When someone treats you unjustly, two desires that both sound Christian can pull in opposite directions. One wants the wrong named and repaired. The other wants peace with the person who did it. J. Deotis Roberts refused to give up either one. He argued that liberation should be pursued for the sake of reconciliation, that reconciliation only happens between equals, and that God, not you, will have the final word on justice. The work below turns that position into a week of practice with one real situation in your own life.
Plan on one opening sitting of about an hour, or two shorter ones. That is followed by seven days of brief written entries and a short closing sitting. A group can meet once before the week and once after it. Every personal question is optional. You can do the private writing and still take full part in any discussion.
Start with your reflex
Think of one recent time you were treated unfairly, small or serious, at work, at home, at church or in public. You do not have to tell anyone what it was. Write one sentence that begins My first instinct was to… and fold the paper.
Most people have a default, and it usually comes from experience. Someone who was told to keep the peace while being mistreated may hear every call to reconciliation as a trap. Someone who watched a fight for justice split a family or a church may hear every call to justice as a threat. You will compare this sentence with your week of practice at the end.
Test one idea before the explanation
In a Jude 3 Project conversation with Lisa Fields, Walter Strickland, who has studied Roberts closely, passes on one condition from Roberts’s 1971 book Liberation and Reconciliation: “you can only be restored if you’re actually considered an equal.”
Set that sentence beside Paul’s instruction in Romans 12:18: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” The KJV phrase “as much as lieth in you” means as far as it depends on you. Look it up in one other translation and note how it is rendered. Then write short answers to these questions:
- Paul names two limits: “if it be possible” and “as much as lieth in you.” What does each one admit about peace?
- Does Roberts’s condition of equality fit inside Paul’s limits, push against them, or explain them? Write one sentence that defends your answer from the verse itself.
Here is how Strickland sums up the rest of Roberts’s argument. Roberts named both systemic oppression and personal prejudice as real forces oppressing Black people in America, and he did not play them down. In Strickland’s summary, Roberts said, “We need to pursue liberation for the sake of being restored to one another, to be reconciled to one another.” Liberation comes first in sequence. Reconciliation is the goal that gives it purpose. Seen this way, a peace that leaves one person still treated as less is a counterfeit. Paul’s “if it be possible” leaves room to say so honestly.
The goal also sets a limit. Strickland states it: “we can’t do anything for the sake of liberation that will hinder reconciliation.” He immediately rules out the timid reading. Roberts was not saying that justice work must never upset anyone. He meant that there is “a bigger goal in mind than simply liberation for liberation’s sake.” The question to ask is whether a particular action closes off the restored relationship justice was supposed to serve. Whether someone gets angry is beside the point.
Strickland describes how Roberts answered young people who wanted to be more militant in A Black Political Theology. Strickland voices Roberts’s response as “I understand your frustration,” and sums up his position as “protest, yes. But in a way that’s aligned with the Christian scripture.” Roberts affirmed the protest and put Scripture in charge of how it was carried out.
Two more passages
Read each passage aloud. Note who was first addressed before you apply it to yourself.
Amos 5:24
“But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24)
Here the KJV’s judgment means justice, the right treatment of people, including in Israel’s courts. Many modern translations simply say “justice.” Amos speaks this oracle to a people whose worship was busy while their dealings with the poor were corrupt. Read verses 21-23 first to see what God rejects.
- What does God rank above religious activity here?
- Amos pictures a stream that keeps running. What would steady concern about the wrong in your situation look like, compared with occasional outrage?
2 Corinthians 5:18
“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18)
Follow the order of the verse. God reconciles first, through Christ and at great cost. Then he hands his people a ministry. Reconciliation here is work God accomplished and entrusted to others. It is not presented as a feeling believers must manufacture.
- God’s reconciling work dealt with sin instead of ignoring it. What does that suggest about a reconciliation that skips past injustice?
