Beyond Justice, parts 1 and 2 were written by R. York Moore and are the full, non-filmed manuscripts for the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA and World Vision ACT:S campaign project, “Beyond Justice,” or “Get ACT:IVE” campaign.
Our Dream is Realized Through Jesus Christ
Before we begin to think that the dream of God is some far off, ethereal idea, I want to say that God’s dream is coming to pass right now, all over the world-particularly in some of the most dire situations. The Kingdom of God is not merely a place and a time in the future. The Kingdom of God is showing up and transforming our world. The Kingdom of God begins with the good news of Jesus Christ. All history is heading toward the day when Jesus Christ will reign, where he will set all things right but the good news of Jesus is that it has already begun. Jesus declared the Kingdom of God a present reality in his first public address in Luke 4 (NASB) where he said, “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.” From this point forward in history, the Kingdom of God has been advancing toward God’s dream with the power of the present Christ. Notice Jesus’ emphasis on the poor, on those in bondage, the sick, and the oppressed. Justice is God’s heartbeat and the Kingdom of God revolves around making all things right, particularly for those who suffer. When Jesus told his followers to go and preach to the cities of his day, he told them to heal the sick and to announce, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” (Luke 10:9, NASB). God’s Kingdom dream has always revolved around good news to those who need it most-this is the mission of the followers of Jesus, to announce the good news of the Kingdom of God and to invite the nations to join in the dream! The Kingdom of God is a reality that is now, not just a future reality. Because of what Jesus Christ has done, the dream of God is breaking into our world, reversing injustices, freeing slaves, healing the sick and restoring hope. Isn’t that exciting!?!? What’s more is that Jesus invites us to be actors in bringing the Kingdom of God to bear upon the broken and unjust places of our world. This is the best way to think about what it means to be an activist. We live in an age where we long for change; we are more knowledgeable than ever about the plight of those who suffer. We want to change the world.
Change We Can Believe In
In our faith communities, the concept of a ‘justice activist’ is taking hold as Christians begin to realize the centrality of justice in the teachings of Jesus. Being inspired by the dream of God of a better world is fueling new expressions of Christian faith and a generation of ‘justice activists’ are rising up to take the gospel to the poor, the message of freedom to those enslaved, healing to the sick, and the message of forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Being an activist whose vision is rooted in the person of Jesus Christ and whose hope is the coming Kingdom of God is sustainable activism that bares consistent, long-term good. We all want change we can believe in and in Jesus Christ we find it. The dream of God is ultimately realized only through the person of Jesus Christ. When we think of an 8 year old who has been sold by her mother in Myanmar to an international sex tourist for $200 or a father who would sell his son as a bonded laborer in India to bake bricks, we see what kind of evil we are up against. Ultimately, injustices always trace back to a spiritual brokenness, a soul sickness. In the state of Ohio alone in 2010, there was an estimated 1,000 U.S. born children, most under the age of 15, sold as forced prostitutes. We can legislate against such realities, prosecute those who traffic in the flesh of children, and build after-care facilities for victims but without addressing the hunger that would give rise to such a rape of humanity, we are failing to be holistic in our approach to evil. Real evil exists in our hearts and in the world around us and that is something that requires real spiritual power to address. This is why we need the power that only comes through the person of Jesus Christ. In the life and death of Jesus we hear the echoes of another world, a world where couples stroll, laughter flourishes, and the streets hum with music.
