Pathways to Justice

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Don Posterski Don Posterski (Personal use only -- No distribution (Personal use only -- No distribution without permission)without permission)

Pathways to Justice…

Justice involves living right and making life right with others… it is life-giving


Injustice is like cancer. If it is not contained – it spreads.

If it is not treated – it kills the human spirit


In the face of inequity, the spirit of justice stops and asks “Why?”

More than feeding the hungry and housing the homeless, the spirit of justice distinguishes between help for the moment and building capacities for sustained living.


For followers of Jesus, pursing justice is not so much conforming to legislative codes of conduct as it is embracing the code of loving your neighbour as yourself.

It is being moved with both conviction and compassion to respond to what people lack…

education, employment, safety and security,food, water and healthcare,dignity, equity, inclusion and opportunity.

Our call is to inspire --the strong to protect the weak, the rich to champion the poor and

t the powerful to bias their actions for the benefit of the disenfranchised.

Including the

Excluded

Including the Excluded…

Injustice is inhumane – justice is a human right… the right of every person created in the image of God.

__________________

“Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life” Nelson Mandela


Life for too many people on planet earth ought not to be the way it is. ____________________

“The contemporary age is not short of terrible and nasty happenings, but the persistence of extensive hunger in a world of unprecedented prosperity is surely one of the worst. What makes this widespread hunger even more of a tragedy is the way we have come to accept and tolerate it as an integral part of the modern world, as if it is a tragedy that is essentially unpreventable.”

Amartya Sen (Nobel Prize in Economics)


Overcoming the injustices of inequity and exclusion with the justice of equal access and fairness for all.

____________________Injustice gains the upper hand when the HIV/AIDS

pandemic is blamed solely on sexual practices. For newborn babies who do not receive medical intervention, when death can be postponed with drugs and it is not, when young girls and wives are coerced by aggressive male behaviour, when political leaders put money in their own pockets instead of caring for orphans -- HIV/AIDS is a justice issue.

Challenging cultural practices

Challenging Cultural Practices…

Surrendering privileges for the greater benefit of the common good.

_____________________The aspiration of the common good seeks to

distribute the benefits of public life for the well being of the total society. Progress toward the common good happens when taxes are proportionately collected from the rich and poor and disproportionately shared with those who have greater needs. Practicing the golden rule to “do to others as you would have them to do you” can lead to the common good. The global challenge is for rich nations to express generous measures of “common good” for the sake of achieving greater “global good.”

Challenging Cultural Practices…Some justice is better than no justice… more justice is better

than less justice… true justice is marked by sustainable justice

_____________________Cultures are like people – they need impetus to change. And unless society’s shapers act with intentionality, we live like rudderless ships passing in the night. We drift. We stay out of each others way… There is no pursuit of justice in a rudderless culture. Budgets are exempt from the rigors of moral examination. Political decision makers act to retain their power. The favoured people press for more privileges. The unfavoured remain unfavoured. Some justice does not become more justice. The movement toward a more

just society is stymied.

.

Challenging Cultural Practices…

Imagining a global world that doesn’t yet exist.

_____________________Imaginative visions for justice can come true… “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” (Martin Luther King Jr.) I have a dream that every person on earth will have access to safe water… that the right of primary education will be available to all… that fair trade will lead to fair wages… that sexual exploitation of children will not be tolerated anywhere in the world.

I have a dream that… I have a dream that… I have a dream that…

Confronting the

powerful

Confronting the Powerful…

Injustice has both individual and social dimensions. Every social issue has a human face. Personal injustice is often the consequence of structural injustice.

_________________“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a

beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch, you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Confronting the Powerful…

The pursuit of justice can transcend political ideology. Whoever rules in society is obligated to protect and empower the vulnerable.

_______________________

The pathways to justice are not restricted to any race or creed. Neither is the practice of pursuing justice the exclusive right of any nation or culture. It is when people in positions of power are empowering the poor and generating common good opportunities that they are fulfilling their mandate to govern.

Confronting the powerful…

God’s justice mandate commends global citizenship where people with more champion people with less.

_____________________“Although the majority of the world is improving

economically, income disparities are still enormous: 2% of the world’s richest people own more than 50% of the world’s wealth, while the poorest 50% own 1%. And the income of the 225 richest people in the world is equal to that of the poorest 2.7 billion, 40% of the world.”

2007 State of the Future, The Millennium Project World Federation of UN Associations

Advocating for the

oppressed

Advocating for the Oppressed…

Discerning what is wrong and caring enough to do something about it.

____________________

“Ours is the work of repairing the ruins, the calling to act with responsibility for history, hoping for the renewal of all things, even as we know that at our best we are pilgrims in the ruins.”

Steven Garber

Advocating for the oppressed..

Advocating together to fashion a more just world. Effective ADVOCACY:

Addresses issues of injustice Designs strategies to alter systems Values vulnerable people as agents of change Offers expertise to implement objectives Convinces power structures to alter policies

Accesses like-minded people to join the causeChanges policies, practices and perceptionsYearns for justice that leads to sustainablility

Advocating for the oppressed…

God pursues justice. We serve God by advocating with others… particularly the poor and vulnerable.

__________________“But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and

ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house, God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives, God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war, God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.” Bono of U2


A justice vision for the world imagines that people everywhere have opportunities to flourish

__________________

Young people and those who are older, people living in less developed countries and those living in more developed countries all have opportunities to learn and work, to live with measures of dignity and pursue their personal potential.


Surely, it is time to embrace a fresh vision…

__________________A vision that makes more space…. Prompts

more prayer… Allocates more resources and extends more energy

A vision that seeks justice for those who are destined to live with less – too much less

Pathways to Justice

A justice vision where…

Children learn and play,

Mothers and fathers work, lead and love,

Families build houses and live in them,

People sing and dance,

Creation and nations thrive,

And -- God smiles…

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Pathways to Justice