Justice should not be a back-up dancer.

 I feel as though the God of justice is faded into the background by those who overshadow his righteousness with a cheap and naive version of ‘love’. Welcome to my long rant about what many people in the church have gotten wrong. 


Humility

One of the notable traits that Jesus Christ (God in human form) embodied is humility. Though he was perfect and the epitome of morality, he still positioned himself to suffer the consequences of all of our sin. The word ‘Sin’ translated means to ‘miss the mark’. And as we all know, no one is free from making mistakes. The gospel message is all about a just God, coming down to receive a death sentence on the behalf of us humans who are so unjust and unreasonable. We are called to follow suit in administering justice, whether that be calling out people for their evil openly or standing up for the voiceless, widowed and orphaned (there are so many examples, which I will probably address later on).


The Imbalance of Love and Justice 

Normally, when I have heard dialogue about the notion of sin it has been overemphasised in areas concerning sexuality or let’s say divorce or let’s say unbelief. 

I am not here to share my opinion on the above but I will say that not ‘acting justly’ is probably a way bigger missing of God’s ideal than all the other sins we frequently hear about. 

Why? Because the two most important commandments are to ‘Love God and Love people’ (Matthew 22:36-40). 

Refusing to humbly recognise and enact justice is a lack of humility in the guise of love ( covering evil thus forth enabling people who are wrong).


Loving God

As a result of people negatively portraying who God was to me for a while I only could reconcile my faith by calling him Love. On many occasions where I saw partiality being shown by church members to people who were literally abusing their power, I was wholeheartedly disgusted by the ‘Christian’ faith. For example, many social and cultural barriers were placed by former authorities in our life interfered with our plans to get married.

The rationales behind their barricades were quite frankly tyrannical, superficial and ignorant of Josiah and I’s  belief system (weird right? Considering it is OUR union).

Anyways, I could rant on the above for ages but I just want to highlight that we were subjected to honour-based abuse, domestic abuse, excommunication, financial abuse and homelessness. 

But, all of our suffering and vulnerability were spiritually bypassed by fundamentalist quotings of scripture, which at every junction neglected God’s heart for justice. 

I’m going to pinpoint a couple of the main narratives to really highlight the absence of justice in my prior evangelical spheres.


“Honour your mother and father” (they missed out ‘in Christ’)

I was essentially told by my ex-community that they were not in support of me and Josiah’s union as it was done to the detriment of my parent’s honour. You may be wondering how? Essentially, I come from Zimbabwe and a common cultural practice called ‘lobola’ is what is considered as marriage in many Zimbabwean homes. Lobola is essentially spoken about as showing gratitude for the bride's parents for raising their daughter by the paying of bride-price. Normally this is in the form of a private wedding at the parents of the bride's home, where the groom is presented with a list and proceedings that they must adhere to in order for them to get the approval of the parents. Sounds fun right but it's not for me!

In all honesty, I wish I wasn’t trained to be such a critical thinker. It means that I must wholeheartedly believe and agree with a narrative before I enact it. I had so many issues with this cultural custom of marriage as it was very collectivist, whereas I prefer individualism. Without going into the in’s and out’s of my scepticism, I will say notably that some people’s story is that I failed to ‘Honour my mother and father’ thus forth the rejection, gaslighting and abuse is rightfully mine. I mean after all it says everything will go well for you in the land if you honour them. 

But should conceptions of honour (which is vastly open to interpretation)  supersede justice? 

Having ‘Sex Before Marriage’

At some point we were doing our thing before we had made a commitment to one another. I have my own current views on marriage but I could write a whole book on that (I’ll spare you the lengthy manifesto and get to my point about justice). 

Till this day I feel that we have been treated unjustly just because we are not traditionally or legally married. Our current position is literally contending to find ourselves a home without the support that we desire. Obviously there are many other relevant reasons and the onus is on us to find our own home, but bro sometimes it feels so unjust. I mean doesn’t the bible say if our brother is hungry feed them?


My heart breaks

I feel as though there is a criteria that certain people have to uphold to be served and loved and I am not sure about that (obviously exceptions apply when it comes to setting reasonable boundaries). I’m wary of overtyping as I do have a newborn to look after but I can’t overlook the fact that many Christians will turn a cold shoulder to those who are vulnerable. 

It seems that social conventions are rendered more supreme than caring for those who haven’t upheld certain dogmatic beliefs/traditions. 

I guess my heart is for people to be more reasonable and fair when it comes to loving those who think/believe differently to them - like gosh we all fall short and no one should be on a pedestal.  And we should all be able to have the bare minimum; freedom of thought, shelter and someone who listens. 


