Social Justice Handbook Summary

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. Before reading chapters one to five in Mae Elise Cannon’s book, Social Justice Handbook: small steps to a better world, I didn’t really have a concrete idea of what Social Justice was exactly. Reading these chapters gave me a better understanding of what we can do as a society and a church to solve social justice issues. Throughout this book many topics are brought up such as sex trafficking, domestic violence and many more heart wrenching topics. The author, Mae Elise Cannon provides us with different approaches regarding how to go about addressing these problems that our society and church struggle with daily. Social justice is concerned with equality, not just in a court of law but in all aspects of society. This concept demands that…show more content…
Some of the different types of justices mentioned in the book are retributive justice, distributive justice and restorative justice. Cannon’s example of what Retributive justice is “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Exodus 21:24). Retributive justice means that if someone does something wrong to you, you have the right to do that same thing back to them. It’s about getting even with those who do wrong to you. They are quick to say well he started it or he hit me first. The book says that this kind of justice is what military is often like; “atomic bomb on japan during World War II was an act of retributive justice” (Cannon 2009: 36). God doesn’t call us to commit these acts of violence, he calls us to love are neighbour as are self and also to forgive are enemies. Distributive justice is all about the equality of wealth which addresses the issue of poverty in the world. “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone has food should do the same” (Luke 3:11). This is so relevant, and it is what we should go by as a church, community and society. There are so many stories that you hear in today’s media about celebrities and what they do with their wealth like purchasing expensive homes, vehicles and sadly excessive amounts of alcohol. But this also goes with non-celebrities also; we waste too much money on miscellaneous things. If we were to use that money that we waste on useless…show more content…
There are so many solutions that people in the church can contribute to concerning social injustice. For example, people can arrange to meet with their pastor to bring up topics in church that would bring awareness to social injustice and that could cause a chain reaction for others to start talking about issues of society in a way that would inspire action. Also, someone could create a presentation about social issues and present it in their church. I feel the churches in today’s society do not deal with social justice issues, even though they may discuss them, but that is the only length they will go to. Churches need to go beyond just talking about social justice issues. Instead they need to get involved by doing mission trips, presentations, making flyers and initiating change starting with the world around them. We as a church and community have to be the voice for those who do not have a voice in today’s world. We have to inspire others to want to make a change and we have the power make a difference, it just takes one act and we can reach goals of stopping social injustice. Prayer really does make a difference, because with God on our side we can achieve anything. The church can create fundraisers and raise money and give it to an organization that helps with social injustice. We
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