"Let justice roll on like a river," cried the prophet Amos (Amos 5:24). The Bible calls God's people not only to be kind to those who suffer, but to change the things that make them suffer.
These seven stories about justice, retold in our own words, explore the difference between charity and justice and show ordinary and extraordinary people who refused to stay silent. Each ends with a takeaway for sermons, study groups or personal reflection.
Stories in this collection:
- Benevolence Is Not Justice: Nicholas Wolterstorff's Awakening
- The Four Philanthropists: Mercy or Justice?
- "How Could You Let It Happen?": The Children of Apartheid
- "An Ideal for Which I Am Prepared to Die": Mandela in the Dock
- God's Dream: Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial
- A Workable Plan: Students Who Stood Up at a Shareholders' Meeting
- Living in Colour: What Pleasantville Teaches About Change
Benevolence Is Not Justice: Nicholas Wolterstorff's Awakening
The American philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, who later became Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at Yale University, is a passionate advocate for justice. In his book Justice: Rights and Wrongs, he describes two experiences that awakened that passion.
The first came in the mid-1970s, when he attended a conference in South Africa. Apartheid was in full force. Taking part were white Afrikaner theologians, Black and so-called coloured South African theologians, and scholars from Europe and North America. The atmosphere was tense. Dutch theologians were angry with their Dutch Reformed Afrikaner counterparts for supporting apartheid, and the Afrikaners were angry at being attacked.
Some way into the conference, the Black and coloured South Africans began to speak about their lives under apartheid. They described the daily humiliations they endured, their suffering and their pain.
The Afrikaners responded with indignation. They spoke of the acts of kindness and charity they had shown to their Black brothers and sisters, gifts of clothing and the like, and argued that this should be enough.
Wolterstorff was shocked. For the first time, he says, he saw benevolence being used as an instrument of oppression. Kindness was being offered in place of justice, as a way of avoiding the deeper question of rights.
A couple of years later he attended a conference where he heard Palestinians speak with great intensity about their pain: about being driven from their homes, about their longing to return and about the indignities heaped upon them. They could not understand why so few people spoke up for them.
Wolterstorff was changed by these experiences. In the voices of Black South Africans and dispossessed Palestinians, he recognised that what they were asking for was not charity, but justice.
Takeaway: Charity can treat symptoms while leaving the injustice untouched. Loving our neighbour sometimes means asking why they are hurting, not just how to make them comfortable.
Source: Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs (Princeton University Press, 2008).
The Four Philanthropists: Mercy or Justice?
A parable.
There is a story about a village that was overrun by enemy forces. All the young men of the village were rounded up and thrown into prison by the conquerors.
Among the villagers were four wealthy people who heard about the terrible conditions their neighbours were enduring.
The first went to the prison and said to the captors: I understand that my brothers have no clean water. I want to use my riches to provide clean water, so that they will not get sick. The captors agreed, and he went away glad that he had been able to help.
The second went to the captors and said: I understand that my brothers are sleeping on bare rock. I want to use my wealth to provide them with bedding, so that they can rest. The captors agreed, and he left feeling that he had done his duty.
The third went to the prison and said: I hear that my brothers have nothing but bread and water. I have a large farm, and I want to give them good food while they are in prison. The captors agreed, and he went home knowing he had done a great deal of good.
The fourth was encouraged by what the other three had done. But he was troubled that his brothers were still unjustly imprisoned. So he found the keys to the prison, slipped in one night and set them all free.
The four show us the difference between mercy and justice. The first three performed acts of mercy. They made their neighbours' suffering easier to bear, but they did nothing to change the unjust situation itself. The fourth acted to change the situation, not just the circumstances. He pursued justice, not only mercy.
Both mercy and justice matter, and the Bible calls us to both. People in prison need clean water, a place to sleep and food to eat, and those who provide them are doing real good. But if all we ever do is make an unjust situation more bearable, we may leave the injustice itself untouched. The fourth villager asked a harder question: not only how can I ease their suffering, but why are they suffering at all, and what would it take to set them free?
Takeaway: The first three showed mercy, easing suffering within an unjust situation. The fourth did justice, changing the situation itself. God's people are called to both (Micah 6:8).
Source: Traditional parable; author unknown.
"How Could You Let It Happen?": The Children of Apartheid
Joe Slovo and Ruth First were leading figures in South Africa's struggle against apartheid. In 1982, while working in exile in Mozambique, Ruth First was killed by a parcel bomb sent by agents of the apartheid security forces. Her husband, Joe Slovo, survived to see apartheid end and served in Nelson Mandela's first government before he died of illness in 1995.
Their daughter, the writer Gillian Slovo, later travelled widely in South Africa as the country faced its past through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Along the way she met many children of white South Africans whose parents had supported or quietly accepted the oppression of Black South Africans.