The Dream Making Work of Christ
When Jesus died on the cross, he dealt once and for all with the evil in the world out there and the world in here. As Jesus hung on the cross, his death paid the full price for all the things that we’ve done, all the things that we’ve left undone that are incompatible with the dream of God. We are not just victims in this world or neutral observers of the world’s suffering-we have all contributed to the wreckage of the world in many ways. Jesus’ death on the cross enables us to begin again and to experience God’s forgiveness. The Bible also tells us that Jesus, three days after his death, returned to life-he was raised from the dead. And it’s this power that raised Jesus from the dead that is available to us today. The spiritual life we find in the person of Jesus is given to us who would follow Jesus as Kingdom activists, proclaiming and demonstrating the Kingdom of God to the world around us. This is how the dream of God advances, as God’s activists, Jesus’ followers, take the power of God and apply it to those places that are broken, to people who are suffering, and to our own lives as well. Divine history is going somewhere. All that God is doing is pointing to another time and place, it is culminating in the grand dream of God. In contrast, human history can be summarized in its totality as the dialectic rise and fall between our pursuit of the dream we remember and its vicious counterpart, the nightmare of injustice and suffering.
The Dream Becomes Reality
What does God’s dream look like in its fullness? What picture does Jesus give us of this coming Kingdom? In the book of Revelation, we get a vivid snapshot of the dream of God fulfilled. We are introduced to a city unlike any city we’ve ever seen or read about. American cinema and literature have done us a disservice by giving us images of Heaven as a place where we’ll lounge partially nude on clouds, feeding from clusters of grapes while eternally honing our harp playing skills. But the dream of God revolves around a city, a unique city where infrastructure and agriculture are intertwined; a city where beauty and order coincide with population density and activity; a city of purpose and pleasure. This city that we read about stands in diametrical opposition to the city of Babylon we read of earlier. It is the city that is the antithesis of every broken and exploitative system in our cities today. Listen to the picture that has long fueled those who follow Jesus to reach for the dream. In Rev. 21 and 22 we read this description: (Rev. 21:21-27, The Message), “The main street of the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. But there was no sign of a Temple, for the Lord God—the Sovereign-Strong—and the Lamb are the Temple. The City doesn’t need sun or moon for light. God’s Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp! The nations will walk in its light and earth’s kings bring in their splendor. Its gates will never be shut by day, and there won’t be any night. They’ll bring the glory and honor of the nations into the City. Nothing dirty or defiled will get into the City, and no one who defiles or deceives. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will get in.” (Rev. 22:1-3a, Message) “Then the Angel showed me Water-of-Life River, crystal bright. It flowed from the Throne of God and the Lamb, right down the middle of the street. The Tree of Life was planted on each side of the River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree are for healing the nations. Never again will anything be cursed.” In this city of hope we see a river of life, a tree of healing-abundance and restoration. God’s dream is a dream beyond justice though it includes the judgment necessary to establish it. Notice in this description that nothing dirty or defiled will get into the city-it is a holy place. God’s dream goes beyond holiness, beyond justice, God’s dream is a dream of flourishing. Like many cities, the city of Detroit even at the height of its grandeur held only a shadowy resemblance of the city of God. Detroit was never the final destination of slaves-they dreamt of something better, it was the dream behind their dream that fueled their journey. At best, this city or any of the other cities of this world are mere symbols of a dream that lives in our hearts because our souls remember. Malan, New York, Vancouver, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Dubai-all these and many other great cities hold aspects that are alluring to us. Beauty, transcendence, natural treasures, the arts, fashion, abundant resources, power-all these things in some way are attractive to us because our soul remembers. In the dream of God realized through the person of Jesus Christ, we see the culmination of divine history in this city of God.
Our Dream is an Invitation to the Dream of God
“All my life I been called a slave. They tell me I belongs to my master. That may be true about my body, but my soul remembers a time when I was free, so when I get a chance I will run.” What does it mean to respond to the dream, the world we remember? I believe this unknown slave has the right answer-we run! The dream God has put in our hearts is really an invitation, an invitation to pursue something greater than ourselves, greater than the façade around us-it is an invitation to run toward the dream. Feeling the dense air flow between our fingers, to see the sights and sounds of life the way it ought to be, and to hear the sounds of a world made right-this is what we can experience when we choose to run. How do we make the dream a reality? How do we respond to the dream God has for the world and each of our lives? How do we sustain our commitment to actualize God’s dream for justice. These are the questions we will explore together. When we choose to run, we reorient our lives. When someone chooses to run a marathon, they set goals, they practice and train, they endure strict regiments. When we choose to run after the dream of God, we choose to follow Jesus who sets the pace and the direction for the dream. We learn from him and submit to his way of thinking and doing. As a result, we begin by living a more active faith – by seeing our lives differently and joining a purpose bigger than ourselves. The reality is that whether or not you’ve noticed it, Jesus is already setting the pace and giving your life direction. The passion and drive we have, the joy we find in life are usually indicators of where the Kingdom of God is touching your soul. What dream has God placed on your heart? It might be tutoring children living in poverty in your own backyard, helping to right the wrong of modern-day slavery, helping end a preventable disease like malaria in your life-time, or something else that God has uniquely placed on your heart. Where do you see this other world tearing at the fiber of your soul?
