Domestic Poverty

It’s been quite the year! Thanks for reading and learning along with us, as we wrestled with faith and justice with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other (Karl Barth).

Here are the top Do Justice articles (ranked by top pageviews) that got you thinking and acting in 2018: 

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

                    -Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the doctor who brought attention to the impact that Flint’s water was having on children, opens her book with these lines from Dr. Seuss.

In my previous post about gentrification, I established a simple premise. Any development and revitalization of  a neighborhood that leads to the involuntary displacement of already existing people, history, and culture is inequitable, and antithetical to God’s desire for wholeness and flourishing for all of his creation.

One spring I participated in a two and a half day silent retreat where I picked up two books by Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet and The Jesus Creed. In my reading and reflection times, I learned some principles of applying the stories of the Bible to my story and I reflected on possible God moments in my life that I was missing. As the Bible tells stories about who God is and what he has done, it can also help us learn how he is present in our lives, every day and into the future.

Can you imagine escaping a dangerous situation and finally beginning a new life in Canada...but doing so with $10,000 in debt, before you even started language classes or enrolled your children in school? For more than two decades, Canada was the only country in the world to charge refugees interest on their travel loans. For a nation claiming to welcome refugees, this sent mixed messages.

"God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:27-28)

If you’re a Christian in Canada, you’ve likely heard by now about the Canada Summer Jobs controversy. Many churches are concerned about new rules for federal funding for student summer jobs. Kate Kooyman chatted with Mike Hogeterp of the Christian Reformed Centre for Public Dialogue to learn more about the controversy and how CRC people can respond.

“Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.”

We pray earnestly and fervently that God will open the eyes of our hearts. We pray this because we want to be more like God—we want to reflect him truly. But do we let his answer to our prayer penetrate our minds and eyes? Do we let his answer soak into our daily lives? How often do we keep our eyes open to see the way God answers these prayers?

It’s been quite the year! Thanks for reading and learning along with us, as we wrestled with faith with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other (Karl Barth).

Here are the top Do Justice articles (ranked by top pageviews) that got you thinking and acting in 2017: 

In keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where justice dwells.

—2 Peter 3:13

In the face of injustice, it can be easy for us as Christians to become so overwhelmed by the scope of sin that we fail to do anything at all. But there are a number of ways that God’s people are called to respond to the injustices we see around us. When we look to God, and to God’s vision for us, we find an invitation to remember, pray, and advocate.