Ruth Padilla DeBorst
On September 23, Ruth Padilla DeBorst offered a 15 minute plenary speech at the Lausanne 4 Congress in Incheon, South Korea. In spite of the push-back expressed by the conference organizers, we fully endorse Ruth’s talk and we publish it here with hope and prayer that the Church will stand up for justice and peace, both in Palestine-Israel and the world round, even in the face of power, wealth and indifference.
He knew the end of his time on Earth was nearing when he stood among his disciples that evening. He also knew they were shocked to see him alive and well, when just days before they had seen him hanging on a Roman cross when he had upset the status quo. “Peace be with you,” he calmed them as he outstretched his wounded hands. “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And he breathed the Holy Spirit on them (John 20.20-21). These, according to the evangelist John, were among Jesus’ last words to his followers, a commissioning of sorts. “As the Father sent me, I am sending you.”
How, we must then ask, was Jesus sent into the world? Sent, not as a royal prince on a gilded Roman throne but as the child of a poor woman and a manual laborer forced to flee for their lives to a strange land. Sent, not as a high priest in a seat of honor in the Sanhedrin but as a roaming teacher with nowhere to rest his head. Sent, not to busy himself with religious rites but, in his own words, “to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4.18-19), the year of Jubilee during which land was returned to its original owners, slaves were set free, and all wrongs were righted. Sent to announce and demonstrate the true nature of God’s just, life-giving and sustaining rule and to nurture a community that would do the same.
Now, Jesus’ agenda did not pop out of thin air, no! Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Jesus stepped squarely into the prophetic tradition that had accompanied the people of God since their inception. In his attitudes, words and actions, we witness echoes of prophets like Micah, whose admonishments are as applicable today as they were in Micah and Jesus’ times.
The farming people of Judea in Micah’s days were suffering, not only the anxiety at the impending invasion of enemy military forces but especially the oppression of corrupt governing elites. They were being forced to pay taxes and leave their fields to build cities for the wealthy few. Their lands were being expropriated to feed the greed of the rich while they were forcibly displaced. Their young men were being recruited for the army and their young women were being taken as sex slaves in the royal court. What made matters worse was that these injustices were being masqueraded by religiosity. Religious practices, rites and sacrifices were covering up social corruption. False prophets were deaf to the cries of the people while priests cozied up to the wealthy and blessed the weapons of oppression. Does any of this sound familiar?
If we like it or not, an honest look at our world today reveals many of the same injustices, blatant gaps that do not reflect God’s intent for the world God loves. One overarching justice gap that dishonors God is wealth inequality. God created a world of abundance, capable of sustaining the flourishing of life of the entire created order. However, today, the richest 1% of our planet owns half the riches of the entire world.[1] And while the wealth of the world’s five richest men has more than doubled since 2020, nearly five billion people have been made poorer. Poverty is the most visible face of injustice.
Meanwhile, far too many people suffer the injustice of marginalization and decreased opportunities due to racism and ethnic discrimination. For example, in the US, white families have eight times the wealth of Black families and five times the wealth of Hispanic families.[2]
Racism also plays into environmental injustice: while climate change and the loss of species affect the entire planet, it is communities of color who suffer the most from the contamination of air, ground, and water, with no means to insulate from it. Waste is dumped in the global South. Climate change is displacing millions of people who are fleeing fires, floods, intensified hurricanes, and unyielding desert land only to find little to no welcome in the wealthy North, which is responsible for their plight.
Another gaping injustice has to do with gender inequity. Women in general get less pay than men for the same job; we are overrepresented in unskilled and “low value” jobs; and we are far more likely to be the victims of sexual harassment and downright abuse. In Christian communities, although women compose the greater number of active members, men overwhelmingly hold the leadership positions while women are restricted in the use of the gifts the Spirit has granted them, solely because they are women.
Discrimination also affects people with physical and mental disabilities, limiting their pay and opportunities in many realms of life. In addition, the digital divide -the difference between those who have and don’t have access to digital tools like internet, computers, smartphones—means nearly one-third of the global population remains disconnected from a virtual world and deprived of the opportunities you and I take for granted. The AI industry is owned and its algorithms informed by the same 5 men I mentioned earlier. Finally, the industrial war machine continues grinding up people and places, often bolstered by religiously ideological theologies that relativize the image of God in each and every person.
