Leader Guide | Justice Module 5 | Scholarly Pursuit of Justice

Leader prompts:

• Carlos Miguel Gomez writes: ‘An attitude of self-inquiry regarding one’s own presuppositions, the disposition to listen to and learn from the others, and epistemic humility, that is, the recognition that reality cannot be fully apprehended in any theory or thought system, are key values to be cultivated in an inter-culturally just university. Building such institutions would be a decisive way “To bring good news to the oppressed” (Is 61: 3)’.

Leader prompts:

• Wolterstorff quotes an essay written by John Lewis which includes the words of Martin Luther King: ‘it is not enough to say it will get better….each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out’.

Leader prompts:

This question might constructively be discussed in small, discipline-specific groups. Here are some examples from several disciplinary fields:

• Fine Art and Humanities: Wolterstorff writes that: ‘Gender and colonialist studies of literature have shown, in recent years, that the worlds projected by literary works – how characters are portrayed, how society is pictured, etc. – raise profound issues of justice: gender justice, racial justice, class justice, economic justice, religious justice. Traditional aesthetics, with its exclusive focus on the aesthetic properties of works of art, ignores such issues’. What are the tensions between the demands of justice and aesthetics? In what ways might the pursuit of beauty and the pursuit of justice align? How can scholars working within the arts respond to these challenges in constructive, rather than purely deconstructive, ways?
• Social sciences: Wolterstorff states that whilst it may seem obvious that academic disciplines which deal directly with human beings and social entities must be concerned with justice, it is common that ‘utilitarian considerations of power, efficiency, cost, preference, etc., are so pervasive that justice is never brought into the picture’. He suggests that to counter this tendency, social science scholars should prioritize justice for “the little ones”, just distribution and just policy making. For example, Cecilia Jacob considers the role Christian scholars can play in contributing to the prevention of mass atrocities: ‘The theme of justice is integral to every case study and recommendations produced by this report for steering policy actors, civil society and faith communities towards just outcomes. This project illustrates the potential for Christian scholars (within a secular institution and disciplinary field or research) to interact with academic, civil society and government actors in an area of fundamental injustice in international relations that align with a biblical understanding of justice’.
• Maths and Natural Sciences: Ian Hutchinson notes that natural scientists also have a role in helping us understand the place of justice in our interactions with the natural world. ‘Nature deserves to be valued by us humans. And science is a discipline that places high value on understanding it. Perhaps, then, justice toward nature, based on its excellence and praise-worthiness, is a compelling, and Christ-worthy, ethical priority’. Do you agree that justice towards nature is an important consideration for Christian scholars? If so, how should scholars consider and incorporate their obligations to the natural world within their work?