Does the concept of justice extend to social issues?

[Xeno.of.athens]

In the Holy Scriptures, it's common for God to give legislation to protect the poor and to protect people who are called strangers living in the land. It is interesting to think how much of Scripture is devoted to this notion of just treatment for social issues. We are Christians, representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are called ambassadors of Christ in this world. Do we think of Justice in the same way that God does?

 

[Richard T]

We should think of justice that way but we do not. I'm afraid the secular world has too many wrong ideas about justice that spillover to Christians. The current system is basically bankrupt in all sorts of ways, from crime to how we treat criminals, from the environment to all other policies that protect or enrich corporations rather than fight the ills of society. Large intergenerational debt that the church has basically ignored, the extension of rights to groups or classes that are contrary to the word of God. Yes, the church takes a stand on some of these things but on many things there is a big void. One big problem to me is that most are ruled by their senses, aka flesh, not their spirit. Even those that walk in the spirit though have enormous obstacles to climb to be heard. Yes, God can make a way but I fear he is ignoring us until we are serous about his getting his help. I'm not arrogant to say that I am any better, I just pray we all try to do better and to have God's true perspective in what we say and do.

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

from crime to how we treat criminals

When you read the Old Testament, it's really interesting to think about how God wanted justice to be apportioned to people regarding matters like theft, or physical injury inflicted on another person unintentionally. The system of justice that God gave wasn't built around imprisonment and punishment through imprisonment. God had a restorative justice system where people were to pay double or more damages for the things that their actions had caused. If they refused to pay or were incapable of paying, then they would pay through labour. The labour was extracted in a slave master relationship, which we wouldn't tolerate today, but it was still there. There was still a need to repay to repair the damages that you had caused. But our justice system is more about Imprisonment and about punishment it's not about restoration for the people who were injured. We care more about vengeance than we do about restoration for the people who were injured. I think maybe we should revisit the notion of restorative justice.