This report clearly pronounces a few things about the century-plus work of the CRC/CRCHM at Rehoboth. First is that "it was wrong" for the CRC to even go there.
I take it that "wrong" in this case translates to "sinful." Does anyone here agree with that the CRC/CRCHM merely going to Rehoboth was wrong, or sinful?
Secondly, the report pronounces, even if a bit indirectly, that the CRC/CRCNA regarded the native peoples in the area to be less than human, that when CRC/CRCNA people referred to native people's as "pagan" or "heathen," they were thereby considering them as less than human.
Does anyone here really believe the CRC/CRCHM, including the individuals who worked in the Rehoboth area with the native peoples there, considered the native peoples to be less than human?
Third, the report pretty clearly accuses the CRC/CRCHM of intending to take from the native peoples that which belonged to them when establishing Rehoboth for the sake of the CRC/CRCHM.
While I don't believe women should be excluded by rule from any church offices, I also don't believe we should seek mathematical, or even approximate mathematical, gender parity in church offices, nor in delegation to classis ir synod. Rather, we should allow that to happen as it happens, which means differing local contexts will aggregately and ultimately determine the delegation make up at the broader assemblies.
To do otherwise is just more "rule from the top," a perspective not consistent with our church order, nor conducive to the unity of CRC churches.
In other words, if indeed "churches are seeking a more complete representation of the body at synod," then those same churches (plural) will send delegates that represent what they seek, and the broader assemblies (and BOT and bureaucracy) should simply acquiesce in that result.
Your response to Ron Polinder, Peter, is intriguing to me -- even a bit stunning if I am to be honest.
You say, as I read it (see statements: "The report is definitely not balanced - and it was not intended to be. It concentrates on the missing, difficult, uncomfortable (for me) pieces of the truth that have been habitually left out of the story" and also, " there was considerable discussion on this point in the committee. In the end, it became clear to us that we needed to present the less admirable elements of European cultural heritage and Christian missions rather clearly and without an attempt to balance each negative observation, historical reference, or - most importantly - personal story with a positive observation, historical reference, or personal story."), that your committee deliberately presented 'one side of the story' in this report for the explicit purpose of making the CRC/CRCHM 100+ year involvement in Rehoboth look extra bad.
Let me suggest a real world metaphor to explain my cause for being stunned. I grew up in NW Iowa at a time (1960s and 70's) when much was different from now. I've occasionally remarked to others -- lawyer that I am -- that if my family's life was plucked from history, its practices discovered and measured by current standards, the government's child protection agency would have permanently removed me from my home. Why? Physical abuse (working more than most adults do today), housing abuse (we had no indoor toilet, a broken down house -- literally --, and lack of any heating system upstairs where we slept in Iowa winters), and some other reasons. Were the negative aspects of my upbringing extracted by a CRC study committee and reported without context, my parents would be abhored, despised, and thought of as true agents of evil by the report's readers. And so would many other farm parents in NW Iowa who had children my age.
And I suspect that some now-adults who were children raised in NW Iowa at that time, in those families, might today come to the CRC study committee and tell dark but true stories, and the study committee could choose to "concentrate" (as you say) on these "missing, difficult, uncomfortable ... pieces of the truth that have been habitually left out of the story," as you also say -- and a generation of NW Iowa farming parents would be thereafter defamed in the now-older years of their lives.
Yes, I use the word "defamed" with careful intention, because if my and other parents were subjected to the methodology apparently used, as you describe, by this study committee, the result would indeed be the defamation of my parents. Not, mind you, because of the facts told, but because of the facts not told, because of the historical and other context not offered, because of the unwillingness of the study committee to hear or report on the "buts" that the committee says in this report it didn't want to listen to or report on.
This kind of "defamation by selective reporting" is not an uncommon phenomena. If you have ever sat in a jury, or even watched a trial, you are familiar with the reality of a group of people (jury) being fully persuaded after one side gives its opening remarks, or after it presents its evidence, or after its closing arguments, but then brought back to reality when the other side has opportunity to present its "buts."
This study report intentionally presents only one side!! How in the world does that result in anything good? How does that methodogy not result in defamation?
