Like Minded Deviants

Like-Minded Deviants with Dr. Lindy Backues, Jon-Michael Odean, and Justin Stewart-Fritz is a podcast that seeks to deviate from the norm. As two of Lindy’s former graduate students, Justin and Jon-Michael bring an extended friendship with him cultivated over years, enriched by their present ministries, life as educators, a good dose of grassroots practitioning, and deep respect as close friends and colleagues. Each week these three come prepared to engage in a provocative conversation. A conversation that intentionally and sometimes irreverently unpacks events and ideas plucked from newspapers and headlines, unashamedly channeling these conversations through a theologically jarring lens.

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Like Minded Deviants

Justice Part 1: What Is It?

August 03, 2021 • Dr. Lindy Backues, Justin Stewart-Fritz, Jon-Michael Odean • Season 1 • Episode 10

The word justice appears in a lot of places in the biblical record. As a community seeking to follow the pattern of Jesus – a community attempting to live in a way that is Christomporphic, that is ‘in the shape of Jesus’ – we must put the idea of justice as central to our understanding of the good news as did Jesus.

The trouble is, though, we often do not know what justice is. We often see justice as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ rule that everyone needs to obey equally. The idea of justice needs to be parsed and better understood. Come deviate with us as we seek to better understand what justice means, especially in light of the call to those who feel prompted to follow a pathetic God.

Texts:

David P. Gushee & Glenn H. Stassen, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, 2nd Edition, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2016 (ISBN: 978-0-8028-7421-4).
Donald A. Hay, Economics Today: A Christian Critique, Regent College Publishing, 2004 (ISBN: 978-157383284).
Stephen Charles Mott, Biblical Ethics and Social Change. Second Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011 (ISBN: 978-0199739370).

Readings:

‘Weightier Matters of the Law: Justice’, Gushee & Stassen, Chapter 7
‘God’s Justice and Ours’, Mott, Chapter 4