Anne Wentworth appears to have it all - a happy marriage, a successful husband, a mansion in the ritzy Buckhead neighborhood, intelligence, community achievement, devoted friends and classic beauty. Then the Atlanta philanthropist invites a distressed young woman into her home. Anne takes Lynn under her wing, investing time and money in helping the mentally abused niece of an overbearing uncle get the new start she so desperately needs. Anne's husband, Jason, takes little interest in his wife's generosity, until her plan to transform Lynn into a charming, cultured young lady succeeds. Old college friends, an unexpected run-in with the law, new business ventures, heartbreak, redemption, and newfound hope make Charitable Injustice a rollicking and unexpected novel. The story extracts an array of emotions, all with more than a dollop of humor to sweep things along. The unforeseen, winding plot presses the question: What happens next?
God does not suggest, he commands that we do justice. Social justice is not optional for the Christian. All injustice affects others, so talking about justice that isn't social is like talking about water that isn't wet or a square with no right angles. But the Bible's call to seek justice is not a call to superficial, kneejerk activism. We are not merely commanded to execute justice, but to "truly execute justice." The God who commands us to seek justice is the same God who commands us to "test everything" and "hold fast to what is good." Drawing from a diverse range of theologians, sociologists, artists, and activists, Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth, by Thaddeus Williams, makes the case that we must be discerning if we are to "truly execute justice" as Scripture commands. Not everything called "social justice" today is compatible with a biblical vision of a better world. The Bible offers hopeful and distinctive answers to deep questions of worship, community, salvation, and knowledge that ought to mark a uniquely Christian pursuit of justice. Topics addressed include: Racism Sexuality Socialism Culture War Abortion Tribalism Critical Theory Identity Politics Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth also brings in unique voices to talk about their experiences with these various social justice issues, including: Michelle-Lee Barnwall Suresh Budhaprithi Eddie Byun Freddie Cardoza Becket Cook Bella Danusiar Monique Duson Ojo Okeye Edwin Ramirez Samuel Sey Neil Shenvi Walt Sobchak In Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth, Thaddeus Williams transcends our religious and political tribalism and challenges readers to discover what the Bible and the example of Jesus have to teach us about justice. He presents a compelling vision of justice for all God's image-bearers that offers hopeful answers to life's biggest questions.
Before the 99% occupied Wall Street... Before the concept of social justice had impinged on the social conscience... Before the social safety net had even been conceived... By the turn of the 20th Century, the era of the robber barons, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) had already accumulated a staggeringly large fortune; he was one of the wealthiest people on the globe. He guaranteed his position as one of the wealthiest men ever when he sold his steel business to create the United States Steel Corporation. Following that sale, he spent his last 18 years, he gave away nearly 90% of his fortune to charities, foundations, and universities. His charitable efforts actually started far earlier. At the age of 33, he wrote a memo to himself, noting ..".The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In 1881, he gave a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1889, he spelled out his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society, in an article called "The Gospel of Wealth" this book. Carnegie writes that the best way of dealing with wealth inequality is for the wealthy to redistribute their surplus means in a responsible and thoughtful manner, arguing that surplus wealth produces the greatest net benefit to society when it is administered carefully by the wealthy. He also argues against extravagance, irresponsible spending, or self-indulgence, instead promoting the administration of capital during one's lifetime toward the cause of reducing the stratification between the rich and poor. Though written more than a century ago, Carnegie's words still ring true today, urging a better, more equitable world through greater social consciousness.
The author chronicles his 2013 investigation and findings surrounding the 2004 U.S. federal arrest and subsequent trials and sentencing of the "Holy Land Foundation Five."
In Combating Injustice, Jon Falsarella Dawson approaches American literary naturalism as a means of social criticism, exploring the powerful economic arguments and commentaries on labor struggles presented in novels by Frank Norris, Jack London, and John Steinbeck. Making use of extensive archival research, Dawson considers many of the original periodical sources that fueled books from McTeague to The Grapes of Wrath, as Norris, London, and Steinbeck transformed contemporary materials into illustrations of the socioeconomic forces that shape American life. By depicting the operations of powerful individuals and institutions, these naturalist writers offered audiences a greater awareness of the plight of labor so that readers might find the inspiration to become agents of change. Works such as The Octopus, The Iron Heel, Martin Eden, and In Dubious Battle illuminate many of the central economic issues at play in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including the rise of commodity culture, labor disputes involving industrial and agricultural workers, widespread poverty, extreme inequality, and the concentration of resources and land ownership. Norris, London, and Steinbeck highlighted the dangers of these developments by charting their impact on central characters whose fates result from the predatory tactics of corporate monopolies, wealthy individuals, and large financial establishments. Dawson’s lucid analysis shows how all three writers, drawing on contemporary events, accentuated the need for reform and stressed the potential for change by human action. Each author took inspiration from notable events in California, ranging from the Mussel Slough tragedy of 1880 to the agricultural strikes in the Central Valley during the 1930s, presenting the state as a microcosm for conditions throughout the nation during a period of tremendous upheaval. Combating Injustice: The Naturalism of Frank Norris, Jack London, and John Steinbeck provides carefully contextualized readings of three major writers whose works express both the necessity for and the possibility of creating a more egalitarian society.
