In our discussion of a Sunday-School class, a friend referred to justice and mercy as "God's middle name."
That seemed a perfect way to put it: that immediately and inextricably following the reverence due His Personally Being I AM, is His Personal BE-ING toward human beings. As Jesus called our reverent following Him in that "Be-ing,", the second greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36-40).
It's been quite noticeable in our time that the qualities of "mercy" and "justice," literally God's Own heart toward mankind, have been marginalized in many parts of the Church, regarded as side-issues of interest to only a fringe-element of believers. (My perception is that, in America, that attitude had its roots in the white evangelical churches of the South, as an attempt to disassociate their doing "church" from the black churches' involvement in the Civil Rights movement)
Most recently God's commands that His people practice mercy and justice have been further marginalized; indeed, reviled; by dominant Political Christianity characterizing that "fringe-element" as "liberal" Christians. Not "liberal" in the normative meaning of "generous," by which we say God is abundantly liberal: but in the current narrow sense of Evangelicals' chosen political faction, "liberal" meaning "enemy," and "evil."
America's current political "Evangelism" marginalizes God's command to "do justice, [and] love mercy" (Micah 6:8); and indeed, treats those as "enemy" teachings.
Could "Evangelicals" be any more alienated from God's very heart ?
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