In your response to Ron, you point to the use of the word "pagan" as a word inexcusably used in the past by CRC/CRCHM folk at Rehoboth. Huh? Except for the acquired stigma attached to the word in the past couple/few decades, the word "pagan" was a perfectly good word to use to denote (and I quote a dictionary definition), "1. a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions." Which brings up another "arc of the whole truth" problem with the committee's methodology. This report judges over 100 years of historical action (and, apparently, vocabulary used) by today's standards, as told (intentionally!) from only one side to boot. Again, wow!
Not mentioned in your above comment to Ron, but directly said in the report, this committee has concluded that the CRC/CRCHM should never have ever gone to New Mexico, that doing so was wrong. What an incredible conclusion. On the other hand, when one intentionally chooses to reduce a real life story down to a distilled concentrate of only that which was bad, I'm not sure you could reach another conclusion. But using this methodology would also result in the conclusion that my parents were wrong to give birth to me, and once given, continue to raise me.
To be perfectly clear, I have no case to make against my parents. And I suspect many parents and their grown children have conversations later in life when the kids express disappointments, anger and other negatives about their childhood and parents bemoan exactly and confess as to how they raised their children. I've done that some with my kids already. And in fact, this same sort of thing happened in the Reboboth community as well -- about 13 years ago! Given that, I'm baffled that a CRC study committee would want to attempt to do what this report does, just as if it would want to resurrect the regrets of my 1960s/1970s childhood family.
Finally, your comments also suggest that a major purpose of this report is so that we can "see[] ... a much larger critique of European-American cultural and religious values - not just a critique of Rehoboth and CRC Indian missions." As the report makes clear, that larger story begins several papal bulls (pronouncement by the Roman Catholic Pope) back in the 15th century?
Does enriching our historical understanding of a Roman Catholic doctrine starting in the 15th century really trump the harm of defaming so many who did so much good work at Rehoboth for over a century? If so, we really ought to be going back to studying the death of Guido de Bres, author of our own Belgic Confession. De Bres and his contemporaries were murdered by the combined efforts of the Roman Catholic Church (and Pope) and the Spanish king nearly a century after the start of the Doctrine of Discovery. No, I don't seriously make that suggestion, but indicate it to give some context to the value, or lack thereof, of defaming CRC/CRCHM people who did good work and honorable work at Rehoboth, so that we might better understand the permutations of a historical Roman Catholic doctrine from over half a millennium ago.
Danielle, I'm not unaware of the stories you refer to, including the details of some. They are not unlike what I would expect. But that doesn't really address or affect the points I've made.
You are involved in the indigenous issues in Canada, which is good. But if I understand correctly, the CRC was not involved in any indigenous schools in Canada. This is not to say you should discontinue your work in Canada on those issues, but it is to say that whatever whoever did in Canada should not be imputed in any to the CRC or CRCHM.
What the CRC/CRCHM did do was Rehoboth/Zuni. It certainly is appropriate to examine the record of the CRC/CRCHM in Rehoboth but when one does that (whether individually or as a study committee), one has to do it appropriately. Intentionally distilling over a century of CRC/CRCHM involvement in Rehoboth to its worst stories, refusing to consider/relate historical or cultural content in order to focus on the bad, is irresponsible, even shameful, just as some of those "worst stories" are shameful.
And then there are the conclusions made by the report, which conclusions really have no relationship to the stories. One of those conclusions is that it was simply wrong for the CRC to go to do Rehoboth (see page 40 of the report). That is an astounding conclusion, and if correct, really means we need to put an end to both home and foreign missions, because those efforts will be accompanied by "bad stories" as well -- its simply unavoidable this side of the second coming. This astonishing conclusion also represents a clear condemnation of the actions, sometimes representing the better part of some peoples' lives, of many CRC/CRCHM people, not to mention indigenous people who worked with this effort, taken over a century of time.
Another conclusion of the report, embedded throughout the report even if not so concisely stated, is that whatever bad actions of the the Pope back in the 15th century, and by others for centuries thereafter, that might in any tangential way be connected to the phrase "Doctrine of Discovery," are the responsibility of the CRC, including CRC agencies and members. The reasoning to support this conclusion is the mere repetitive stating of a cliche: we "drink downstream" from what was done. Wow! Given this almost glib technique for assessing responsibility, the CRC, including its agencies and all its members, are literally also responsible for the burning death of Guido de Bres (in the16th century), and probably the slavery of Irish, the slavery of Africans, the invasion of China by the Japanese, World War I, and million other things as well.
