Justice and Christianity

In her interview on a programme of Hastings College of the Law, University of California, Martha Nussbaum says, "Christianity as I was experiencing it was a religion about 'let's take advantage of our privileges in this life, and let justice wait for the world to come.'" In the same interview she says that it was the concern for justice that made her convert to Judaism. Nussbaum is at present one of the most prominent philosophers in the area of moral and political philosophy and teaches at University of Chicago. I have read some of her writings and I agree on quite a lot of things that  she says and writes. In the interview mentioned above she did not say that Christianity is so and so; she rather said that Christianity was so and so as she was experiencing it. And it was not her fault that she came across that version of Christianity.

But is the version of Christianity that she experienced the authentic version of Christianity? I would argue that it is not. But I would also concede that such version of Christianity is not uncommon. One just have to surf Christian bookstore for a while to know about such version. As a religion that is found in all the continents, practised by people of every conceivable social position, the Bible has different ways of being read and interpreted. This different interpretation does not mean that all the interpretations are correct and authentic. Some are very wrong, so distant from what the Bible teaches; and some are right. One just have to read the Bible to know which is what. 

The book that the Jewish considers sacred is considered to be sacred by the Christians too. So if Judaism considers justice as an important virtue, Christianity cannot but considers it equally important, if not more. The God in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible is just the same as the God in the New Testament. The main different is that in the New Testament Jesus Christ is here revealed as the incarnate of the God of the Old Testament. This Jesus Christ himself faced injustice unto death; but through death he took on the power of the evil one and exhaust its power on the cross to emerge triumphant on the third day. And having conquered the evil one through death and resurrection, he now gives power to his disciples and commissions them to go out into the world " to preach good news unto the poor; to heal the contrite of heart; to proclaim liberty to the captives; and deliverance to them that are shut up".

It was because of his conviction that all men are equal as taught in the Bible he read that William Wilberforce laboured for over 20 years for the Abolition of slavery  in the British empire. It was because of his concern for social justice that Martin Luther King Jr.,  the Christian minister, strived hard for Civil Right movement in the US. Christians have this strong conviction about the world to come. But this strong conviction is never to lead away Christians to engage in this world for justice. Towards the end of his longest discourse on the life to come, St. Paul writes, " therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labour is not in vain..." ( 1 Cor 15: 58). Justice and peace are what Christian believers are to work and to pray for in this world. Working for justice and peacemaking are not optionals; they are part and parcel of being a follower of Jesus Christ.