Doing Justice or Learning about Justice?
I think Progressive Christianity has a problem. Progressive Christians like to talk about social justice, learn about justice, and complain about injustice a whole bunch, but when it comes to “doing justice”… well, in my opinion, some of us stink. Preferring to keep our heads in books and griping about all that’s bad in the world, we avoid building relationship or doing anything about injustices. This issue became clear to me in a course I took this semester. In order to fulfill my seminary’s global justice requirement, I needed to complete a field experience which confronted global justice issues. Most students at my seminary meet this requirement by going on a global justice trip, studying justice issues in other parts of the world—like poverty in South America made worse by the US market or apartheid in South Africa. My understanding of these trips is that students study, do advocacy, build relationships, and confront how their own privilege negatively affects others a