Hope in the God of Justice

The following is a section taken from a book I have been reading, Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen.

The battle for justice in the world is not fought where we think it is.  The struggle against injustice is not fought on the battlefield of power or truth or even righteousness.  There are pitched battles waged on these ramparts, but the war is ultimately won or lost on a more forward front.  In the end the battle against oppression stands or falls on the battlefield of hope.

No one knows this better than the oppressors.  They know that they never have enough power, lies or loyalty to withstand the onslaught of even a fraction of the power, truth and courage that humanity could at any minute amass against them. Therefore they rely on, utterly depend on, the inaction of despair.  They know full well that their preeminence depends on most people in their community, their nation and their world doing nothing.  This is the essence of Edmund Burke's conviction about human history: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

The oppressors knows that primary reason we do nothing is we have lost any hope of making a difference.  It is not that we lack power, compassion, courage or knowledge.  Rather, we lack a sense of hope that allows us to take what we have into the fray.  By sheer inertia, therefore, we lend our own weight to the downward cycle of despair.  Our lack of hope keeps us from the front lines of engagement.  And our absence only makes the oppressor look stronger, compounding our own despair and that of those who might otherwise be prepared to fight.

But as faithful Christians through the ages have demonstrated, we don't have to be this way.  We have access to hope that changes everything.  Great people of faith- William Wilberforce and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.- and the lesser-known giants like Dr. Bushnell and Rev. Murphy changed their communities, their nation and their world because they found the hope to seek justice. 

[excerpt taken from Chapter 4 of Good News About Injustice, by Gary Haugen]