Now, if this is the current situation, what are God’s people called to in the presence of such unjust realities? What was Micah’s message from God to the powerful people of his day, amid their religiously masked and unjust lifestyle? Micah first reminded the people of Judea about God’s gracious intervention on their behalf throughout history. He then exhorted them to remember, to listen, to repent, and to act in accordance with God’s own character. Finally, he summed up God’s expectation in the well-known question we know as Micah 6.8,
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
What God requires of God’s people then and now is no secret! God’s intent was clear from the very beginning and is made clear throughout Scripture, both for them and for us. Long before Micah’s day, about Abraham, God had said: “For I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice” (Gen 18.19). Centuries later, to the mixed group of freed slaves being fashioned by the law into a new people, Moses insists,
So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,and to keep the commandments of the Lord and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being… (Dt 10.12-13)
The prophets consistently echo that call. And Jesus makes this explicit to his early followers: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14.15) There is no room for doubt. God is worshiped, not by rites, religious festivities or even by mission activism, all practices that can simply serve as masks, but by ethical obedience. What makes God’s people such are not superficial expressions of religious piety, “Christianese” jargon, worship jingles, or colonialist theologies that justify and finance oppression under the guise of some dispensational eschatology.
What then, are the distinguishable markers of God’s people? Micah’s summary includes three intertwined callings. First, the posture expected in relation to God. God’s people, both then and now, are called to “walk humbly with our God.” This involves living in deep reverence of our Creator, acknowledging our frailty and utter dependence on God. It entails questioning any other power that might challenge that ultimate allegiance and submission. There is no space in this picture for equating the claims of nation or ethnicity over the claims of God’s reign of justice for all. Humility before God opens us to the work of the Spirit, inspiring us to love what God loves, ridding us of our self-sufficient pride and the idolatries that sit at the root of injustice, and allowing us to surrender our humanly devised strategies, our messiah-complexes and our managerial mission penchants so that we might be sent as was Jesus, the Suffering Servant. We are called today to remember, to listen, to repent, and to act in humility, in accordance with God’s own character.
The second marker is “loving mercy or kindness” This points to the core motivation that should underlie all our actions: deep solidarity and love. It demands unmasking our selfish, self-protective drives and allowing God’s compassion to move us as prophetic peacemakers and to shout to the four winds that there is no ideology so right, no religion so holy, no race so superior that it is ever ok to efface God’s image in God’s beloved creatures. There is no room for indifference toward all who are suffering the scourge of war and violence the world round, the uprooted and beleaguered people of Gaza, the hostages held by both Israel and Hamas and their families, the threatened Palestinians in their own territories, all who are mourning the loss of loved ones. Their pain is our pain if we are God’s people. Being sent into the world as Jesus was is not a recipe for upward mobility or impermeability to the plight of our neighbor or the cries of the earth. We are called today to remember, to listen, to repent, and to act in compassionate love, in accordance with God’s own character.
The third identifying marker of God’s people is the pursuit of justice, the practice of socio-economic and political action for the common good. This requires unmasking our comfortable self-seeking for the sake of the good of the whole community. The supreme model for this practice is none other than God, the Sovereign Lord, as we read in Deuteronomy 10.17-19,
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
There is no room in this picture for silence when fellow-human beings are being robbed of home, land, livelihood, and life itself. Not in the Judea of Micah’s day; not anywhere today. Instead, to be true to our identity, those who –with fear and trembling—dare identify as God’s people must step up and step out, unmasking any religious justification for oppression, naming, lamenting, and resisting with all means at our disposal. Hear Jeremiah’s words,
Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom; do not let the mighty boast in their might; do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast, boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord (Jeremiah 9.23).
Far from a mere ideological construct of some political tendency, justice is at the very heart of God and should be at the heart of all God’s people are and do. We are called today to remember, to listen, to repent, and to seek justice, in accordance with God’s own character.
Truly, some of us may be gifted and sent into particularly focused areas of justice work, advocacy, policy design and implementation. May God bless you in that ministry! But the message of Moses and God’s Law, of Micah and the prophets, and of Jesus himself is that the pursuit of justice is not some add on, optional activity left to those few specialists. “Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s justice,” Jesus challenged all his followers (Mat 6.33). In the dictionary of God’s kingdom, justice is defined as redemptive restoration of all things that are wrong. Justice sets things right; it vindicates the victims. This definition stands in stark contrast with the common usage of the term, in which “justice” equals systems to keep the “bad” guys out of the way through punishment, repression, and death in any of its many forms. God’s justice is life giving. It is an expression of God’s love. Justice, as the visible face of love, brings wholeness of life because it sets things right between people and God, people and other people, people and creation—as it was in the beginning. The fruit of justice is shalom, peace, the flourishing of life, and the realization of God’s good purposes. Without justice, there is no true, lasting peace.
