The word of the day is “justice.” People and politicians talk about social justice, economic justice, criminal justice, and racial justice. We all want “justice,” but unfortunately, we disagree about what forms “justice” should take. In addition to social and criminal justice, today, there are variants of “justice” such as environmental justice, distributive justice, occupational justice, and economic justice. We are bombarded by constant media messages to conform to specific codes of behavior that align with someone’s sense of justice. We used to call this “political correctness,” now we call it “speech codes” and “cancel culture.”
Along with the justice call is the fashionable and constant beckoning to be involved in the “cause of the day,” to recycle, raise awareness, raise money for this or that need. More than ever before, our age calls us to act right, give more, look moral. Fatigue sets in. What is the underlying motivation to sustain all these causes? When we look around at the world, are all the speech and behavior codes making a difference? Is there more justice, or rather more division?
The Cancel Culture
The motivations underlying some calls for justice today are shame and retribution. We are fast becoming a “shame” culture. We don’t want to be ashamed, so we jump on the bandwagon. Underlying any shame culture is a sense of moral superiority, which can lead to retribution. Everyone is “outraged” today over something. As philosopher Charles Taylor observes, “we fight against injustices which cry out to heaven for vengeance. We are moved by a flagging indignation against these: racism, oppression, sexism. This indignation comes to be fueled by hatred for those who support and connive with these injustices.”[1] We see in our streets how easily justice based on shame can, at times, lead to more violence. Violent mobs topple statues. Many who call for injustice commit injustices themselves, reminiscent of the French Revolution. Shame culture easily feeds on the human desire for vengeance and power, creating the cancel culture. If you don’t change or disagree, you are canceled.
Truth and Reconciliation
Is there a better basis for justice than shame and retribution, a better motivation to change human behavior for good? The lessons of South Africa have much to teach us. The poison of apartheid choked South Africa for centuries, but through a different kind of justice, a change occurred. After Nelson Mandela was released and elected President, those who had been oppressed for so long had a decision to make: should they resort to retribution for the wrongs committed, or was there another way to a better future? Thanks to the wise leadership of Mandela, the new government established the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” The aim of the Commission was not retributive justice, but restorative justice. The process allowed victims to express their anger to the perpetrators of political injustice with the aim of granting forgiveness and amnesty to the perpetrators. Mandela appointed Archbishop Desmond Tutu as the Chairman, and as Tutu recounts in his book No Future without Forgiveness, the vicious cycle of reprisal and counter reprisal had to be broken by forgiveness. Without forgiveness, there is no future. As he writes:
Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence. Forgiveness means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin, but it is a loss that liberates the victim. In the act of forgiveness we are declaring our faith in the future of a relationship and in the capacity of the wrongdoer to make a new beginning on a course that will be different from the one that caused us wrong.[2]
This kind of restorative justice works, but even more importantly, it recognizes and affirms the worth and dignity of every person. It acknowledges, as Bryan Stevenson aptly phrases, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”[3] As Tutu describes, forgiveness and restoration are not the usual currency of politics. The normal currency of politics (and especially so in the current U.S. political climate) is “dog eat dog.” Mandela and Tutu had to look to the spiritual world for a political solution, or, as Tutu puts it, to “theology.”
The Only True Path to Justice
The particular theology that Tutu relied on believes in the dignity and worth of each person, and that each person also can change. This theology believes and teaches that forgiveness is strangely the path to a world where there is justice and peace, where there can be a better future. This theology teaches that a just society has to be based on forgiveness because we all need forgiveness; we are all flawed. “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7). We are often unable to even generate the forgiveness we need to give. But there is hope. We can find the source and motivation for forgiveness from the unconditional love of the transcendent God, who showed us what love is. The love of God displayed for all to see in Jesus Christ shows us what love is: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to sacrificially forgive us” (1 John 4:10). Jesus shows us that God has a “bias for sinners,” and that “God does not give up on anyone, for God loves us from all eternity.”[4] This love is transformative, because “when I realize the deep love God has for me, I will strive for love’s sake to do what pleases my Lover. Those who think this opens the door for moral laxity have obviously never been in love, for love is much more demanding than law.”[5]
The Law Kills; The Spirit Gives Life
The motivation for any society to treat others better will not be found in behavior codes. The only real motivation to treat others better is one based on unconditional love, whose source is a just God who is full of mercy and forgiveness. This God not only forgives each of us but demonstrates how to forgive and gives us the transformative power to forgive in return. There is no future without forgiveness because we all need forgiveness. Forgiveness brings reconciliation, reconciliation can restore trust in our relationships, and trust can bring about the peace and justice for which we yearn.
[1] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 698.
[2] Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 271.
[3] Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 215), 18.
[4] Tutu, 85.
[5] Id.