Justice, Peace and Human Rights - An Ecumenical call to active prayer

Rev. Dr. Setri NYOMI （General secretary of the WARC）

Taipei, 2th November 2001

Justice, Peace, human rights - these are the contents of our prayers. These are not merely political categories. They constitute the cries and aspirations of the people of God all over the world. In that sense we have many things in common with the widow about whom our Lord Jesus Christ talked in a parable in Luke's gospel1. She persistently cried out for justice until she got it. A number of Old Testament prophets cried out for justice and many held up high human rights standards. We can say that so long as her rights were denied, she was not at peace and society was not at peace. These three elements - Human rights, Justice and Peace are therefore inter-linked in her story. They are all recurrent themes in the entire Bible. Our cries today are therefore consistent with the cries of faithful children of God over the ages. 

In this country, the call for justice, peace and human rights have constituted your cries and prayers for many years. As a faithful witnessing church, the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan has been expressing those very cries and demonstrating that it is hearing the cries of the people of Taiwan for the last thirty years. Your gathering here is an affirmation of this. 

People pray and cry for peace and against injustice and human rights violations in many parts of the world. The list of countries in which people suffer from lack of peace, justice or respect for human rights is endless. In many of these instances, peace has been elusive because the leadership in these lands is corrupt and constantly violates basic human rights. Many of such leaders have maintained their positions only on the basis of injustices and repression. 

In addition, we have many other groups of people praying for and crying for justice and peace in our communities. Indigenous people and other people who have been suffered exclusion and oppression on the basis of their race have been crying and praying for justice, their rights and for meaningful peace in church and society. Our women have been crying for justice. In homes, churches and society at large, there are too many contexts in which people oppress and exclude women, most times in the name of cultural and religious norms. Many victims of hunger, poverty, unemployment and other results of the injustice in the way the world's economy is arranged have been crying out for justice. Many of such live and work in the Southern hemisphere where their nations are heavily indebted, and yet with the systems which have been pushed on them, much resources flow from their lands to the North annually while they continue to suffer.

Our definitions, theological reflection and social analysis must put these three (justice peace and human rights) together. Inability to put the three together can lead to false definitions under which the quest for any of them can be yet another excuse for perpetrating violence and death. 

Some of the false definitions of justice have caused people to equate it with vengeance. Thus some fundamentalists could imagine that using commercial airplanes as weapons of mass destruction to kill and destroy is justified. Fortunately this kind of vengeful exercise is easily recognised as unchristian and must be condemned. Similarly, any response to such a terrorist activity which uncritically seeks to redress this great tragedy by revenging is far from justice. The events of 11th September in the USA as well as since October 7th in and around Afghanistan continue to remind us of how fragile our world is, and how easy it is to perpetrate injustice and initiate actions against peace. Such responses lead the world to more violence and the violation of human rights while we have been called to overcome violence. 

Our definition of human rights without linking it to the total well-being of people can also lead to the falsehood of justifying selfishness and rugged individualism. Human rights can meaningfully lead to peace and justice for all where people's rights are taken into account. Even that does not go far enough if it does not include the rights of future generations and the environment. The biblical witness is that all creatures are groaning and crying for justice, peace, or even survival (Romans 8:18 - 23). This is one reason why the Debrecen call for justice is not only linked with the economy, but also with the environment.

A definition of peace merely as an absence of war also overlooks the total well-being of people, and therefore attracts much critical review in the Bible. The Old Testament prophets made it clear that no one can shout "peace! Peace!" without commitment to justice or righteousness2. In fact such prophets could incur the wrath of God. In proclaiming judgement against the people of Judah in the 6th Century BCE, Jeremiah quotes the Lord as condemning not only the injustices, but also the shallow analysis and apathy which produces a meaningless proclamation of peace in the absence of justice and the honouring of human rights. Let's listen to him:

For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain;

And from the prophet to priest everyone deals falsely.

They have treated the wound of my people very carelessly ,

Saying, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace"3

This clear condemnation should be a warning to all our pastors who quickly say to a suffering member of the congregation who is crying as a result of one injustice or another, or because rights are being violated, "Go in peace, everything will be okay". When a prophet offers cheap grace, by implying that peace is possible without being held accountable for injustice and unrighteousness, as well as the ways in which violations of the rights of those who are weaker, God's disdain and judgement is clear.

Isaiah goes even further. He points out the fact that we cannot be a true worshipping community if we are not channels of God against injustice and violations of people's rights. In the 58th Chapter, this Isaiah deals with questions of ritualistic observance of religion without attention to the issues around them. They fast and pray, and do all the good things they ought to be doing, but they felt the emptiness. It seems God does not notice. Our faith can feel empty to many people unless it is linked with issues of which Isaiah spoke -righteousness, justice, human rights, and true peace for all in the land. Without the proper linkage, lots of people in the land will be crying and praying for justice while some in the religious community will simply go on with life as usual meanwhile not experiencing any meaning in their ritualistic observances. Isaiah invites all believers to cry and pray against injustices - In fact, they are called upon to shout and not hold back, and to act to break the chains of injustice. These cries, shouts and actions constitute the prayers of the believer. Prayer is not a passive activity. Living in prayer as the fast God has chosen is marked profoundly by action - to break the chains of injustice, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke, share bread with the hungry, house the homeless and clothe the naked4. 