The Herd Mentality sucks.

Many have pre-determined approaches to really deep social issues and it is just wrong! The truth is there are nuances to each and every person’s situation and when dealing with them we must think with our feet on the ground, rather than from dreamland. It’s  arguably never enough to quote scripture to someone and pray, where is practical love and service in that approach? 


Rather than let people’s actions slide, because of 'love' ,'forgiveness' or 'grace', let's allow people to reap what they sow - so they know the fruit of their actions. Genuine love calls out misconduct regardless of one’s status, age or anything else.

 Yet I often see people advise Gen-z to never correct their parents, never challenge authority and to stop ‘being too intellectual’.

This has to stop. Why? People are continuing to be abused, whilst the people perpetrating evil and injustice are getting away scot-free. 


This is why I continue to speak up 

Ecclesiastes teaches that there is a time for everything. For example, there is a time to build and a time to destroy. I think to build healthy individuals, stable relationships and thus forth a Godly church, there is some tearing down that needs to occur. In my opinion, one of the greatest things that needs to be teared down are our egos. We are not better than anyone and we are mandated to be repentant, honest, just and loving. 


That means if someone is being abused, stand up for them.


Such circumstances are not a time to be partial to the person who has acted as an  abuser. 


Correct them and advocate for the oppressed.


 It should never be the offended person’s duty to change and interact normally with said person, without correction having taken place. 


A note to those reading who dislike my online activism 

Whoever it is I will call out toxic behaviour no matter who it is, especially when I have over and over again called people out who still remain in their pride as a result of their ego and fellow enablers.  

Why? I am not alone in my trauma or abuse, and if I have some gems and knowledge that can help people realise that toxicity is not normal then imma share them. 

If you are concerned with how I portray certain people that I ‘should’ be closest to, the truth hurts and it will set you free.

I will not withhold or change my story to play happy family. 

Hopefully we will all continually answer the call to love, humility and justice and I will have a testimony to share rather than accounts of sorrow. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I wish I didn’t confess my sexual ‘sin’.

  I remember being taught to confess my sins, yet when I did it always bit me in the nyash. So I became deceitful and when the truth came out, I used to lie or water it down. Otherwise I’d experience condemnation. I can’t believe I was suicidal because I liked sex. Upon reflection I wasn’t enacting a holy ideal, though I was aiming towards love.  They say God and faith is an antidote to sin yet I feel that Christianity made me sick.   I remember losing my virginity at 14, whilst my parents were away at a funeral in Ireland. I didn’t plan to. I was all alone and believed a guy, that I had only spoke to once on Snapchat, when he said he loved me.  Of course he didn’t. He said to me sweet nothings and got back with his ex after using me. I resent the fact that I was so naive. But perhaps, the seeds of low-self esteem where starting to sprout in the form of sexual curiosity. After I lost my virginity, I changed completely. I told no one besides my two non-religious ...
Read more

My Perinatal Experience of Homelessness

My Perinatal Experience of Homelessness I was homeless and pregnant.  I grew up in numerous different houses that were vibrant, big and never void of basic necessities. My parents are the epitome of hard-working and I have thus far never gone without food under their care. Despite the privileges that I was immersed in growing up, in 2019 I was more than eager to start my journey away from home in the city of Birmingham. As someone who had grown up in relatively rural areas, I wanted to experience urban life on the quest to expand my life experience. Back then I didn’t know what drove my explorative desire, yet now I know that it was driven by my 98% openness to experience (one of the big 5 personality traits).  During my time away, I found the world to be a fountain of both wisdom and folly. In the first year of University, my hall of residence felt more like the Devil’s Playground than a safety haven. I underestimated how much of a challenge it would be to live healthily in a...
Read more

When the opposite-sex are branded as aliens.

Religious PR is overzealous to say the least. So effective that one can be conditioned to fear merely talking to the opposite sex. A few months ago, Josiah and I stopped off at a service station on the M4 on the way to London. I am grossly interested in self-expression and how it manifests in social settings. I noticed a group of four men with two of their sons, all clothed in the most pristinely cut blue shirt, grey suit trousers and the cleanest haircuts with fades. In my ignorance and simultaneous anxiety, I initiated an inquiry with these men. I said "You are all looking very sharp, have you got a wedding?". They continued to face the Mcdonalds counter and gave me brash responses. In my attempt to avoid further misogyny, I invited Josiah over to chat and in response to this questioning they told him they were apart of a very exclusive religious group (the name has slipped my mind but that is probably a good thing) and were on their way back from a bible conference. They a...
Read more