Just Faith? A National Survey Connecting Faith and Justice within the Christian Reformed Church

Abstract

Does the call to pursue justice live in the hearts and minds of contemporary Christians? If so, to what extent? In order to address these questions, our research team used a community-based research approach to investigate how Christians in a specific denomination (the Christian Reformed Church in North America) conceptualize the relationship between justice and faith, what priority justice holds in their lives, and the barriers and enablers they identify to pursuing justice. This article reports on the findings of a survey that was distributed to a representative sample of 264 congregational members across Canada. Findings show that understandings of justice from ''the pew'' are multifaceted even if conceptually vague. Yet justice is clearly understood as being connected to faith even if there is ambiguity as to how it fits into the spectrum of Christian life. There is subsequently a need to assist congregants in translating their awareness of injustice and desire for justice into action. In particular, survey results emphasize the importance of pairing a Christian vision for justice with opportunities to experience exemplars of justice work. Further research could explore the extent to which these on-the-ground perspectives are shared across Christian and other faith traditions, and across world regions.

It's all about needs: the role of Christian congregations in addressing the social exclusion barriers of seasonal agricultural workers

“…Congregations identify the complexity of justice work as a barrier to furthering their acts of justice as a social service provider. The study from Janzen et al (2016b) reveals that 27% of the congregant members studied agreed with the following statement "justice seems so complex, it's hard to know what to do" (p. 240).…”

“…On a secondary level, congregant members state that they do not have time because their church is involved in other activities-ministries tailored specifically to its members (Janzen et al, 2016b). In this way, congregations are often more interested in the development of personal faith and Christian discipleship practices than the development of justice work and fair public policy.…”

“…These specific resources are required in order to respond to the systemic challenges facing marginalized populations. Because churches lack these resources, it can be noted that congregations have a limited capacity to engage in social justice mobilization work-the kind of social service needed for effective structural change (Janzen et al, 2016b).…”

“…On another level, the small amount of staffing tends to have detrimental effects on the quality of the social services provided by Christian congregations. Since the majority of churches rely on volunteers who have a range of other commitments, there is a limited amount of time and energy that can be put into a congregation's social services (Cnaan et al, 2004;Janzen et al, 2016b).…”

Thoughts into action: Creating a long-term movement toward a reconciled and just society

“…74 Janzen also accentuates the importance of investing in leadership that promotes justice and asserts that these leaders should create places for conversations and that these conversations and engagements then leads to individuals who act and become involved in reconciliation practices. 75 Van der Merwe refers to two types of dialogues that FCs can provide a safe space for, namely cross-racial and victimperpetrator dialogues. Cross-racial dialogue is aimed at community-building.…”