Marcus Borg speaks on the topic of social justice in the Bible, specifically Book of Amos, he looks at the societal context and world orders contemporary to Jesus and his disciples to help understand their views of social justice.
To begin, Marcus tells a parable about cows who are confined by an electric fence. The owner of the cows relates that the battery has run dead but that the cows still cower because of their experience in the first few days with the fence. He calls on people to stop cowering behind their own electric fences, the power is gone. Marcus follows this with a prayer named “Disturb us Lord” which asks the Lord to push us further when we do not push ourselves enough.
Our Topic Amos
Amos was responsible for some of Marcus’s personal conversions. One of which was a political conversion away from the far right conservatism of his upbringing. It was also Marcus’s first adult reading of the Bible. He read it in a college political science course. For a less personal reason, Marcus believes that if the book of Amos were brought to more Christian’s attention there would no longer be a far right.
The justice discussed in Amos is primarily about distributive justice as opposed to punitive or criminal justice. This is what God’s passion of justice is about.
The Social World of the Bible
The social world of the Bible meaning the economic and political systems of the world. In the Bible it is the social world of the premodern or ancients. This is not the world the Bible advocates but the world it protests. The four primary features of the premodern domination systems that the Bible protests are
- Political Oppression- societies were ruled by a few wealthy elites
- Economic Exploitation- the wealthiest roughly 2% exploited the majority of the population by owning land and taxing agriculture, life expectancy for peasants was half that of the ruling class
- Chronic Violence- keeping peasants in check and warfare among various elites
- Legitimated by Religion- the social classes claimed to be put together by God and that elites ruled by divine power, not taking responsibility for the way the world has been put together
These are the social backdrop of the Bible, without them, the Bible is likely to be interpreted as a code for individual morality.
Introducing Amos
Introduction of classical prophets and setting out the stage of various partitions of Israel that had survived the exodus from Egypt. Israel had grown into it’s own domination system ruled by the King.
Amos spoke, his teachings were short and memorable and orally memorable. His teachings were remembered and written down later.
Amos’s message
Amos passionately indited the economic injustice of the premodern domination system.
Some of his teachings use “They” language so were probably delivered to the lower classes indicating that it was the upper classes not God who socially constructed the world. While other teachings use “You” language and were probably spoken directly to the upper classes.
“Alas for those who lie in beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches and eat lambs from the flock and eat calves from the stall, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, who like David improvise on instruments of music, who drink wine from bowls, who anoint themselves with the finest oils but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph” “they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, they trample to poor into the dust of the earth and they push the afflicted out of the way”
“Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of stone but you will not live in them, you have planted pleasant vineyards but you shall not drink their wine for I know how many are your transgressions and I know how great your sins and how great are they. You who afflict the righteous who take a bribe and push aside the needy in the gate” “Hear this you the trample on the needy and bring to ruin the poor of the land saying ‘when will the new moon be over? so that we may sell grain and the Sabbath so that we may offer wheat for sale, we will make the efa (unit of measure) small and the shacke (unit of money) great and practice deceit with false balances bind the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the sweepings of wheat as if it were good grain”
In another oracle Amos speaks for God against the lavish orthodox worship practiced by the wealthy and instead asks for justice and righteousness
Threats and Judgements
Amos not only indited the wealthy but threatened them with God’s power and judgement, destruction of their social order, and loss of their political status and exile. Their strength, their horses their privilege, nothing will save them.
Rhetorical brilliance
In form, Amos used a “three wrongs and a fourth” style which he repeats throughout his oracles
In persuasiveness, Amos indites various factions of Israel for the fighting and atrocities they have committed and then he indites the wealthy of Israel for the mistreatment of their own people. This was a method of speaking out against common enemies to get listeners on his side and listening before calling his listeners into question as well. Amos directly attacked the king listing out all that usually befell a king and his people when his kingdom fell to another. Marcus asks us to consider the courage of Amos to stand up to a king who in that time period had the power of instant death and his passion for God’s passion for economic fairness. Amos goes on to attack the Israelites for believing they are more chosen or special than others, citing how other refugees were able to escape and establish their own cities this is an indictment of exceptionalism.
Amos and America
In American political culture shaped by individualism and exceptionalism. Marcus cites several contemporary scholars on the topic that indicate America is currently the most individualistic society in the world. Individualism does have some positives one being that every individual matters but as a political ideology the idea of the self made person means that success comes from within and that unsuccessful people are less because they haven’t made use of their opportunity. This ideology lends itself to lack of interest in the common good. Places were there is more importance placed on the common good life is better for everyone there. Those places are safer and people there have longer life expectancy.
Individualism also shapes how American Christians read the social justice pieces of the Bible. They read that if you are a good Christian you will be charitable. Moses and Amos are not asking the kings to up their charitable giving, they are asking that their contemporary domination system give way to a more just and less violent world.
American exceptionalism, the common affirmation that America is the greatest country in the word is not useful without terms by which to define such a claim. We have the greatest military power yes but there are about a hundred other countries in the world that are as equally free as we are. We have a massive preoccupation with being number one. Marcus asks us to consider what a relief it would be to be part of a country that had no pretensions of being number one. We have expectations of our President to end every speech with “and God Bless America” so that it doesn’t necessarily mean thankfulness but that it sounds like American triumphalism and hubris.
Conclusion
Marcus asks us to remember that Jesus and his disciples were living in a social and political domination system and that the kind of justice God has a passion for is one where people are concerned with the common good, not where people are taxed to early graves or punished for their wrong doing