No, I'm not at all exaggerating, or at least no more than this report does. If we can be said to be responsible because we "drink downstream" from a few Papal bulls in the 15th century, we can be said to "drink downstream" from pretty much every significant event in human history beginning in the 15th century. This why I've previously characterized this report as little more than an exercise in self-loathing. It reminds me of some uber-liberal faculty members at some US university (I personally picture the University of Oregon), sitting in a circle, competing with each other in hurling accusations against "America," and especially the "white Europeans who came to American," of spoiling/destroying the world and oppressing everyone else in the process -- except in this case the accused is the CRC and its agencies and members.
The U of O faculty wouldn't permit any "buts" in their discussion either.
I could not agree more. Our children, the "youth of our denomination," can be and will be more affected and guided, whether for good or bad or some of each, by their family, a critically important extension of which, especially in the CRC perhaps, is their local congregation.
Most CRC kids don't really know (feel) what it means to be part of the CRC denomination, but they do know (feel) what it means to be part of (or not part of if that is the case) their local congregation.
Amen as to 1, 3 and 4. Forehead scrunches as to 2 and 5.
As to 2, I would favor learning about your neighbors, indigenous or otherwise.
As to 5, I would favor praying "locally on out." That is, pray first for those around you, then those around them, etc. If you get there, it's fine to pray for all the places on the planet you can't find on a label-free map, but we need to recognize that 1) we are finite, 2) the best prayer is that which is accompanied by some level of real world action. Hence my prescription for praying for "locally on out."
Actually, Bangladesh's problem result from increased population, de-forestation, pollution other than CO2, and other man-made molding to the environment -- far more so than sea rise caused by global CO2 emissions. It has become a poster-child for climate change alarmists, but Bangladesh's other problems dwarf those caused by climate change.
Sea rise has been happening -- although very slowly -- and is going to continue happening -- again, although very slowly --, whether fossil fuels increase the CO2 in the atmosphere or not. We are still on the recovery side of ice ages, geologically speaking and so the sea level is supposed to rise -- again even while very slowly. See at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise#/media/File:Trends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level,_1880-2013.png
Given the amount of public relations money behind the mantra that climate change is the cause of all troubles, it is not, and Bangladesh is one of the cases in point, even if climate change alarmists like to make Bangladesh their poster child.
Look, for example, at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/embankments-exacerbate-sea-level-rise-in-bangladesh/ and
http://bangladeshunique.blogspot.com/2010/07/deforestation-in-bangladesh.html and
http://blog.cifor.org/9434/bangladesh-forests-disappearing-at-alarming-rate-says-expert?fnl=en and
Larry: So exactly what to you mean when you say "take care of the poor?" My response clearly indicated that government had an obligation to provide a "safety net" but I'm not sure -- and said so in my comment to your post -- that qualifies as "providing for the poor," as you understand that phrase.
So let's clarify what we might be agreeing or disagreeing about. What do you mean when you say that "government should take care of the poor?"
I would enthusiastically agree that both churches and individuals do well in providing help to past or present incarcerated persons and their families. There are few areas of concern where the need is greater and potential impact more profitable.
But I do cringe at how this article frames what is discussed as strictly a matter of "justice." Indeed, neither the lead-in verse and sentence -- nor any other part of the post -- makes mention of "mercy." A better lead-in verse would be Micah 6:8, which commands us to both "do justice" and "love mercy."
As an attorney, I have been involved in questions of justice in behalf of inmates and ex-inmates. But we do well to clearly understand that we are obliged to extend mercy even when there is no question about justice. Most of those we should help out are in fact not "oppressed" persons we must "[let] free," as this articles states. Some should remain incarcerated inmates. Still, we do well to serve them, while incarcerated, and their family members waiting for their release -- because of our "love of mercy."
Posted in: Why the Church Should Pay Attention to the DOD Task Force
This report clearly pronounces a few things about the century-plus work of the CRC/CRCHM at Rehoboth. First is that "it was wrong" for the CRC to even go there.
I take it that "wrong" in this case translates to "sinful." Does anyone here agree with that the CRC/CRCHM merely going to Rehoboth was wrong, or sinful?
Secondly, the report pronounces, even if a bit indirectly, that the CRC/CRCNA regarded the native peoples in the area to be less than human, that when CRC/CRCNA people referred to native people's as "pagan" or "heathen," they were thereby considering them as less than human.
