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August 20, 2007
To quantify justice.
One can define justice broadly, but IJM’s definition has a clear, straightforward component, and that is the abuse of power used to take from another human what is rightfully theirs—life, dignity, or the fruits of their love and labor. Such oppression is a clear focus of God’s disfavor, which gives IJM, a Christian faith-based organization, a solid Biblical foundation for its work, much like it did for Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King, Jr.
After a summer of working on this foundation at IJM, it seems obvious that every Christian should have a desire to see victims around the world rescued from oppression- children taken out of brothels, generations freed from their family’s debt bondage in a brick kiln, millions of prisoners released from illegal detention, and the perpetrators of unprosecuted murder, rape, and abuse brought to justice so that others may be deterred. This cruelty still exists, however. Slavery still exists. How can so many churches stand silent to that cry?
The church is a vast, untapped resource of funding, will, and skill and is capable of contributing to the quieting of that cry. So if the church is silent now, it is the IJM Education Department’s hope that it will not remain so. Therefore it is critical for us to gauge the degree to which the church is already engaged in “justice issues.” When IJM started, almost no one was talking about injustice in the sense that IJM’s clients experience it. Thirteen years later, we want to measure if and how that has changed. Is the church talking about justice more or less, and in what context?
Answering that question is a bulk of my work has been at IJM's headquarters. Our mode of quantification is an analysis of the various contexts and frequencies in which the word “justice” appears within Christianity Today articles. Christianity Today is a non-denominational publication that discusses theology, worldviews, and general news from a evangelical Christian’s perspective. I am excited to report that the oppression of injustice around the world is a much more frequent topic of conversation in 2007 than it was just over ten years ago. But I’ll have to smooth out a few final details before I can present statistics…
Posted by Carrie Lutjens at August 20, 2007 08:15 PM
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