The Voice of Justice from The Justice Conference on Vimeo.

1. Photos from Guatemala’s war years

2. The MBA Oath
We’ve all heard of the Hippocratic Oath - an ethical pledge for medical professionals “to do no harm.” In December I wrote about a similar oath for those working among the poor. Here now is an oath for business school grads, developed by Max Anderson and his classmates at Harvard Business School. It’s an idea whose time has come.

3. Dakota prisoner letters
Minnesota Public Radio has a segment about letters that have emerged from “concentration camps” in Minnesota where members of the Dakota tribe were held 150 years ago. This is a painful story for everyone to face up to, but for Clifford Canku, a Dakota elder who teaches at North Dakota State, the story needs to be told. (HT Richard Twiss)

4. The working class in Latin America
Sara Miller Llana writes for the Christian Science Monitor about how life is changing for the working class in urban Latin America, the region where the gap between the richest and the poorest is most stark in the whole world. While I don’t think that life for rural indigenous people has improved enough for the issue to be pushed aside, I do appreciate this broadening of the focus:

For two decades, social movements in Latin America have centered on indigenous rights. Today the indigenous have earned new political representation, and open mistreatment will draw complaints. Yet daily life across Latin America is replete with symbols of stubborn class inequality that go unchallenged, such as condominium buildings that have separate elevators for domestic workers.

5. Religion, science and naturalism
NPR’s Weekend Edition interviewed Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga about the common ground between religion and science, saying the real disparity is between religion and naturalism.

Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!

[Photo credit: Jean-Marie Simon via New York Times]

Some may take issue with that claim, but Phoenix’s problem is evident: a sprawling population of four million and counting in a sun-scorched desert certainly poses significant sustainability challenges. Further, as Ross argues, a prevailing culture of rugged individualism and a widespread aversion to all forms of regulation have only exacerbated the sustainability challenges.

As a relative newcomer to Phoenix, I was particularly interested to learn what is being done to make Phoenix more sustainable, and what obstacles stand in the way. According to the book, the obstacles have for the most part gotten the upper hand. But with a heightened awareness of the need for more sustainable living across the country and around the world, Ross believes that Phoenix can point the way to the future, for better or worse...

Read my full review of Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable City (Oxford University Press) at Englewood Review of Books.

In his talk he began by defining “marketplace” in broad terms, suggesting that it basically means all that happens in society. It could also simply be called the public square, or, to use Old Testament language, “the gate.” His fundamental premise, which he made clear from the start, is that God is interested in what happens in the marketplace. This seems obvious, but too many Christians seem to live with a suspicion that the things we need to spend most of our time doing are things that don’t really matter to God. That belief is dead wrong.

He gave his talk in three sections, at least according to my notes. First, he spoke on why the marketplace matters to God. Second, how Christians are called to act in the marketplace. And third, the church’s dual task in relationship to it. Since it was all such wonderful stuff, I thought I’d more or less reproduce the talk here, to the best of my memory, with little commentary by me. I’ve included Scripture references (a lot of them), and when possible, great questions Wright left with us on the basis of these principles.

THE MARKETPLACE MATTERS TO GOD

1. God created work (Genesis 1, 2). The Fall corrupted it, but it’s still something God made good. We need to understand that work is not some necessary evil; rather, it’s a means of glorifying God. For the pastors and teachers among us, do we teach the importance of work the way the Bible does?

2. God audits it (Psalm 33:13-15; Amos 5:12-15, 8:4-7; Jeremiah 7:9-11; I Samuel 12:1-5). God is the auditor of the marketplace, at both a personal and a corporate level. According to Scripture, God requires justice in the public square just as much as he requires worship in the Temple (or, in our case, the church). He hears what’s said and sees what’s done in the marketplace, and he even examines the attitudes in our hearts. He is the independent scrutineer of all that happens in the marketplace. How and when do you submit to God’s audit of your daily work? How does accountability to God affect the way you work?

3. God governs it (Joseph in Genesis 50:19-20; Isaiah 19:1-15; Daniel 4). We tend to speak of the marketplace as if it is autonomous, but the truth is that events are the product of human actions, and we’re therefore responsible for what we do. But God is sovereign, and his sovereignty doesn’t stop short of the marketplace. How and where do you discern the governance of God in the marketplace? What does it mean to “seek first the kingdom and his justice” Monday through Friday?

