Doing Justice and Loving Mercy: Compassion Ministries, Mentor's Guide, MG16

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D O I N G J U S T I C E A N D L O V I N G M E R C Y : C O M P A S S I O N M I N I S T R I E S

As disciples of Jesus Christ and members of his body, the Church, we are charged with the duty to apply his kingdom ethic of doing justice and loving mercy to the very ends of the earth. Believers are not called to live unconcerned to the issues and populations of the world. Rather, we are called by God to be “world Christians” (not worldly ones), thinking globally but acting locally . As members of the Church, each local congregation is both an outpost and beachhead of the Kingdom, called to demonstrate freedom, wholeness, and justice in its engagement with the world, responding in love, obeying the leading of its head, the Lord Jesus Christ. We must respond aggressively to poverty and oppression and the protection of the environment in our own locales, grounding our responses in a biblical worldview that highlights God’s sovereignty as Creator and Lord of the earth. Doing so will allow us to freely and practically model in specific projects what it means to demonstrate the justice and mercy of God at home and abroad. Believers in Jesus Christ are called to represent the life and ethic of the Kingdom of God, and as such, we are called to affirm and express a biblical vision of the concept of difference. The concept of difference has many implications for doing justice and loving mercy: differences are spiritually important, real, socially significant, and not necessarily bad or wrong. Differences tend to alienate and divide groups, and may erect barriers between and among people, leading to paternalism, suspicion, and malice, and even to violence, abuse, genocide, and war. Historically, Christians have responded to issues of war in three ways: total pacifism, the theory of the “just war,” and relative pacifism, a view which has emerged in light of the threat of nuclear destruction. We ought to adopt a strategy of Christian peacemaking which acknowledges, celebrates, and welcomes differences among people in light of Christ’s incarnation.

Restatement of the Lesson’s Thesis

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If you are interested in pursuing some of the ideas of Doing Justice and Loving Mercy: Society and World , you might want to give these books a try:

Resources and Bibliographies

Carle, Robert D., and Louis A Decaro, Jr., eds. Signs of Hope in the City: Ministries of Community Renewal . Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1997.

Linthicum, Robert C. Empowering the Poor . Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1991.

Perkins, John, ed. Restoring At-Risk Communities . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995.

Schlossberg, Herbert, Vinay Samuel, and Ronald J. Sider, eds. Christianity and Economics in the Post-Cold War Era: The Oxford Declaration and Beyond . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.