"The church lives in the midst of history as a sign, instrument, and foretaste of the reign of God. But this does not mean that in the life of the church there can be at any point in time a simple identification of the justice of God with the justice of a particular political cause. The church has too often fallen into that trap. To refuse the identification is not to fall into some kind of idealist or spiritualist illusion. It is not to detach the interior life of the soul from the business of doing justice and mercy in the society. It is simply to acknowledge that all human causes are ambiguous and all human actions are involved in the illusions that are the product of our egotism. It is to confess that final judgment belongs to God, and that when people usurp that prerogative they fall into self-destructive blindness.
The issue may be put in another way. If we acknowledge the God of the Bible, we are committed to struggle for justice in society. Justice means giving to each his or her due. Our problem (as seen in the light of the gospel) is that each of us overestimates what is due to us as compared to our neighbors. Consequently, justice cannot be done, for everyone will judge in his or her own favor. Justice is done only when we all acknowledge a judge with authority over us, in relation to whose judgment we must relavitize our own...If I do not acknowledge a justice that judges the justice for which I fight, I am an agent not of justice, but of lawless tyranny."
Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to Theology of Mission (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 110-111.
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