Preservation Of Institutional Justice

NORTHERN CARIBBEAN UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES, BEHAVIOURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF BEHAVIOURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Section A

CJUS112: The Church and Preservation of Institutional Justice

Assignment: Thought Paper

By:
Threshanna Dyce -32130304

To:
Sharmaine Tapper

Date:
March 9, 2015

The Bible is of great significance to Christians as it dictates human life on matters of practices and beliefs. For us human to live a life that is dignified and meaningful, justice has to be implemented in a fair and just way. Justice is one of the most frequently recurring topic in the Bible, and there are hundreds of verses or text that evidently show the implementation or application of justice throughout. It is no secret that the New
Foster highlighted that In the Bible, concern for justice often involves a reversal of fortune, a bringing down of the rich, who gained their wealth by exploiting others, and a lifting up of the poor, who suffered so much injustice. This reversal is clear in places like Psalm 107:33-43 and Psalm 113. “Mary’s Magnificat in the first chapter of the gospel of Luke also predicts a reversal of fortune when Jesus comes into the world. Mary, as one of the poor in Israel, lifts her praise to God for bringing down the proud and lifting up the humble, feeding the hungry and sending the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53).” In this view of God’s justice, each gets what each deserves. Dr. José M. De Mesa define Justice in the New Testament as been the very heart of the New Testament, where being righteous and being just are intertwined. They are like "Siamese twins" if we are to take our cue from Amos (5:24) who says, "Let justice flow like water, and righteousness like a roaring stream." In Christianity a just person is a righteous person; and a righteous person is the one who is just. The path of righteousness, then, is justice. Walking in the way of justice is being and becoming righteous. The theme of justice may be regarded as a thread that runs through history of Israel
For these things God appointed the role of earthly governance to ordain his vengeance. The Old Testament conveys a greater degree of recommended justice than the New Testament, mainly because it includes the role of a national justice system. This does not mean there is a change in the nature of God but is based on a different context. This nature of the New Testament referred to something in the role of Christianity through the generations following Jesus. The ideologies were laid out on the basis that Christian worship would be self-governing and not of national governance. Christianity was to remain a body of believers motivated out of genuine faith, and the aspects of criminal justice were to stay outside of its bounds. This is consistent with the idea expressed in the New Testament in how the faithful in Christ would remain a minority among the people of the world. Jesus speaks of this in terms of it being entering through a narrow gate, rather than the wide gate of the worldliness, (Matthew 7:13-14), “Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it. How narrow is the gate, and restricted is the way that leads to life. Only a few will find it. We can assume from this that Christians was supposed to remain a minority within the population. They was supposed to be the set of people who