Where Roberts’s hope rests
Strickland locates the root of Roberts’s balance in his eschatology, his teaching about the last things. Roberts built his ethic on the coming kingdom of God, so present action had to fit with what God will finally bring. Strickland contrasts this with James Cone. Keep in mind that this is one scholar’s reading, and Cone’s own books are the place to test it. Strickland says that in Cone “you have somebody in Cone who needs to get justice now.” Roberts, he says, held that “God is just, he will have the last say in this. And so in the end, in the kingdom, he’ll make all things right.” He adds, “not that we shouldn’t pursue justice and liberation now, but it will come about perfectly.”
Romans 12:19 makes a similar move on a personal scale: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Paul is addressing personal retaliation in a congregation. He is not setting policy for courts. Within that scope, the verse does not say the wrong is unimportant. It says who repays.
Lisa Fields names what that hope protects. Without final judgment, she argues, there is no answer for “those who have done evil and gotten away with it in a sense.” She also names a limit every wronged person eventually reaches: “We don’t have that capacity.”
Now the strongest objection. Strickland notes that Cone set eschatology aside because it was abused to keep enslaved people docile. That history is real. If your hope in God’s final justice makes you quieter about present wrongs, Cone’s suspicion applies to you. Roberts used the coming kingdom as a measure for action. Because God will judge, you are not required to win every round, and you are free from methods that would destroy the reconciliation you are working toward.
This hope also speaks to the question many wronged people actually ask. Lisa Fields observes that Roberts saw the Black community’s pressing question as being about God’s character, not God’s existence: “we believe he exists, but his character.” Strickland recounts how Roberts presented arguments for God’s existence to pastors in the Washington, DC area. They told him it was “good information, but it’s not information that’s pertinent to our ministries.” Is God just? Roberts’s eschatology answers that question directly.
A week of practice
Choose one situation of injustice that is still open in your life. It might be personal, or it might involve your workplace, church or community. Spend about five minutes on it each day, writing short answers. The focus changes as the week goes on.
- Days 1 and 2: name the wrong and the repair. On the first day, write in one plain sentence what was actually unjust, without softening it or inflating it. On the second day, write what repair would concretely look like: an apology, a changed policy, restitution, a boundary, a correction.
- Days 3 and 4: check the footing. Is the other party treating you as an equal right now? If not, write down what would have to change before reconciliation is possible. On day 4, reread Romans 12:18 and decide what, in this situation, actually depends on you.
- Day 5: check the door. List anything you plan to do, say or post. Mark any item that would hinder reconciliation itself, as opposed to simply making someone uncomfortable. For each marked item, look for a way to pursue the same repair that keeps the door open.
- Day 6: take one small action. Do one concrete thing from your notes. It might mean naming the wrong to someone who can address it, setting a boundary, or making one honest attempt at contact if that is safe. Write down what happened.
- Day 7: hand over the outcome. Write one sentence giving the final result to God, using Romans 12:19 if it helps. Then read the whole week’s entries and note what became clearer.
For groups
Open the first meeting with the comparison task and the passages, not with personal stories, and let people decide how much to share. Some will be carrying fresh wounds connected to race, church or family. Follow Roberts’s order in the room: when someone names a wrong, listen first and do not hurry them toward reconciliation. Reconciliation between equals never means sending someone back into harm. If anyone describes abuse at home, their safety comes first. Help them reach a pastor they trust or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. Present the Roberts and Cone contrast as Strickland’s reading, offered with real respect for both men.
- Where have you seen people call for reconciliation when equality was missing? What happened?
- Strickland separates actions that upset people from actions that hinder reconciliation. Give an example of each. Where is the line hard to draw?
- When is it right to conclude that peace is not yet possible, and how would you tell that apart from simply giving up?
- In your experience, has belief in God’s final judgment made Christians more committed to justice now, or less? What makes the difference?
- Lisa Fields says we lack the capacity to carry out justice on our own. What, if anything, does that change about your next step in the situation you chose?
- When you have faced injustice, has the question pressing on you been whether God exists or what God is like?
Return to where you started
Unfold the sentence you wrote at the beginning and set it beside your seven entries. You may be able to say more precisely what your first instinct lacked. If you reached for peace, you might now see what equality has to cost first. If you reached for justice, you might now see what kind of justice leaves room for a restored relationship.
Write a second sentence under the first, starting with Next time, I want to… Keep the paper. The next injustice will come, and you will meet it with more than reflex.