One of them, a journalist about the same age as Gillian, said something she never forgot. I know it must have been hard being your parents' daughter, the woman told her. I know there are costs to being the child of heroes. But imagine what it is like to be me: to have to look at my parents and ask them, how could you? How could you have seen all this and said nothing? How could you have let it happen?
It is a question every generation will one day be asked about the injustices of its own time.
Takeaway: Silence in the face of injustice is never neutral. One day our children may ask what we did, and what we chose not to see.
Source: Gillian Slovo, "Making history: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission", openDemocracy, December 2002.
"An Ideal for Which I Am Prepared to Die": Mandela in the Dock
Nelson Mandela is one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, regarded around the world as a great statesman. But before he became South Africa's first democratically elected president, he spent twenty-seven years in prison for his opposition to apartheid.
In April 1964 he stood in a courtroom in Pretoria during the Rivonia Trial. He and his co-defendants were charged with sabotage and faced the possibility of the death penalty. Instead of testifying under cross-examination, Mandela chose to make a long statement from the dock.
He ended it with words that became famous. He said he had fought against white domination, and he had fought against black domination. He had cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all people live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It was an ideal, he said, that he hoped to live for and to achieve. But if it had to be, it was an ideal for which he was prepared to die.
Mandela and most of his co-defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment. He was not released until 1990.
Takeaway: Justice sometimes requires a willingness to pay a high price. Mandela's long imprisonment did not silence his ideal; it made it louder.
Source: Nelson Mandela, statement from the dock at the Rivonia Trial, 20 April 1964.
God's Dream: Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial
On 28 August 1963, during the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before a crowd of more than 200,000 people. He began with his prepared text, but partway through, according to many accounts after the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out to him to tell them about the dream, he set his notes aside and spoke from the depths of his heart.
What followed has been called one of the greatest speeches, and one of the greatest sermons, of the twentieth century. King described his dream: that the nation would one day live out the true meaning of its founding creed, that all people are created equal.
He dreamed that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, the descendants of former slaves and the descendants of former slave owners would sit down together at the table of brotherhood. He dreamed that even Mississippi, sweltering in the heat of injustice and oppression, would become an oasis of freedom and justice.
He dreamed that his four young children would one day live in a nation where they would be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. And he dreamed that in Alabama, where racism was fierce and the governor defied federal law, little Black boys and girls and little white boys and girls would one day join hands as brothers and sisters.
Then, drawing on the prophet Isaiah, he dreamed of the day when every valley would be lifted up, every mountain made low, the rough places made smooth and the crooked places straight, and the glory of the Lord revealed for all to see together.
We need to remember how audacious that dream was. To many it seemed impossible. It was dreamed in a country where Black and white Americans were segregated by custom and by law, where the divisions ran so deep that it seemed foolish to imagine they could ever be overcome.
King knew that his dream would not come true simply because he spoke about it. In the same speech he called on the nation to cash the promissory note of freedom written into its founding documents, and he warned that there would be neither rest nor tranquillity until Black Americans were granted their rights. He also urged his followers never to answer hatred with hatred, or to let their protest descend into violence. The dream was not a fantasy to escape reality. It was a vision meant to change it, and it called for both courage and love.
But for this Baptist pastor it was a possible dream, because he believed it was God's dream. King was convinced that God longed for a world where the children of slaves and the children of slave owners would share the same table, and that through the civil rights movement the Spirit of God was at work bringing that world into being.
So it is worth asking: what is God dreaming of today?
Takeaway: Christian hope for justice is rooted in God's own vision for the world. What might God be dreaming for your community, and how could you join in?
Source: Martin Luther King Jr., "I Have a Dream", Washington, D.C., 28 August 1963.
A Workable Plan: Students Who Stood Up at a Shareholders' Meeting
Can a small group of people really change the behaviour of a multinational corporation? Sociologist and preacher Tony Campolo often told a story suggesting that, at least sometimes, they can.
He set his students at Eastern College in Pennsylvania an assignment: describe how a small group of Christians could bring about significant social change. One group focused on the operations of the Gulf and Western Corporation in the Dominican Republic, where it owned vast sugar plantations. Their proposal was so bold that one student asked, Why don't we actually do it?
Their plan was simple. Together with Campolo, each student bought a share in Gulf and Western, which entitled them to attend the company's annual shareholders' meeting and speak. One by one they stood up, read passages from the Bible condemning injustice, and asked why the company was treating poor workers so badly. They raised the low wages of sugar-cane workers, the way the economy had become dependent on a single crop, and the lack of education and health care for local communities.
