Everyday JusticeSýnishorn

Life-changing advocacy

Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Madonna infamously referred to the virus as a ‘great equaliser’.

The fact that she said it from a bath full of rose petals was just one reason to call her statement into question. Such ‘equalisers’ don’t really exist. Dig a little deeper and you’ll almost always find that the rich, powerful, and privileged will have an easier time of it.

Black and South Asian people were hit hardest by coronavirus, white-collar workers continued working from home whilst other sectors were decimated, and rich nations experienced a vaccine-fuelled recovery whilst the global majority continued to struggle.

The Bible is no stranger to such inequality. Righteousness is fundamentally relational, but because of sin these relationships are damaged – we turn away from God and in on ourselves, leading to greed and oppression. Fallen people then form broken structures, leading to institutional injustice.

Imagine a 400-metre race where some competitors had a massive head start. It wouldn’t be fair for the whole field to start at the same time. In the same way, where inequality exists, it’s insufficient simply to treat everyone the same and assume it’ll all work out. We need to address inequality and the systems that cause it.

And we have a God who cares especially for the poor. Psalms such as the ones cited above show what John Stott calls ‘a God who desires justice and asks us, as His people… to champion the cause of the poor and the powerless’.

But who are the powerless? Scripture consistently refers to the widow, the fatherless, and the foreigner. Equivalents today might include the child in social care, the homeless man, the asylum seeker, the trauma survivor, the lonely elderly woman. God’s priority is to ‘secure justice’ for those on the margins, and we’re called to join this work.

So, practically, how do we use our everyday lives to undo inequality? One way is through advocacy, partnering with God to restore social structures and empower the disadvantaged. Not ignoring or abandoning our privilege, but stewarding it lovingly on behalf of others.

This might look like listening and learning to find out where inequality exists in our everyday lives. It might involve our jobs, working for justice as well as for profit. It might mean signing petitions, or ‘upholding the cause’ of the voiceless in everyday conversations with friends, families, or neighbours. As we advocate for the marginalised, may our lives reflect God’s priorities.

Action

How might you advocate for ‘the poor and powerless’ in your day-to-day life this week?