The invitation that God is making to you now is an invitation to be more like Jesus and to pursue a world that is more like God’s Kingdom than the world of pain, suffering and injustice. Pursuing this world requires condition. Just like a runner will condition their body in pursuit of a goal, God invites us to condition our heart. God wants us to begin to see the way he sees and care about the things he cares about. The founder of World Vision, Bob Pierce, used to pray a prayer that is now famous the world over, “Let me heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” Conditioning our heart to reflect the heart of God requires us to connect deeply with Jesus Christ. Through prayer, reading the Bible, and seeing what is going on in our world we can begin to develop a heart like God. Our souls remember so we will run. The great news is that the run Jesus invites us to is not a solitary one-he invites us to do it together. Moving beyond justice requires a movement. We can only do so much on our own to change our soul or to change our society and so God’s dream is to be pursued in community. God’s dream is about both individual transformation and global restoration – and it requires each of us to do our part and all of us to do our part together. It’s not enough to simply live a more active faith individually; we must share God’s heart for the world with others and invite them to run with us.
Conclusion
There is something beyond justice and its joy. There is a place our soul calls out for, another place that our soul remembers. Our response to God’s invitation begins when we imagine what could be-a life together of joy, of endless summer nights-peace, safety, security- and most of all togetherness. God longs to restore the world and that will come to pass in a final way one day but today, he invites us to run with him in bringing the Kingdom of God to our world today. Our response to God’s invitation is to run, to run toward this place of magic, to breathe in and dream with God and to join him in making all things new.
Debauchery: Our Newfound American Pastime
Four of my favorite words are uttered every night at 6:30PM Eastern in the U.S., “On the broadcast tonight….” Most of the time, these familiar words are uttered by Brian Williams, the news anchor for NBC Nightly News. Brian is a welcome guest in my home, distilling the big issues, breaking down the all too often “big world” of information to a thirty minute expose’ on the “must know” news. The coverage is diverse, relevant, balanced, and well-told. Recently, however, I raced to shield my children’s eyes from Brian’s expose’ on the new trend in Las Vegas as the coverage of a pool party at a well-known casino seemed more like an infomercial for a “Girls Gone Wild” video! The trend of Vegas pool parties has spawned hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to renovate and expand pools that can accommodate up to 5,000 people at a time, cabanas with day beds, and “swim up bars and black jack tables.” Vegas has hit it big once again, this time recapturing the wonder of the 22-35 aged demographic, a demographic that has eluded Vegas for some time now. Brian Williams’ coverage of 5,000 guests in the middle of a Sunday afternoon looked less like a pool party and more like what I imagine sex temple rituals in ancient Mesopotamia looked like. The preponderance of public displays of indecency in this news story evoked a unique feeling of shock. Taken individually, any one of the scenes of indecency shown would have been, unfortunately, quite commonplace by today’s standards. There was something particularly disturbing, however, about seeing this mass of oiled, pulsating, dripping wet flesh in beautiful high definition as Brian spoke of the recapturing of this elusive demographic. It was more than sexual brokenness, it was the equally elusive concept we’ve forgotten, ‘debauchery.’