Their aim was to shame the directors into action, and according to Campolo it worked. The company's leaders invited the students to discuss the issues. Some time later, Campolo said, the company announced a plan to act more responsibly in the Dominican Republic: partnering to provide health services, setting aside good land to grow food for local people and supporting education, including help to develop new training for teachers, nurses and other professionals.
What impressed Campolo most was not the cleverness of the plan but the faithfulness of the students. They were not wealthy, powerful or famous. Each of them owned a single share. But they took the Bible's call to justice seriously, and they were willing to stand up in a room full of executives and say so.
Campolo claimed that the company went on to invest very large sums in these programmes, improving thousands of lives. We have not been able to verify all of his figures independently. But the story has inspired many Christians to believe that faithful, creative action, even by a few people, can challenge powerful institutions to act justly.
Takeaway: A small group with a workable plan and a clear voice can make a difference. Justice often starts with ordinary people refusing to accept that nothing can change.
Source: Tony Campolo, You Can Make a Difference and Let Me Tell You a Story.
Living in Colour: What Pleasantville Teaches About Change
Do you ever wish we could go back to the wholesome, stable world of the past, where life seemed simpler and easier? That is the question explored in the 1998 film Pleasantville.
Its central characters are teenage twins David and Jennifer, played by Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon, who are each struggling in their own way with the pressures of modern life and a family broken by divorce. Jennifer throws herself into parties and boyfriends. David withdraws into his room, escaping into his favourite television show, a 1950s black-and-white sitcom called Pleasantville, which seems to offer everything he longs for: simple lives, intact families, stability and clear values.
One day the twins fight over the television remote and break it. A strange television repairman appears and gives them an unusual replacement. When they press the button, they are transported into the world of the sitcom itself. They find themselves trapped in Pleasantville, where everything is neat, simple and black and white. They are now the children of a traditional 1950s family: Mum stays home to cook and clean, and Dad comes home each evening calling out that he is home.
David knows every episode by heart and decides to play along. There is something appealing about this simple world. Jennifer is horrified and refuses to follow its rules. David warns her she will destroy these people's way of life. She does change it, and in many ways, the film suggests, for the better.
The reason everything is so pleasant in Pleasantville, it turns out, is that nobody is allowed to be fully themselves. Everyone conforms to what is expected. Jennifer's new mother has never been allowed to explore her own desires. The owner of the soda shop secretly dreams of being an artist. The high school basketball team wins every game but has no idea how to cope with failure.
Inspired by Jennifer's rule-breaking, people begin to discover their own longings and gifts. Her mother begins to think about her own life and one evening does not have dinner waiting when her husband comes home. The shop owner starts to paint. The teenagers begin exploring romance, at first, the film admits, without much wisdom. And as people change, they begin to turn from black and white into colour.
The reaction of those in power is swift. Confused at first, the town's leading men soon become convinced that society is falling apart. They hold meetings, pass rules against the "coloured" people and try to shame them back into line. An ugly undercurrent of intimidation and violence appears as some resent the changes. But nothing can stop them.
By the end of the film, the world in full colour is more complicated and less safe than the black-and-white version. People have to learn new roles and make real moral choices. Those who held power have lost the convenience of a world arranged around their needs. Yet people are living in colour, and they seem more alive.
In one of the film's most striking scenes, the town council meets in a hall where the black-and-white citizens sit downstairs and the coloured citizens are made to sit in the balcony, an image that deliberately echoes the segregation of the American South. Later the shop owner is put on trial for painting a colourful mural, and the courtroom itself becomes the place where the old order begins to crack, as people discover feelings and convictions they had never been allowed to express.
The film also shows how fear drives resistance to change. The leaders of Pleasantville are not simply villains. Many of them genuinely believe they are protecting something good, and they are afraid of losing a world in which they knew their place. But their fear leads them to deny others the dignity of being fully human.
The film is not a Christian story, and viewers will disagree about some of its messages, especially its view of sexual freedom. But it raises searching questions about change and justice. A black-and-white world can be one in which the hopes of one group are protected by suppressing the hopes of others. Change can be messy and risky. And people who believe they hold the moral high ground can become harsh, vindictive and willing to force their views on others.
For Christians, the challenge is to tell the difference between good order and oppressive control, and to seek a world where every person made in God's image can flourish.
Takeaway: Justice sometimes means unsettling an order that works well for some and badly for others. "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed" (Isaiah 1:17).
Source: Pleasantville (1998), written and directed by Gary Ross.
Final thoughts
A philosopher's awakening, a parable of keys, a daughter's hard question, a man in the dock, a dream on the Lincoln Memorial steps and students at a shareholders' meeting. Together they remind us that justice is not optional for God's people.
For further reading, Sopranu reviews 12 Angry Men and W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk.
Where is God calling you to move from charity to justice?
More stories you may like:
These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.
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