Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

Lent 2015

Academic Justice? (Scholar’s Compass)

Dennison Lent Photo

Memory Verse

Seek justice, protect the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Isaiah 1:17

Reflection

My wife said it was not going to be easy. I knew she was right.

She was referring to my current research. I am interviewing persons with disabilities in Uganda.

My wife and I have lived in Uganda since 2008 so we are aware of the challenges people face here. We also know that challenges are especially intense among Ugandans with disabilities. [Read more…] about Academic Justice? (Scholar’s Compass)

Re-Interpreting Our Explanation Systems (Scholar’s Compass)

Job Talks to God croppedImage: Job Talks to God

Drawing on her experience as lecturer and head of the Mission department at West Africa Theological Seminary in Lagos, Nigeria, Chinyere Priest contributes to our Lent justice series with further reflections on how our explanation systems can be just or unjust, empathetic or lacking empathy. Read Chinyere’s previous ESN reflections on pursuing justice as a Christian academic here.

If you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent,  then, free of fault, you will lift up your face; you will stand firm and without fear. Job 11:14-15, NIV

In many societies when misfortune occurs many do not just stand and fold their hands in despair; rather they endeavor to overcome the crisis by searching for the right explanation system to explain the situation. Some use moral causal ontology in which misfortune is interpreted as one’s own sin, or interpersonal causal ontology in which a malevolent person must be responsible, or scientific causal ontology in which the problem is caused by either biology or psychology, or spiritual causal ontology in which demonic powers are causing the misfortune. The choice of explanation is a personal and community choice. [Read more…] about Re-Interpreting Our Explanation Systems (Scholar’s Compass)

Navigating Justice: Defender of the Accused (Scholar’s Compass)

 

Drawing on her experience as lecturer and head of the Mission department at West Africa Theological Seminary in Lagos, Nigeria, Chinyere Priest contributes to our Lent justice series with a reflection on pursuing justice as a Christian academic. She shares a story from a forthcoming paper, “Why Nigerian Christians Accuse People of Witchcraft,” then meditates on God’s justice as a theological scholar. 

When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them. - Isaiah 19:20b

Narrative from Chinyere’s forthcoming paper: Uche, a mother, was tormented and beaten severely by her husband due to her failure to bear a male child. So, she found an additional wife for him to marry with hope that this wife would give him a son to end the torture she experienced. In fact, the co-wife (Nkechi) also bore him female children. Ten years later, Uche bore a male child while Nkechi did not. Their husband experienced a poor harvest; within eight days, four young men died in that family via accidents and other means. Conflict ensued between the wives. Nkechi accused Uche of being a witch who is responsible for the poor harvest, Nkechi’s failure to bear male children, and for all the concurrent deaths in the family. The husband and some other family members believed her and tortured Uche in a very cruel manner. [Read more…] about Navigating Justice: Defender of the Accused (Scholar’s Compass)

Scholar’s Compass: God Was the First to Cry, Part 2

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In the second of her two part series, Lauri Swann reflects on Navigating Justice for the Scholar’s Compass Lent series. 

“God was the first to cry.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma

[H]e will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. – Revelation 21:4, NRSV

Reflection

Yes, God was the first to cry. Just like God was the first to set His face upon evil to (Leviticus 20:6); to stretch out his hand (Isaiah 23:11), to be sorry (Genesis 6:6) and to grieve (1 Samuel 15:35). God cried and cries. Why? And for whom?

In the movie Selma, I would dare say that King’s reference to God’s cry was in the context of the senseless loss of life, for the hatred that killed Jimmy Lee, and for the unnecessary pain that is experienced when an elder must bury the younger. However, I would also dare say that God also cried, and cries, for the poor. God cries for the poor who unconsciously and consciously commit murder by withholding the love, grace and mercy—gateways to the kingdom of heaven being at hand. God cries for those who are victimized by such a withholding and thus suffer the consequences when God’s gifts, thus God, is withheld. King makes us aware that God cries. The word of God makes us aware that God cries (John 11:35). Thus it is only right that we who are Christians, and particularly during this season of reflection and repentance, remember to not only cry for that which grieves the heart of God—the injustices that plague God’s created order and God’s created—but that we listen to the cry of the other and respond with love, grace and mercy. We are called to be the incarnate witness of the one who is immeasurable.

Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be answered. —Proverbs 21:13 (Tanakh)

In the movie, King points us to one who is greater. In his teachings on human dignity, King taught us that the cries of the poor must not be stopped and woe to the one who does so. In essence, he manifested Proverbs 21:13. King believed that our ability to not only cry but to encourage others is a call of and responsibility to humanity, a broken humanity, within community. Within the first part of the Proverbs verse is the indictment of humanity. “Whoso” refers to any single person despite class, race, gender, Christian, saved and unsaved that refuses to hear the cry of the poor (economic, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) which includes the marginalized, the suffering, the neglected, oppressed, and those who seek justice.  Those who cry refers to those who come “from a place of God-forsakenness and out of an impotent subjection to the superior power of evil” (Moltman 57) but it also comes from the other side of justice—the perpetrators, the offenders, murders, gang members, pimps, and racists—those who have become the willing accomplices of evil, and involuntarily slaves of violence. Both victim and perpetrator are in need of a healing hand; both are in need of God’s restorative power; both are in need of God’s manifestation of love, reconciliation, and hope. Both are in need of our cry.

When one recognizes the indelible truth that we are made in the image of God, there is a call to relieve the suffering of those who are bound. The response to such a call should come with great joy. This is what one does as a Christian. This is what one does as part of the divine family. We love together, extend grace together, and we cry together. During this season of Lent, let us be mindful that God did indeed cry first.

Question

God was the first to cry. Will you be the second?

Prayer

Let us pray: God, I thank you that you cried first. I thank you that, before I was angered, you were angered; before I grieved, you grieved; before I was confused and hurt, you felt it first. I thank you for being so engaged in my life that you count the very tears that fall. I am thankful that in your infinite ability, you are able to take the tears of pain and shame and mold them into a crown for your glory. This is what you did for me. This is what you have done for us. Let us, in this season of reflection and sacrifice, remember that the greatest sacrifice is to remove self-will and to replace with your will. And your will is to not only cry for justice, like you, like King, but to respond, like Jesus the Christ in love, grace, and mercy—the infinite gifts provided only and without measure by you, O God, the infinite one. Amen.

Further Reading

Jurgen Moltman, In the End, the Beginning: The Life of Hope. Fortress Press, p. 57.

Image: Civil Rights Memorial, photo courtesy of Colin Mutchler, quotation based on Amos 5:24. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mlk_quote.jpg

Scholar’s Compass: God Was the First To Cry, Part 1

 

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In this two part series, Lauri Swann reflects on Navigating Justice for the Scholar’s Compass Lent series. 

“God was the first to cry.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma

Reflection

In the movie Selma, Martin Luther King, Jr. is seen consoling Mr. Cager Lee, an 82 year old man, who is in the morgue identifying the body of his grandson, Jimmy Lee Jackson. Jimmy, killed in 1965 during a peaceful protest in Selma, Alabama by a state trooper, was only 27 years old. With no other words worthy enough to provide comfort for the man whose only grandson was shot down before his eyes, Martin Luther King, Jr. simply states:

“God was the first to cry.” [Read more…] about Scholar’s Compass: God Was the First To Cry, Part 1