We are sent as Jesus was into the world… We are called today to remember, to listen, to repent, and to seek justice, in accordance with God’s own character. To seek God’s reign and God’s justice.
May the Spirit lead us to yearn, seek, work, and pray, as humble, compassionate channels of God’s justice until our Lord returns and justice and peace finally do embrace!
[1] Inequality.org https://inequality.org/facts/global-inequality/
[2] “The 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances—which examined assets such as savings, investments, retirement, pensions, and especially homeownership—Mollenkamp, Daniel Thomas. What is the racial wealth gap? Definition, Statistics and Impact. Updated October 30, 2023 https://www.investopedia.com/the-racial-wealth-gap-5105010
Given that her talk received official push-back from Lausanne leadership, and in order to further clarify and explain her intent and motives, Ruth circulated the following open letter:
An open letter to L4
Ruth Padilla DeBorst
12.30 pm, September 25
The Lausanne Program Team asked me to talk in Seoul about a theme that is central to God’s character, to the Good News, and to the calling of God’s people in the world. I was given 15 minutes to speak about justice. Perhaps, I should never have accepted the invitation! There are so many expressions of injustice in our world, how could anyone thoroughly and responsibly tackle such a deep and broad ranging theme and the complicated scenarios related to it from a biblical and theological standpoint in only 15 minutes? Also, a manuscript handed in for translation a couple months before the actual gathering is bound to be somewhat outdated.
In light of concerns raised, I am here ratifying a few points and clarifying two others.
Seeking justice is a marker of God’s people and this requires mourning the pain, naming wrongs, repenting for our complicity, and acting in accordance with God’s character through the work of the Holy Spirit.
God hears the cries of all who suffer injustice. And echoing with God’s compassionate heart, we weep with the poor and marginalized. We weep with the victims of racism, discrimination and abuse of all sorts. We weep with the millions displaced by climate change. We weep with the earth itself and with the disappearing species. We weep with all who suffer war the world round. Their pain is our pain.
We are sent into the world in all its messiness as Jesus was. We do not shy away from reality in spite of its complexity. Instead, we name what we see, recognizing that our perspective is marked by our experience and context, that others have different views, that we can only gain a fuller picture by listening humbly to one another and that, at the same time, we are to actively seek justice, echoing with God’s heart to make all things right. In that vein, in my talk on justice I stated that
“what makes God’s people such are not superficial expressions of religious piety, ‘Christianese’ jargon, worship jingles, or colonialist theologies that justify and finance oppression under the guise of some dispensational eschatology.
This is not in any way a blanket dismissal of dispensational theology and, even less, of sisters and brothers who subscribe to that stance. For the pain my statement might have caused, I am sorry. What I am naming is the troubling theological rationale sustained by some people to perpetrate injustice against certain other people.
A second clarification has to do with the following statement.
“There is no room for indifference toward all who are suffering the scourge of war and violence the world round, the uprooted and beleaguered people of Gaza, the hostages held by both Israel and Hamas and their families, the threatened Palestinians in their own territories, all who are mourning the loss of loved ones. Their pain is our pain if we are God’s people.”
First, on this point, when I refer to hostages held by Israel, I am considering the fact that the entire territory of Gaza has been held hostage for years, with all its inhabitants suffering in an open-air prison. Also, according to Amnesty International, Israel is holding over 600 uncharged captives.
Although I did refer to “all who are suffering” and “all who are mourning,” the world round, why would I zero in on Gaza and Palestinians? Why explicitly name only them? I am convinced that this is a current justice issue in relation to which we, as Christians, have a particular responsibility. Let me explain. Truly, the Hamas attack almost a year ago was abhorrent and absolutely reprehensible, and truly people who live in Israel, Jewish, Palestinian and others are being threatened as I write. Their pain is our pain. At the same time, the long-standing suffering of Palestinians has been compounded by the attacks on Gaza since October 7 where over 40,000 people have been killed, many of them, children. Additionally, settler attacks have only increased in the West Bank. Their pain is our pain -or it should be. However, far too many evangelicals around the world a-critically “stand with Israel,” and remain oblivious to the suffering Palestinians. This injustice must be named.
It is my prayer that, as the Dr Anne Zaki so clearly challenged us, we might courageously raise our voices and not be silenced and that we might humbly engage in respectful conversation in the midst of our differences so that, together, we might declare and display Christ in a broken world.
Ruth Padilla DeBorst
Similar resources
Access a Spanish translation of this presentation below
Read an article by Sojourners on the conversation that surrounded this presentation at the Congress here
INFEMIT’s Response to Lausanne’s State of the Great Commission Report
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