Does anyone here really believe the CRC/CRCHM, including the individuals who worked in the Rehoboth area with the native peoples there, considered the native peoples to be less than human?
Third, the report pretty clearly accuses the CRC/CRCHM of intending to take from the native peoples that which belonged to them when establishing Rehoboth for the sake of the CRC/CRCHM.
Does anyone here believe that?
Posted in: Where Are the Women at Synod?
While I don't believe women should be excluded by rule from any church offices, I also don't believe we should seek mathematical, or even approximate mathematical, gender parity in church offices, nor in delegation to classis ir synod. Rather, we should allow that to happen as it happens, which means differing local contexts will aggregately and ultimately determine the delegation make up at the broader assemblies.
To do otherwise is just more "rule from the top," a perspective not consistent with our church order, nor conducive to the unity of CRC churches.
In other words, if indeed "churches are seeking a more complete representation of the body at synod," then those same churches (plural) will send delegates that represent what they seek, and the broader assemblies (and BOT and bureaucracy) should simply acquiesce in that result.
Posted in: Why the Church Should Pay Attention to the DOD Task Force
Your response to Ron Polinder, Peter, is intriguing to me -- even a bit stunning if I am to be honest.
You say, as I read it (see statements: "The report is definitely not balanced - and it was not intended to be. It concentrates on the missing, difficult, uncomfortable (for me) pieces of the truth that have been habitually left out of the story" and also, " there was considerable discussion on this point in the committee. In the end, it became clear to us that we needed to present the less admirable elements of European cultural heritage and Christian missions rather clearly and without an attempt to balance each negative observation, historical reference, or - most importantly - personal story with a positive observation, historical reference, or personal story."), that your committee deliberately presented 'one side of the story' in this report for the explicit purpose of making the CRC/CRCHM 100+ year involvement in Rehoboth look extra bad.
Let me suggest a real world metaphor to explain my cause for being stunned. I grew up in NW Iowa at a time (1960s and 70's) when much was different from now. I've occasionally remarked to others -- lawyer that I am -- that if my family's life was plucked from history, its practices discovered and measured by current standards, the government's child protection agency would have permanently removed me from my home. Why? Physical abuse (working more than most adults do today), housing abuse (we had no indoor toilet, a broken down house -- literally --, and lack of any heating system upstairs where we slept in Iowa winters), and some other reasons. Were the negative aspects of my upbringing extracted by a CRC study committee and reported without context, my parents would be abhored, despised, and thought of as true agents of evil by the report's readers. And so would many other farm parents in NW Iowa who had children my age.
And I suspect that some now-adults who were children raised in NW Iowa at that time, in those families, might today come to the CRC study committee and tell dark but true stories, and the study committee could choose to "concentrate" (as you say) on these "missing, difficult, uncomfortable ... pieces of the truth that have been habitually left out of the story," as you also say -- and a generation of NW Iowa farming parents would be thereafter defamed in the now-older years of their lives.
Yes, I use the word "defamed" with careful intention, because if my and other parents were subjected to the methodology apparently used, as you describe, by this study committee, the result would indeed be the defamation of my parents. Not, mind you, because of the facts told, but because of the facts not told, because of the historical and other context not offered, because of the unwillingness of the study committee to hear or report on the "buts" that the committee says in this report it didn't want to listen to or report on.
This kind of "defamation by selective reporting" is not an uncommon phenomena. If you have ever sat in a jury, or even watched a trial, you are familiar with the reality of a group of people (jury) being fully persuaded after one side gives its opening remarks, or after it presents its evidence, or after its closing arguments, but then brought back to reality when the other side has opportunity to present its "buts."
This study report intentionally presents only one side!! How in the world does that result in anything good? How does that methodogy not result in defamation?
In your response to Ron, you point to the use of the word "pagan" as a word inexcusably used in the past by CRC/CRCHM folk at Rehoboth. Huh? Except for the acquired stigma attached to the word in the past couple/few decades, the word "pagan" was a perfectly good word to use to denote (and I quote a dictionary definition), "1. a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions." Which brings up another "arc of the whole truth" problem with the committee's methodology. This report judges over 100 years of historical action (and, apparently, vocabulary used) by today's standards, as told (intentionally!) from only one side to boot. Again, wow!
