. That’s what the Bible says. So why is it that we seem to think we not only can improve on what Scripture teaches but that we must?
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