As many of you know, this spring I gave a set of talks at Biola University’s Torrey Honors Institute on the relationship between the Gospel and justice. Some of the excerpts of those talks appeared here in this newsletter: they are an exploration of how faith, love and hope intersect with the exhortation in Micah to do justice, walk humbly with God, and love mercy.
Among a certain set of evangelicals, there has been some controversy of late over how to understand the Gospel/justice relationship. There’s enough across these lectures to irritate practically everyone in that discussion, though I do not undertake direct engagement with it. My hope was, rather, to lay out a broader, normative framework for what an evangelical understanding of justice demands in response to shifting cultural tides. They are not a comprehensive statement of what an evangelical political theology requires—but they are a gesture in that direction.
Torrey Honors was basically the perfect place to attempt such a task, and not only because it is my “home turf.” The students there asked serious, probing questions—many of which cut to the center of my project and offered bracing challenges to it. It is a shame that those questions do not really come through on the videos—but I did repeat the question as much as I can, so you can still get something of the gist of them.
Especially the second lecture. The Q&A may contain something of a long rant about Netflix. Watch at your own peril.