August 28, 2025
The Church’s Role in Supporting the Disability Community
Scripture clearly calls upon the church supporting the physical, emotional, social, and financial needs of the disability community.
Justice
Justice explores how Christians pursue what is right in God’s sight while loving neighbors and seeking the good of their communities. Find biblically grounded articles on righteousness, mercy, reconciliation, and the church’s witness—addressing real-world questions with clarity, humility, and compassion. You’ll also discover guidance for engaging difficult topics, serving the vulnerable, and practicing justice that flows from the character of God and the teachings of Jesus. These resources aim to help believers and churches respond faithfully, avoid false shortcuts, and live out the gospel in word and deed.
July 8, 2022
Lawyer, Preacher Fred Gray Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
President Joe Biden lauded Fred Gray as “one of the most important civil rights lawyers in our history” Thursday as he awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Gray, 91, is a longtime minister and elder with the noninstrumental Churches of Christ.
May 1, 2021
We Were Made for This
How your church can build on your pandemic compassion with both spiritual justice and social justice.
November 9, 2018
The Silent Struggle of Suburban Poverty
By Kelly Carr Grocery shopping can be a tedious task rather than a joyous undertaking—but stepping through this market’s doors in Parker, Colorado, you are immediately welcomed with encouraging smiles. A personal shopping assistant steps forward to guide you among the shelves packed to the ceiling with delicious options. Turning the corner, the refrigerated section has dairy, eggs, and every cut of meat you could want. The most colorful moment comes when you reach the back aisle—there before you lies a rainbow of beautiful, mouth-watering produce. It sounds like a typical visit to Whole Foods or a local farmer’s market—a
November 2, 2018
Poverty Encounter
Immersive Environment Tells Poverty’s True Story By Mel McGowan This December, the world will have the opportunity to understand poverty in a whole new light. When Children’s Hunger Fund (CHF) first told me about their idea for a walk-through attraction about poverty, I knew it would be a project like no other. Born in the mind of CHF president and founder Dave Phillips years earlier, the project had already taken shape to some degree. He and his team had brought the idea to friends within Walt Disney Imagineering for help conceptualizing the project. Then, they brought those ideas to
December 30, 2017
12 Ways to Protect Your Congregation in a Litigious Culture
By TR Robertson “We face a true crisis in our Constitution as it relates to religious liberty. . . . I cannot think of another time when there have been greater challenges.” Joshua Hawley delivered this warning at the 2016 Protecting Religious Freedom Conference sponsored by Central Christian College of the Bible, Moberly, Missouri, and Forum Christian Church, Columbia, Missouri. Hawley is now attorney general of Missouri, but at the time, he was a professor at the University of Missouri. He and his MU School of Law colleague Carl Esbeck are both experienced religious liberty litigators. Hawley and Esbeck weren”t
July 19, 2017
Man of Sorrows
By Jackina Stark She stood at a fourth-floor window overlooking the city of Phnom Pehn. She had spent a week in Battambang, Cambodia, at Rapha House, working with those who minister to the girls rescued from sex slavery, and in Phnom Pehn, visiting hundreds of poor children who attend the Kids Club, a prevention ministry. Her fellow workers had gone to the street market, letting her beg off. In the room, utterly quiet now, her gaze fell on the area of the city where at that very moment she knew girls, some children, were being sexually used and abused. Her
March 19, 2017
Uphold the Cause
By T.R. Robertson When I identify myself with the outcasts of society that too many condemn or ignore, I am prepared to serve them in a way that pleases God. This past fall, during the heat of the presidential campaign, yet another political link appeared on my Facebook feed. The gist of the headline was that Muslims were threatening to leave the United States in protest. Typical clickbait””it didn”t tempt me to keep reading for the details. But I did notice the comments from people on Facebook, most of whom probably didn”t read beyond the headline either: “Good-bye!” “Thank the
November 28, 2016
A Different View of the Oppressed
By Casey Tygrett Oppressed. What does that word evoke for you? I typed oppression into Google, clicked Search, and it returned 36.5 million results. There is a lot being said about oppression. And Scripture says much about oppression, too. In fact, the word oppression appears nearly 4,500 times there. The first Bible story about oppression details the plight of the Israelites in Egypt and the beautifully momentous exodus that set them loose to chase the everlasting land and the everlasting covenant under the everlasting God. It”s a wonderful story, but it begins with oppression. To Be Helpless, to Be
November 15, 2016
Tell and Show
By Mark A. Taylor It”s one thing to talk about justice; it”s another to work for it. It”s one thing to study justice; it”s another to seek it. But talking and studying are important, of course, especially at first. So in posts at this site this month we”re talking about the justice God seeks for those beaten down by society and circumstances. Three writers look at Scripture to see God”s compassion and the gospel”s concern for those ill served by the systems and situations trapping them in poverty, homelessness, or despair. Look again at the prophecy of Amos, the experience
November 14, 2016
Seeking a Justice That Transforms
By Preston Shipp From the prosecutor”s office to advocacy for the imprisoned: a journey toward a new kind of justice. The United States has an immense population of marginalized people locked away in its prisons. It is the largest prison population in the history of the world, approximately 2.3 million people. As a result of America”s war on drugs, which has been waged over the past four decades and disproportionately against poor people of color, many of these people are serving long sentences for nonviolent crimes. The collateral damage, both emotional and financial, of such mass incarceration to children, spouses,
November 11, 2016
Missional Justice
By Kip Lines What is justice for followers of Jesus? What does it mean for the church to demonstrate God”s justice in the world? These are difficult questions I”ve discovered often lead to unexpected answers. In Kenya, together with Turkana church leaders, our missionary team sought to envision what it would look like in our communities if God really was in charge . . . if our following Jesus meant the kingdom of God was truly breaking into our human kingdoms. You might expect the largest injustice issues in a developing nation would be items like hunger and food security,
November 10, 2016
Other Women, Other Fields
By Troy Jackson God hears the cries of those suffering from injustice. Do we? The Bible”s story of Ruth challenges us to look with new eyes at the plight of those still seeking justice today. When many think of justice, they reflect on the inequities that plague our communities and our world. Others consider the hundreds of millions of people who have little access to clean water. Some mourn for those caught in the horrors of human trafficking, and some are angered when they know people are mistreated and wounded because of race or gender or ethnicity or even geography.
