Journey toward Justice

Christianity's demographics, vitality, and influence have tipped markedly toward the global South and East. Addressing this seismic shift, one of today's leading Christian scholars reflects on what he has learned about justice through his encounters with world Christianity.

Philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff's experiences in South Africa, the Middle East, and Honduras have shaped his views on justice through the years. In this book he offers readers an autobiographical tour, distilling the essence of his thoughts on the topic. After describing how he came to think about justice as he does and reviewing the theory of justice he developed in earlier writings, Wolterstorff shows how deeply embedded justice is in Christian Scripture. He reflects on the difficult struggle to right injustice and examines the necessity of just punishment. Finally, he explores the relationship between justice and beauty and between justice and hope.

This book is the first in the Turning South series, which offers reflections by eminent Christian scholars who have turned their attention and commitments toward the global South and East.

“Drawing on his experience of being confronted by those who have suffered injustice, Wolterstorff helps us understand why and how such experiences should make a difference for how justice is understood. His reflections on the relations of beauty, hope, and justice are profound and moving.”—Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School; author of many books, including With the Grain of the Universe and Hannah’s Child

“I have been so deeply grateful, over many years, for the gift of rigorous scholarship Dr. Wolterstorff has brought to the body of Christ. Now my gratitude expands all the more with his newest gift: his work on biblical justice made accessible for even wider audiences and, most of all, the sharing of his personal journey. This is a book that I will use in many settings for years to come.”—Bethany H. Hoang, director, IJM Institute for Biblical Justice

“Journey toward Justice is not only a fine primer in the basics of Christian political thought, it is an inspiring testimony about what it means to seek the shalom that God intends for the creation, narrated in firsthand encounters with the realities of human suffering.”—Richard Mouw, professor of faith and public life, Fuller Theological Seminary

“Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Journey toward Justice is far more than his personal story of how his encounters with suffering people shaped his thinking (and life) around an active concern for justice. The book combines this story with deep and clear thinking, centered in the biblical revelation, about how Christians should think about justice and about the implications of a biblical concern for justice in the contemporary world.”—C. Stephen Evans, University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Baylor University

“If you have not read Wolterstorff’s great books on justice, you should. This book—accessible and profound—is the easiest place to start.”—Miroslav Volf, Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology, Yale Divinity School; founder and director, Yale Center for Faith & Culture; author of A Public Faith

“Nick Wolterstorff is one of my ‘heroes of the faith’—not just because he is a brilliant philosopher (although he is that), and not just because he is a careful and attentive reader of Scripture (although he is that too), but because he is an advocate for justice. His concern with justice is a lived concern, not just a theoretical one. His encounters with people who had been treated unjustly decisively shaped his life and re-formed both his analysis of the concept of justice and his reading of Scripture. I hope this book is widely read. It just may prompt others to listen both to the oppressed and to God—and to hunger for justice.”—Allen Verhey, Robert E. Cushman Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School

“Nicholas Wolterstorff has earned our respect and stirred our minds in his long career as a Christian philosopher. He has demanded our attention and struck our conscience in his more recent turn to the theory and practice of justice. Here he captures our imaginations and moves our souls as he tells the story of his journey toward justice—a journey that leads him from wisdom to witness.”—Samuel Wells, vicar, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square; visiting professor of Christian ethics, King’s College, London, England

“Ideas have consequences, the philosophers tell us. And they are right. But every idea also has a story. This is the tale of how one of American Christianity’s most careful thinkers got justice deep down in his soul. Journey toward Justice is nothing if it is not clear. But it is more: by telling the story of how people suffering injustice touched him, Wolterstorff has also made his case deeply compelling. I put this book alongside Lament for a Son as his best writing for the church.”—Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, author of Strangers at My Door

“Nicholas Wolterstorff here explores various ways we humans have come to think about issues of justice. But rather than offer us an anatomy of viewpoints, he asks himself and us what might move us from worldview to engagement. And what moved this philosopher accustomed to canvassing and assessing ‘theories’ was encountering those suffering the throes of injustice yet enduring them with hope, including black South Africans, Palestinians, and Hondurans—as well as those from the societies dominating them who had come to stand with them. Here is a philosophical inquiry that is imbued with life.”—David Burrell, CSC, Hesburgh Professor emeritus, University of Notre Dame