To Google the word alone is a dangerous endeavor but researching the topic seriously is quite difficult as Western culture has lost the category altogether. Debauchery, however, is making a comeback in a big way. Increasingly, strip clubs, dance clubs with excessive public expressions of group sexuality, porn stars, and sex toy manufacturers are making their way into our mainstream understanding of entertainment and social connection. Both the porn industry and sex toy manufacturers have found ways into the dorms and public spaces of our college campuses under the auspices of sexual education. What is most distressing about this trend is that it seems to be accelerated by the burgeoning entertainment industry in its pursuit to identify new revenue streams in an age of digital piracy and the ever-expanding application of free speech laws. All this coupled with a Western Church in atrophy and a Judeo-Christian ethic on the decline, I believe we are in the beginning stages of societal decay. The late philosopher and historian, Dr. Francis Schaeffer, detailed this decline in the great world empires of Persia, Greece, Rome and others, always beginning with an expansion and acceptance of the practice of debauchery in the mainstream.
A simple (perhaps too simple) definition of debauchery is, “excessive indulgence of the appetites; especially, excessive indulgence of lust; intemperance; sensuality; habitual lewdness.” Debauchery is more than sexual sin, more than public indecency; it is a phenomenon, one that occurs in a people group when the rot of spiritual decay under the surface of familial and cultural institutions bleeds out into the public sphere. This is happening all around us. The ‘lubrication’ for an acceptance of debauchery at a societal level begins when those structures of culture erode-the family, academia, law, commerce, entertainment….Hypocrisy and collusion in the area of sexual brokenness in the Church is also a powerful component in legitimizing debauchery. Systemic pedophilia in the catholic church amongst ‘spiritual fathers’ has brought public outrage and distrust but also an open door in the home for ‘biological fathers’ to reconsider the boundaries of their own sexuality in the vacuum of moral authority. In the Black Church in the U.S., a once-strong tradition of theological conservatism around sexuality has been eroded by the allegations swirling around mega-church pastor, Bishop Eddie Long, accused of molesting young boys in the church. AME Bishop John Bryant recently reached a settlement for his involvement in allowing (the late) Rev. Sylvester Laudermill Jr. to molest multiple minors in both St. Louis and Los Angeles AME churches. For young men in the Black community, these expressions of perversion reinforce the centrality of sexual gratification in identity, again fueling ever-increasing expressions of brokenness.
There is no lack of illustrations of debauchery in the Scriptures. As soon as mankind began to “…increase in number on the earth…” (Gen. 6:1), we read, “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” (Gen. 6:5). How this wickedness and evil inclination expresses itself from this point on in the story of humanity is clear. Cyclically, debauchery resurfaces in every people group over time as societies rise and decline. The suffering generating by debauchery, particularly in the poor and amongst children, is also well documented in Scripture, evoking the anger and wrath of God, “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because you poured out your wealth and exposed your nakedness in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see all your nakedness. I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring upon you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger.” (Ez. 16:36-38).” Though this passage speaks figuratively of the Nation Israel and her corporate actions, God uses the common imagery of debauched practices to illustrate his point.
Debauchery in the Scriptures is a unique concept, not merely the preponderance of sinful practices, but rather a corporate expression of a constellation of sinful behavior revolving around sensuality. I Peter 4:3 calls the Christian to abandon debauchery and what I believe to be the subcomponents of debauchery, “For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.” Debauchery is the corporate expression of these practices.
Finally, debauchery presents a unique threat to Christian evangelization. Because mainstream debauchery “hollows out” the soul of a people group, it anesthetizes them to concerns outside of their own sensuality. Deadening the conscience of a people group paves the way for atrocity and exploitation. As the Christian message always incorporates a call to care for the poor, to provide for the hungry and sick, and to stand against injustices, the Christian message in a milieu of debauchery becomes the enemy of ‘a good time’ to some and our ‘personal freedom and identity’ to others. When this clash of worldview begins to happen, the Christian message begins to be seen as the enemy. The resources of intellectual and economic sophistication of those profiting politically, economically, and socially from debauched practices begins to be used against the Christian Church. This is much more than another expression of culture war but a life and death battle for the remnants of society. We see this clash when the gospel is brought to the Ephesians and the subsequent riot over the profits associated with temple worship of the God Artemis (Acts 19:23-41). The desensitization debauchery brings produces new economic and social structures that are inherently incompatible with Christ and His Kingdom. Where debauchery has become entrenched, there is strong resistance to the Christian message and often the only solution is the eradication of that people group by God.