4. God redeems it (Isaiah 65:17-25; Colossians 1:16-20; Romans 8:19-21; II Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:24-27). Our eschatology and our understanding of the story of the Bible affect how we view the marketplace. If we believe everything in the world is all going to be zapped someday, why would we care what happens in the marketplace? The truth is that God loves everything he’s made; it’s all twisted and we’re all twisted, but the Bible teaches that God will redeem creation, not obliterate it. God will create a new heaven and a new earth. All things are created by Christ, sustained by Christ, and redeemed by Christ. Because of the resurrection of Christ, all we do under the sun is not vanity! We don’t know precisely how everything will turn out, but we believe in the resurrection. How is our daily work transformed by the knowledge that it contributes to the new creation, redeemed by God?

WE’RE CALLED TO ENGAGEMENT AND DISTINCTIVENESS

1. Engagement. This can happen through serving the state (i.e., Joseph & Daniel); through prayer and “seeking the welfare of the city” - not just Jerusalem, but Babylon too (Jeremiah 29:7; I Timothy 2:1-4; Erastus in Acts 19:22; Romans 16:23); through ordinary, honest daily work - it’s instructive to look up the number of times in the New Testament Paul refers to doing good (I Thessalonians 4:11-12, 5:14; II Thessalonians 3:6-13); through encouraging fellow Christians in the true value of the marketplace.

2. Distinctiveness. We’re called to be saints who are holy, different, salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16; Daniel 6:3; I Chronicles 29:17; Genesis 18:19; Colossians 3:22-23). If Christians are to be salt and light, the assumption is that there are dull and dark places in the world, and we’re to actually change things in those places - like salt, we get rubbed into the meat; like light, we break the darkness. Whatever we do, we are to do it as unto the Lord - in other words, as if the other person is Christ himself. Worldview distinctiveness - we live by a different story (biblical narrative rather than British imperialism or the American Dream, for example). When we follow Christ, we enter the biblical story, and we’re to build that story into our lives. As we do so, it’ll challenge ourselves and others - it cuts through all peoples and cultures.

THE CHURCH’S PROPHETIC AND PASTORAL TASK

1. The prophetic task. Pastors and Christian leaders must speak out in the midst of a synchetized and idolatrous culture with a voice of evaluation and critique. It requires, at times, speaking truth to power. We can’t just bless everything society does, or bless church members who willingly go along with corruptions of God’s good design for the marketplace. The prophetic task can be costly, a rough road to travel, as all the biblical prophets knew.

2. The pastoral task. Pastors and Christian leaders must support those who work in the marketplace, meaning those who participate in all spheres of society every week. God didn’t create the church to support the clergy; rather, the pastor comes every Sunday to support the church as it then goes out into the world to be salt and light in the marketplace, knowing that their work matters to God.

As you can tell, he gave us plenty to chew on. If we were to summarize his main points, though, we could say this: The marketplace matters to God. It can go terribly wrong, but work was created by God, is audited and governed by him, and will ultimately be redeemed by him. Christians are called to engage in the marketplace with distinctiveness. And, finally, the church is to challenge distortions in the marketplace as well as to equip its members to help it flourish as it should.

If you’d like to see and hear Dr. Wright for yourself, here he is in the five-minute video speaking on the importance of confronting idols and making disciples - which in fact has everything to do with faithfulness in the marketplace (thanks to Jake Belder for sharing it).

Confronting Idols & Making Disciples from Medri Kinnon Productions on Vimeo.

What are your reactions to this basis for Christian engagement in the marketplace? How does it challenge your understanding of the relationship between faith and work?

Because they were so kind and gracious when we met them (and because their music is fantastic), when I saw they had rescheduled for another visit, I jumped on it and got us tickets as a Christmas present. It was a wonderful evening of music, and a really fun atmosphere... albeit for relatively sad songs.

By the way, they're also nominated for a couple of Grammys, which is exciting.

Anyway, here's their music video for "Forget Me Not."