This book addresses the nature and injustice of authority, retracing the ideas of reason and law from ancient Greece to the present, pursuing a line of thought begun with Anaximander, who speaks of the ordinance of time as restitution for immemorial injustice, and Heraclitus, who speaks of justice as strife. Predominantly philosophical, exploring the authority of Western philosophy in twentieth-century continental and pragmatist writings, the book explores alternative voices as challenges to authority, in feminist and multicultural writings, in Greek mythology and African narratives, in Greek drama and twentieth-century literature.
“Written by an activist for activists . . . a powerful call for collective action against the social causes of poverty and climate change.” —Climate & Capitalism A new generation of activists working for economic and environmental justice, and against war and poverty, confronts critical questions. Why is the world so unjust and crisis-prone? What kind of world should we fight for? How can we win? In this panoramic yet accessible book, Umair Muhammad engages with these and other urgent debates. He argues that individual solutions like “buying green” are dead ends and that hope for the future lies in a radical expansion of democracy and the transformation of the economy from one based on profit to one that can meet human needs. “A highly recommended read for those who are interested in working together to transform society.” —Chelsey Rhodes, founder of DelusionsofDevelopment.com “This book will force activists to check their intentions. I wasn’t even halfway done before I wanted to share it with everyone I knew.” —Maryama Ahmed, Toronto-based community organizer “A wide-ranging and unflinching look at the global nature of the challenges contemporary activists seek to address. Its blend of environmental and anti-imperialist analysis, grounded in direct organizing experience, makes this a powerful and important resource.” —Dru Oja Jay, coauthor of Paved with Good Intentions “What [Umair] provides is an opening statement in an important discussion that activists must have . . . A must-read book for today’s activists.” —Ian Angus, author of A Redder Shade of Green
When Jesus left the most exclusive gated community in the universe to come live with the people he loved and gave his life for, he turned everything we know and believe about life on its head. Jesus said that he came to bring good news to the poor, but most Western Christians remain disconnected and isolated from the poor and their contexts of injustice. Even our churches echo society’s pressure to isolate ourselves from the margins (e.g. by moving to a better suburb) and instead teach us how to be “nice people” who worship a “nice Jesus” and don’t disrupt the status quo. Convinced that Jesus places love for the poor and the pursuit of justice central, Craig Greenfield has sought to follow in Christ’s footsteps by living among people at the edges of society for the last fourteen years. His quest to follow this Subversive Jesus has taken Craig and his young family from the slums of Asia to inner city Canada and back again. This is the story of how Jesus led them to the margins: initiating the Pirates of Justice flash mobs, sharing their home with detoxing crackheads, welcoming homeless panhandlers and prostitutes to the dinner table, and ultimately sparking a movement to reach the world’s most vulnerable children. This book is a strong and potentially controversial critique of the status quo too often found in our churches, but it offers an inspirational and hopeful vision of another way. While readers may not relocate to a slum, they will certainly come to view their lives and ministry through a fresh lens—reconsidering how they are uniquely called by Jesus to subversively love the poor and break down systems of injustice in their sphere of influence.
In Centering Epistemic Injustice: Epistemic Labor, Willful Ignorance, and Knowing Across Hermeneutical Divides, Kamili Posey asks what it means for accounts of epistemic injustice to take seriously the lives and perspectives of socially marginalized knowers. The first part of this book takes up the predominant account of testimonial injustice offered by Miranda Fricker, arguing that testimonial injustice is not merely about the epistemic harms perpetrated by dominant knowers against marginalized knowers, but also about the strategies that marginalized knowers use to circumvent those harms. Such strategies expand current conceptions of epistemic injustice by centering how marginalized knowers engage and resist in hostile epistemic environments. The second part of the book examines Fricker’s concept of hermeneutical injustice, rooted in hermeneutical marginalization. Thinking alongside critics of hermeneutical injustice, Centering Epistemic Injustice explores the relationship between dominant knowing and marginalized knowing and asks if social power—including the power to shape collective resources and ways of meaning-making—makes it impossible for dominant knowers to know and “hear well” across hermeneutical divides. Finally, the book asks whether hermeneutical divides are real divides in understanding and how dominant knowers might come to be better knowers in the pursuit of a more thoroughgoing epistemic justice.