We as American Christians ought to pray against this emerging spirit of debauchery and for God to bring revival and awakening to our culture before it is too late. Focusing on the family structures, on holiness in the church, on a redemptive presence in government, academia, entertainment, and commerce are all also things Christians should be dedicating themselves to. Running from the increasingly corrupt world around us will only allow the fire to spread more rapidly, increasing human ruin and allowing the widespread suffering that always comes with a people group given over to debauched living. We need God to bring a spirit of repentance and brokenness over what we see around us and in us before it is too late. As a precursor to the active wrath of God, God eventually “gives us over to” the desires of our heart societally. Once this happens, it is too late to turn back to God, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” May God bring us back from the brink.
The Church and Renewal
All too often, the Church is rendered impotent due to the habitual drift of organized religion toward societal institutional identity. In every society, God has established seven great culture-making institutions-government, commerce, medicine, the family, academia, entertainment/sport, and law. These seven institutions not only generate the culture of any people group or nation but are themselves the conglomerate of how the various “tribes” or ethnic groupings within a people or nation express their culture-in other words, these are both the motors of culture and the vehicles for expressing culture. Because of the decaying presence of sin in every people group, these institutions are often mere shadows, broken fragments of what God intends them to be. Renewal can come to particular instances of these institutions as individuals and groups begin to follow Jesus Christ and apply Kingdom values and practices to their spheres of influence but the decaying cycle of sin in any given people group requires major, societ- wide renewal in order to protect these vehicles from not only eroding but morphing into tools which accelerate wickedness.
Entertainment/sport as an institution of culture has often, in its eroded state, become a vehicle for accelerated societal evil. When entertainment falls into eroticism (as it often does) and when sport falls into violence (which it often does), the good gift of sport and entertainment goes from a vehicle for cultural expression to the glory of God to an instrument causing accelerated societal decay. Each and every one of the seven institutions of society has a corresponding broken expression with equally wicked and destructive demarcations. Commerce falls to greed, government falls to power at the expense of the marginal, families become places of abuse and neglect….The reality is, because of sin, we have rarely seen expressions of whole and transformative institutions. We need renewal as many of the institutions of our time have or are beginning to enter into the unsalvageable stages of erosion. The de-evolution of the entertainment industry into eroticism is well documented but we also see irreversible damage to the notion of the family, to medicine, and certainly to commerce. Corruption, a culture of death, acceptance of broken sexual paradigms are all the cumulative effects of a lack of much needed renewal.
Renewal is not merely the bridled restraint of such expressions of decay. It is true that the Church has a preservative nature in culture. The presence of the Church in the World slows the ramped downward spiral of society and the grotesque end stages of unbridled wickedness. The Scripture’s use of preservative imagery, however, is often misused. Preservatives do not bring new life, they merely prevent the decay of death from entirely ruining the food they preserve. Only the blowing winds of God’s grace on a people through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in a unique, corporate way can actually bring new life. Without this unique act of God, the best we can hope for is a slowing of the inevitable and at worst, when the preserving Church fails, the active judgment of God on a people-perhaps even their eradication. Renewal is the unique resurrecting work of God through the corporate application of the Spirit’s power in bringing repentance and the subsequent Kingdom transformation of people groups in application to the culture-making institutions of their society. Renewal is not mere mass conversion nor is it mere revival in the Church, though it may initially begin there, renewal is the macro-transformation of nations, peoples, tribes, and tongues expressed in their culture.
