Apparently, Pastor Luke was impressed by our recent Peace Vigil despite the lackluster results. Today, after services, he asked me to head the church's Peace and Social Justice Committee. As far as I know, I am the only member of this committee, but everything has to start somewhere, right?
Anyway, this got me to thinking. Just what the heck does "social justice" mean? It seems sort of an ambiguous term. Perhaps, it refers to justice in the general sense. If you just said "justice," folks might assume that you mean it in the legal sense. However, there sure seems to be more to the concept of justice than the laws enacted by government.
It also seems that peace and justice are somehow linked. Folks tend to get pretty steamed when they think they have been wronged. Now, I'm not saying that people aren't starting wars out of greed or a lust for power. I just think that those folks are in the minority. They people toting the rifles around can't be motivated by just that. They are motivated by a sense of injustice.
So, maybe Osama bin Laden hates the decadent lifestyle of the West and is driven by some sense of moral outrage. However, I think the folks who are fighting for him are doing so because they perceive that their people have somehow been wronged. Whether they are right or wrong about that perception isn't really the issue. If they believe it to be true, they will fight.
So, it appears to ol' Stevie Joe that getting a handle on this social justice thing should be a pretty high priority if we want to have some peace. Well, I'll get to work on it, and let you know what I come up with.
Peace out,
Stevie Joe Parker
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Stumble It!
No comments:
Post a Comment