Not mentioned in your above comment to Ron, but directly said in the report, this committee has concluded that the CRC/CRCHM should never have ever gone to New Mexico, that doing so was wrong. What an incredible conclusion. On the other hand, when one intentionally chooses to reduce a real life story down to a distilled concentrate of only that which was bad, I'm not sure you could reach another conclusion. But using this methodology would also result in the conclusion that my parents were wrong to give birth to me, and once given, continue to raise me.
To be perfectly clear, I have no case to make against my parents. And I suspect many parents and their grown children have conversations later in life when the kids express disappointments, anger and other negatives about their childhood and parents bemoan exactly and confess as to how they raised their children. I've done that some with my kids already. And in fact, this same sort of thing happened in the Reboboth community as well -- about 13 years ago! Given that, I'm baffled that a CRC study committee would want to attempt to do what this report does, just as if it would want to resurrect the regrets of my 1960s/1970s childhood family.
Finally, your comments also suggest that a major purpose of this report is so that we can "see[] ... a much larger critique of European-American cultural and religious values - not just a critique of Rehoboth and CRC Indian missions." As the report makes clear, that larger story begins several papal bulls (pronouncement by the Roman Catholic Pope) back in the 15th century?
Does enriching our historical understanding of a Roman Catholic doctrine starting in the 15th century really trump the harm of defaming so many who did so much good work at Rehoboth for over a century? If so, we really ought to be going back to studying the death of Guido de Bres, author of our own Belgic Confession. De Bres and his contemporaries were murdered by the combined efforts of the Roman Catholic Church (and Pope) and the Spanish king nearly a century after the start of the Doctrine of Discovery. No, I don't seriously make that suggestion, but indicate it to give some context to the value, or lack thereof, of defaming CRC/CRCHM people who did good work and honorable work at Rehoboth, so that we might better understand the permutations of a historical Roman Catholic doctrine from over half a millennium ago.
Posted in: Why the Church Should Pay Attention to the DOD Task Force
Danielle, I'm not unaware of the stories you refer to, including the details of some. They are not unlike what I would expect. But that doesn't really address or affect the points I've made.
You are involved in the indigenous issues in Canada, which is good. But if I understand correctly, the CRC was not involved in any indigenous schools in Canada. This is not to say you should discontinue your work in Canada on those issues, but it is to say that whatever whoever did in Canada should not be imputed in any to the CRC or CRCHM.
What the CRC/CRCHM did do was Rehoboth/Zuni. It certainly is appropriate to examine the record of the CRC/CRCHM in Rehoboth but when one does that (whether individually or as a study committee), one has to do it appropriately. Intentionally distilling over a century of CRC/CRCHM involvement in Rehoboth to its worst stories, refusing to consider/relate historical or cultural content in order to focus on the bad, is irresponsible, even shameful, just as some of those "worst stories" are shameful.
And then there are the conclusions made by the report, which conclusions really have no relationship to the stories. One of those conclusions is that it was simply wrong for the CRC to go to do Rehoboth (see page 40 of the report). That is an astounding conclusion, and if correct, really means we need to put an end to both home and foreign missions, because those efforts will be accompanied by "bad stories" as well -- its simply unavoidable this side of the second coming. This astonishing conclusion also represents a clear condemnation of the actions, sometimes representing the better part of some peoples' lives, of many CRC/CRCHM people, not to mention indigenous people who worked with this effort, taken over a century of time.
Another conclusion of the report, embedded throughout the report even if not so concisely stated, is that whatever bad actions of the the Pope back in the 15th century, and by others for centuries thereafter, that might in any tangential way be connected to the phrase "Doctrine of Discovery," are the responsibility of the CRC, including CRC agencies and members. The reasoning to support this conclusion is the mere repetitive stating of a cliche: we "drink downstream" from what was done. Wow! Given this almost glib technique for assessing responsibility, the CRC, including its agencies and all its members, are literally also responsible for the burning death of Guido de Bres (in the16th century), and probably the slavery of Irish, the slavery of Africans, the invasion of China by the Japanese, World War I, and million other things as well.
No, I'm not at all exaggerating, or at least no more than this report does. If we can be said to be responsible because we "drink downstream" from a few Papal bulls in the 15th century, we can be said to "drink downstream" from pretty much every significant event in human history beginning in the 15th century. This why I've previously characterized this report as little more than an exercise in self-loathing. It reminds me of some uber-liberal faculty members at some US university (I personally picture the University of Oregon), sitting in a circle, competing with each other in hurling accusations against "America," and especially the "white Europeans who came to American," of spoiling/destroying the world and oppressing everyone else in the process -- except in this case the accused is the CRC and its agencies and members.