The Church often fails not only to preserve the culture but also fails to be able to receive renewal from God because it trends toward drifting in its identity. The Church world-wide, when left un-checked, confuses itself as an institution of society. We are to be “in the world, but not of the world,” says Jesus. Applied societally, the Church is to participate and lead in every one of the seven institutions but not succumb to the temptation to be those institutions or to circumvent these institutions. Sadly, we see the Church all too often failing to lead and transform these institutions but instead seeking to become or replace them. How often have we seen the Church attempt to be a place of commercial enterprise with her ministers and evangelists peddling programs, conferences, products and the like? How often have we seen well meaning Christian leaders attempting to use the Church as a vehicle for political manipulation and power? How often have we seen the Church give up its ministry of prayer, evangelism, and the study of the Word of God for entertainment and programs of sport? To sit in many prayer circles in today’s Church, one would think we are a hospital as we pray for strokes, heart attacks, cancers, and sicknesses at the expense of lost neighbors, broken families and injustices around the world of every kind! The Church is not a hospital, though we are charged with caring for the broken hearted and the sick. The Church is not the judicial system, though we are charged with loving the prisoner and visiting them in their hours of desperation. The Church is not the academy but we are charged with bringing every thought captive to the Lordship of Christ and worshipping God with our whole mind. The Church is not the family but we are a new family under God charged with caring for widows and orphans.
We are all of these things and none of them at the same time for we are something much greater. A loftier, controlling identity shadows any particular missional charge, for we are the Bride of Jesus Christ, not merely the sum total of our functions. As such, our primary passion should be to connect with Christ and to allow the regenerative flow of the Spirit fill us for His glory. In the world, the Church’s passion should be to be the receptacle of the transforming power of God that can alone bring renewal to our society. How sad that we drift away and settle for our secondary functions instead of our primary identity like a man who confuses his employment for his true identity. The Church is to be just and the place for championing justice without being the hall of justice. The Church is to be a place where the needs of the widow, orphan, sick and lame are addressed without becoming a hospital or place of respite care…The Church is to have no greater preoccupation than that of the person of Jesus Christ and being the receptacle of His renewing power.
The Church is to be in each and every institution, shaping and defining the trajectory of those institutions. There is no place in society where the Church should not be seeking to bring renewal. The high courts of justice, the culture-making centers of music and film, the great halls of academia, the research labs of science and medicine-it is all Christ’s. We are not guests here, this is Christ’s world and He is in the process of reclaiming what is His through us. When the Church abandons entire institutions, the society should expect to erode into debauchery. When the Church leaves the university, we should expect godlessness to reign in the dorms, bars, and offices of faculty. When the Church leaves the world of politics, we should expect unjust laws. When the Church leaves the medical field, we should expect immoral research and practices. Jesus will not break if we expose him to the real world but to listen to retreatists, one has to wonder if they have a cheap plaster Jesus picked up at some tourist shop of faith. The real Jesus can withstand the challenges of brokenness and sin in all these places-He is more durable than we think!
We are to be in the world, acting as the preservative element that prevents it from eroding into darkness and despair. However, we cannot content ourselves with mere incremental advancements of God’s Kingdom. We long for it to break through in its fullness, for another ‘Great Awakening,” for mass repentance that gives way to new life! We are to be waiting and calling on God for the unique work of renewal, of revival and awakening-the work that only God can send from Heaven. The work of renewal, the breath of God on our land, is the only hope in escaping His wrath and seeing our society live again. When the breath of God comes, it brings new life. This new life in society looks like medical breakthrough, a passion for research and learning, just laws, resources for those in need, whole and joy-filled families, redeemed leisure and competition, breathtaking art, dance, film, music-all to the glory of God! May it be so in our time Lord Jesus.
Beyond Justice, parts 1 and 2 were written by R. York Moore and are the full, non-filmed manuscripts for the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA and World Vision ACT:S campaign project, “Beyond Justice,” or “Get ACT:IVE” campaign.