Racial and gender imbalances...
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Racial and gender imbalances continue to plague our nation. Women reportedly only make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes in the same job. As recently as 2011, blacks only made 63% the salaries of whites. Since the Reagan era, life has not been good for the poor and middle class. Income for the top 20% has increased while income for the bottom 80% has declined. In the 1970s the top 1% owned 8% of the total income, while in 2012 they received 18%. Meanwhile the bottom 20% of Americans lost 30% of what they were making in the late 1970s.
Karl Barth and his colleagues standing up to Hitler in their Barmen Declaration, understood Jesus in the prophetic manner of this text as standing for justice while saving us: "As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God's mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of the world..." (The Book of Confessions, 8.14).
The God who makes a mighty claim on our lives plants in us a passion to seek justice. It is as Martin Luther wrote while commenting on this very text: "It follows therefore that a Christian does not just come into being, but he is planted by the work of God. Christ is the gardener" (Luther's Works, Vol. 17, p. 336).
Karl Barth and his colleagues standing up to Hitler in their Barmen Declaration, understood Jesus in the prophetic manner of this text as standing for justice while saving us: "As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God's mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of the world..." (The Book of Confessions, 8.14).
The God who makes a mighty claim on our lives plants in us a passion to seek justice. It is as Martin Luther wrote while commenting on this very text: "It follows therefore that a Christian does not just come into being, but he is planted by the work of God. Christ is the gardener" (Luther's Works, Vol. 17, p. 336).
