Good News About Injustice

Good News about Injustice

Part one is titled "Taking Up the Challenge." This first section of the book is expressing the news about injustice and how it exists today. The question that it asks is, "How will I respond?" This question will be answered in this section of the paper. Chapter one talks about the wars in Rwanda. Gary talks about the first time he went to Rwanda. He was one of the people that went down to this African country to help investigate the Rwandan genocides that was going on. The sites that were seen were frightening. The bodies were dumped in lakes along the borders of Rwanda and Zaire. Killings were taken place not only in homes and streets, but in mass at stadiums. He was in charge of identifying all the people that they found in these mass graves. Haugen then makes note of the twin girls that were dead. They were human; it could have been his kids. This, to me, was the turning point of it all. Realizing that these twin girls could have been his, he needed to make a stop of this injustice to these innocent Rwandans. Gary uses a passage from the Bible, Psalm 10:8-15, to show that God does care about these people and he calls this injustice sin. God is the one with the final plan of action and He will judge those who create the injustice, we are there to carry out His will, as Gary says; "We are the plan." Chapter two is simply titled Preparing the Mind and Spirit Through Scripture. Gary speaks of two ways we can grow into mature way of thinking about injustice. Those two points are: we can develop compassions for these people by seeing them by means of missionaries or other Christian workers and by preparing ourselves to help these people by viewing them through God's eyes, meaning His Word. The first step Gary gives us is a vocabulary term. That term is compassion permanence, which means a courageous and generous capacity to remember the needs of an unjust world even when the infant's out of our immediate sight. Simply meaning that we need to be aware of others, not only the ones we know about. He gives a list of different types of injustices, and one would think that it is narrow, but it is so broad. The second step is preparing our minds for action. Haugen tells us that reading in God's Word helps out in daily battles that occur when dealing with these injustices. Basically this chapter is saying that we should not think that we can end all of the world's injustices today or tomorrow, but it takes time and people to change things one at a time, not all at once. One life is better than no life. Chapter three is titled Champions of Justice. There are stories of three different people and different hardships they go through. In Sister K's case they beat her by means of boot, whip, fist, and bulldogs. This is just one case of a brothel. Brother E, however, is in a country with child labor as a means of an economy. These children work 12 hour days and 6 day weeks. The children are badly damaged physically from these environments of working in the mills or in the mines. Sister J is in a place where the mob rules over the people. Brutality is the key in keeping everyone in line. The events of this brutality can be public or private. All of which are cases of injustice in this world.

Haugen speaks about how injustice is real and it must be dealt with. However, to Americans this injustice does not seem to hit at home. Sitting at home, or even the dorm, I just flip through the main "college" channels, the ESPN's, local channels, and even the cartoon stations. I never think twice about stopping on a news channel, to me it is depressing. Seeing bondage and murders is just saddening. I am sure this is the case with most college students, as well as Americans. We seem to not care about the outside world except our own. The first chapter explains that injustice does occur and we need to do something about it. We can't just ignore the facts that so many children are kidnapped each year for child prostitution in the United States alone. The Bible speaks clearly for this and says it is wrong. This first part of the book opened my eyes to see that I pity over the littlest things, like my 49ers losing yet another game and having that get me down, while there are kids out there that are asking themselves, "When will I get my turn for revenge? When can I just end my life or this life I am forced into?" It is saddening to even think about these kids that are kept into captivity because some man or woman wants money. Greed is so apparent in today's culture, it is ridiculous. I know I can't change the entire world, but imagine if each person in the United States donated money to help organizations like IJM, I believe the numbers would triple maybe even quadruple each year in the savings of these children.

Part two is about the Bible and injustice. In these four chapters, Gary talks about how God has four different affirmations about injustice. Chapter four discusses that God hates injustice and loves justice. There is hope in God. Gary defines injustice as an abuse of power; to take from others what God has given them. He defines justice as the right use of power, using your power to buildup others who do not have the courage. Gary explains what it is meant to have a God of justice. It mainly means that He cares about right exercise of power or authority. Knowing that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful, we can conclude that whatever he does is justice, and everything that He wouldn't is injustice. Gary gives us four truths about God's character, they are God loves justice and hates injustice, God has a compassion for those who suffer injustice, God judges and condemns those who perpetrate justice, and God seeks active rescue for the victims of injustice. Gary ends the chapter with words of encouragement from David, in Psalm 146:5-10. Chapter five is about the compassion of God. He has compassion in those who are being treated unjustly. Gary fires out verses of hope and wisdom to those in peril. He also has verses to help out the reader's of this book realize what must be done to save these who are being treated unjustly. Chapter six is about the moral clarity in God. God is not a God who favors the oppressor, but rather the oppressed. Gary explicitly explains that the abuse of power, injustice, is sin. Gary brings up passages from Amos and Proverbs to show that God does not favor injustice. He will judge those who oppress and commit this sin of injustice. Even those of high powers will be judged for their abuse of power, like stated in Isaiah. Haugen tells us that we are incapable, because of our postmodern mind, of knowing the real judge called God, because of how our minds have been trained to think, these days. The most important,

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