November 7, 2016
Pursuing Justice in an Unjust World
By Mark W. Hamilton What does a just community look like? Is the American church such a community? Do we live out the call of the prophet Micah to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before God?”* These questions confront anyone who studies the history of American Christianity. From that history we learn that Christians used the Bible to defend slavery and oppose it, to silence women and empower them, to cheer on Bull Connor”s corrupt police in Birmingham, Alabama, and to walk through hostile crowds in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Selma, Alabama, during the civil rights movement. Today,
November 6, 2016
Seek First the Kingdom and Its Justice
By Robert L. Foster I work with a task force that connects churches with undocumented communities in partnerships that help our undocumented neighbors with the challenges they face here in the United States. Recently, at a church conference, the task force displayed an information table where churches and individuals signed up to receive information or to invite a speaker to talk to their church about creating such partnerships. Near the end of one day, a volunteer at our table overheard an attendee say, “We need to get away from all this talk about immigration and multiculturalism and get back Jesus.”
August 14, 2016
Why Them?
By Jennifer Johnson In her memoir Lit, Mary Karr quotes her father speaking about the well-off: “Born on third base, . . . and they think they hit a home run.” I was born on second base, at least, and when I was a kid the game was black and white. People who don”t have jobs should get them, if you”re a responsible and hard-working person you will be able to afford a place to live, and only those with lesser character would need a hand up or a handout. I never heard things put so starkly by my parents,
June 27, 2016
Trust Talks
By Delonte Gholston On a Saturday last April, a group of pastors and other faith leaders brought together a broad cross-section of the downtown community to talk about a rash of officer-involved shootings in Los Angeles and the rest of the country. Under the banner of the Downtown Los Angeles Clergy Council, they called this gathering the inaugural meeting of the Trust Talks. These first talks, hosted at the Last Bookstore in downtown, gathered more than 100 business owners, loft dwellers, residents in single resident occupancy hotels (called SROs), homeless people, community activists, service providers, faith leaders, and Los Angeles
June 14, 2016
Just a Beginning
By Mark A. Taylor We know at least two things about our posts about racial justice at this site this month. First, we know they are inadequate. They do not convey the scope or the whole burden of the race problem in America. “¢ They only hint at the fact that America”s fortunes were built and wealth was created on the backs of those enslaved in a land that abused them while proclaiming “All men are created equal.” “¢ They barely mention the long history of egregious statements from both church and state claiming that Africans and African-Americans are somehow
February 10, 2016
Welcome Home, Syrians
By Jim Tune I”m not overly patriotic. Most Canadians aren”t. We have no equivalent to country singer Lee Greenwood”s song “God Bless the U.S.A.” with its nationalistic and stirring refrain, “I”m proud to be an American where at least I know I”m free.” All that said, a news flash popped up in my Twitter feed a few months ago that made me extraordinarily proud of my country. Originally tweeted by Neville Park, this message quickened this Canadian”s pulse: “MEANWHILE IN CANADA: Syrian refugees arriving. Airport is worried they will be overwhelmed by well-wishers.” Syrian refugees? Overwhelmed by well-wishers? Yes!
August 12, 2015
Armed and Dangerous
By Jim Tune A few years ago, a Seeds of Compassion event in Seattle, Washington, was organized around the visit of the Dalai Lama. One of the highlights was a joint speech by the Dalai Lama and South African bishop Desmond Tutu. Both men have committed their lives to peace and nonviolence. Their humanitarian work has saved lives and made the world a safer place. Both men espouse the value of enemy love. Both are committed to the call to love their enemies just as they would love their friends. They have lived out this commitment in ways most of
