Quotes about Justice

The death penalty did not flourish in America in spite of Christians but because of us. So

truth is that much stands in the way of God's will for our world, beasts like what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the giant triplets of evil: racism, militarism, and materialism.

And in a very special way, as Jesus says in Matthew 25:40, in the least of these, we find Jesus in disguise. Perhaps we are just as likely to encounter God over the dinner table or in the slums or in the streets as in a giant auditorium. Of course, suggesting that God doesn't need these million-dollar megacathedrals is the sort of thing that gets you in big trouble.

Church father Ignatius said that if our church is not marked by caring for the poor, the oppressed, and the hungry, then we are guilty of heresy.

So I am a radical in the truest sense of the word: an ordinary radical who wants to get at the root of what it means to love, and to get at the root of what has made such a mess of our world.

What do we do when the foolishness of the cross actually makes more sense than the wisdom of the sword?

On the wall of New Jerusalem is a sign that reads, "We cannot fully recover until we help the society that made us sick recover.

Violence is often the instrument of those who are impatient, those who lack imagination, those who cannot wait on justice or freedom or redemption.

Jesus never says to the poor, 'Come find the church,' but he says to those of us in the church, 'Go into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned,' Jesus in his disguises.

Limiting violence was a good place to start. Abolishing it is a good place to end.

I'm just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, "When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me," or, "When I was naked, you donated clothes to the Salvation Army and they clothed me." Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love: "you fed me…you visited me in prison…you welcomed me into your home…you clothed me.

God's love and justice are much more dynamic than many of our theologies allow for.