This is why in hearing the cries and prayers of many suffering people in the world, WARC in its 23rd General Council Debrecen, Hungary (August 1997) call its member churches to a process of recognition, education, confession and action regarding economic justice and ecological destruction5. By engaging in this call, we can be more faithful to God in crying out and praying actively to break the chains of such injustices and violations of human rights. The question is "what are the issues about which people are crying in Taiwan today?" Thirty years after the church began crying out, how do we read the contents of people's cries? Some of those cries may have to do with personal challenges; others will have to do with the injustices, the human rights violations and the lack of peace that people feel. Some of them have to do with things that need to happen in the political arena, while many deal with relationships within our church family. 

At this juncture, I would like to return to the parable I begun with in Luke's Gospel. The woman was a victim of injustice. The system really did not give her any opportunity for redressing her situation. The judges imposed by the Roman colonial lords did not quite care for justice, and the woman did not have the influence or resources that could help her out. But she knew one thing. She had to fight for justice in order to be at peace. It was her right. She kept going until she got her rights restored. The point of this account was not to see God as this unjust judge - far from that. Our Lord's point was to affirm the importance of persistent active prayer, taking care not to lose heart or be discouraged. Prayer is not a simple docile activity of saying a few innocent words to God every morning, or at some regular mandated times. Christian prayer is communicating with God, and such communication is linked with action. Staying in prayer entails acting in God's strength vis-a-vis what we pray about. Thus we cannot cry and pray about justice, peace, and human rights and do nothing about it. This widow symbolises for us people who are crying for justice, peace or their rights, and who sometimes feel powerless against the powerful forces and circumstances. The unjust judge symbolises the powerful systems whose actions make it difficult for there to be justice, peace and the affirmation of the rights of all peoples. The point of the parable is to address the tendency to lose heart or despair because the powerful forces seem so difficult to deal with. In the face of the seeming success of conflicts, injustice and human rights violation, one could simply give up in despair and feel nothing will change. This is where we learn from the widow in this parable. The challenge was great. But she did not give up. She persisted in her prayers and actions - in constantly moving to the judge's house and talking about her situation. In our quest for justice, peace and human rights, we cannot lose heart. We cannot stop actively praying and acting in God's strength. Our persistence in the full knowledge of God's presence with us will wear out those unjust systems around us. It is like praying and engaging in our acts of faith not ignoring the injustices and human rights violations around us. Thus we take seriously Isaiah's critique of the religious leaders of his day.

The challenge to the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan is two-fold: 

1. As you read the cries of the people of Taiwan, you need to be faithful in God in your statements and actions without losing heart. That is persistence in prayer. You need to engage in the analysis which rises above mere partisanship and seeks to hear God's voice clearly, so that your active prayers will bring peace with justice and the affirmation of the rights of all people. Your cries will then be an echo of the cries of the people. A critical analysis of statements made over the last thirty years or statements which will be made in the next thirty years should have but one yardstick of measurement - Are they signs of God's faithful prophets responding to and crying along with the people of God in calling for justice, peace and human rights?

2. You also need to continue addressing the internal cries of people for justice and human rights within the church as a living example to society at large. I know the church has made a number of gains in this area. The fact that we have a Moderator who comes from the indigenous community, and the role of women in the life of the church are some of the gains PCT can point to in its faithfulness to God. But we should not be complacent. I encourage you to continue in these directions and to be even more faithful to God in addressing these injustices. Here again one question stands out, are you consolidating the gains made in justice for indigenous people and for women by acting as church in ways consistent with a prophetic people who echo and respond to their cries and prayers?

As Christians, our mission includes being prophetic. Prophets are people of active prayer lives whose cries and prayers are against the issues that compromise peace, justice and human rights of people. Their responses and cries echo the cries of the victims as seen in the example of the widow of our Lord's parable or those dispossessed people of whom Isaiah wrote. This is at core an action related to our relationship with God, and not a social or political action. 

Shouting out, and crying against injustices, human rights violations and the root causes of lack of peace are parts of the mandates we have from God as we engage in God's prophetic mission. Let us be as faithful and persistent as the widow in our Lord's parable, and also obedient to the call echoed by Isaiah to speak out and shout out against these evils.

So Justice, Peace and Human Rights belong are manifestations coming out of a deep sense of spirituality. As prophets of the 21st century, our commitment to them stems from a life of prayer, and whether or not we are faithful partners with God in carrying out mandates related to them depends on our active prayers. Justice, peace and human rights commitment, therefore constitute a response to God's calling us to prayer.

1 Luke 18: 1-8. All Biblical passages quoted in this paper are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan (1989)

2 Justice and righteousness in the Old Testament original texts have the same root and sometimes are used interchangeably

3 Jeremiah 6:13-14. 

4 The entire 58th Chapter of Isaiah focusing especially on the first 9 verses.

5 Break the Chains of injustice @ Debrecen 1997, Report of the 23rd General Council of the World alliance of Reformed Churches, page 198

On 4th November an interfaith rally to pray for peace was held at the Roman Catholic Ricci Institute for Chinese Studies. Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant clergy and religious joined together around the themes "love life, banish sorrow and fear, call for reconciliation and work for peace". They took turns leading prayers, calls for blessing, chants and hymns. Non-believers among the participants commented on the solemn spirit of the meeting and their respect for this manifestation of faith. The meeting was a united one, without division of sect or creed. Participants called together for divine guidance for Taiwan to move in the direction of stability and peace. The leadership of the Presbyterian Church has promised to continue the movement with weekly meetings henceforth to be held at Chi-nan Church, which is the ecclesiastical facility located nearest the houses of parliament.