The U of O faculty wouldn't permit any "buts" in their discussion either.
Posted in: Time for Non-Compete Clauses for Clergy?
Assuming this is not a joke, no we should not have pastors sign non-compete agreements. This from a lawyer.
If we did, I doubt the courts of many (any) states would enforce them anyway, non-competes being disfavored by courts even in the business context.
Posted in: My Father’s I Corinthians 13
Thanks for posting Mark. Were all marriages reflective of this perspective, divorce wouldn't happen.
Posted in: The Safest Place in the World
I could not agree more. Our children, the "youth of our denomination," can be and will be more affected and guided, whether for good or bad or some of each, by their family, a critically important extension of which, especially in the CRC perhaps, is their local congregation.
Most CRC kids don't really know (feel) what it means to be part of the CRC denomination, but they do know (feel) what it means to be part of (or not part of if that is the case) their local congregation.
Thanks Syd.
Posted in: Live Justly for Lent: for Families
Amen as to 1, 3 and 4. Forehead scrunches as to 2 and 5.
As to 2, I would favor learning about your neighbors, indigenous or otherwise.
As to 5, I would favor praying "locally on out." That is, pray first for those around you, then those around them, etc. If you get there, it's fine to pray for all the places on the planet you can't find on a label-free map, but we need to recognize that 1) we are finite, 2) the best prayer is that which is accompanied by some level of real world action. Hence my prescription for praying for "locally on out."
Posted in: Digital Library, CRC Discount Gets Thumbs Up
I so agree, but also that the policy makes so very much sense. :-)
Posted in: Time to Take Action: Post-COP21
Actually, Bangladesh's problem result from increased population, de-forestation, pollution other than CO2, and other man-made molding to the environment -- far more so than sea rise caused by global CO2 emissions. It has become a poster-child for climate change alarmists, but Bangladesh's other problems dwarf those caused by climate change.
Sea rise has been happening -- although very slowly -- and is going to continue happening -- again, although very slowly --, whether fossil fuels increase the CO2 in the atmosphere or not. We are still on the recovery side of ice ages, geologically speaking and so the sea level is supposed to rise -- again even while very slowly. See at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise#/media/File:Trends_in_global_average_absolute_sea_level,_1880-2013.png
Given the amount of public relations money behind the mantra that climate change is the cause of all troubles, it is not, and Bangladesh is one of the cases in point, even if climate change alarmists like to make Bangladesh their poster child.
Look, for example, at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/embankments-exacerbate-sea-level-rise-in-bangladesh/ and
http://bangladeshunique.blogspot.com/2010/07/deforestation-in-bangladesh.html and
http://blog.cifor.org/9434/bangladesh-forests-disappearing-at-alarming-rate-says-expert?fnl=en and
http://bankofinfo.com/population-growth-in-bangladesh/
http://www.muhammadyunus.org/index.php/news-media/articles-by-professor-yunus/219-the-problem-of-poverty-in-bangladesh
Posted in: The Role of the Government as Taught by the Bible
Larry: So exactly what to you mean when you say "take care of the poor?" My response clearly indicated that government had an obligation to provide a "safety net" but I'm not sure -- and said so in my comment to your post -- that qualifies as "providing for the poor," as you understand that phrase.
So let's clarify what we might be agreeing or disagreeing about. What do you mean when you say that "government should take care of the poor?"
Posted in: Live Justly for Lent: Welcoming Returning Citizens
I would enthusiastically agree that both churches and individuals do well in providing help to past or present incarcerated persons and their families. There are few areas of concern where the need is greater and potential impact more profitable.
But I do cringe at how this article frames what is discussed as strictly a matter of "justice." Indeed, neither the lead-in verse and sentence -- nor any other part of the post -- makes mention of "mercy." A better lead-in verse would be Micah 6:8, which commands us to both "do justice" and "love mercy."
As an attorney, I have been involved in questions of justice in behalf of inmates and ex-inmates. But we do well to clearly understand that we are obliged to extend mercy even when there is no question about justice. Most of those we should help out are in fact not "oppressed" persons we must "[let] free," as this articles states. Some should remain incarcerated inmates. Still, we do well to serve them, while incarcerated, and their family members waiting for their release -- because of our "love of mercy."