What to do?
One sign that people are growing in justice is that they start asking: “In the face of these evils, these injustice, what should I do?” At Wheaton College, students ask me this question mindful of James’s epistle. They know faith without works is dead. Hence, these students want to ensure that just, merciful, and faithful actions accompany their faith in Christ, the same Christ who emphasizes the weightier things of the law and identifies with the oppressed.
What holds for these students holds for all Christians beginning to acquire a more just gaze. As they see families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border, Indigenous communities reeling form COVID-19, Black bodies suffering police brutality, Asians barred from stores, and entire countries like Yemen imploding, these Christians ask, “In the face of these evils, these injustices, what should I do?”
This question is weighty. I strain when carrying it, mindful of millstones and the cost of giving unjust answers.
The question is also frustrating. Circumstances usually prohibit anything but a general answer, which all parties rightly find dissatisfying. Thomas Aquinas identifies a cause of this dissatisfaction. He writes:
After a general consideration of virtues, vices, and other things pertaining to moral matters, it is necessary to consider each of them in particular. For universal moral discourse is less useful, since actions are singulars.
When people ask what they should do, they’re requesting counsel tailored to them. Giving them a general encouragement to love their neighbor or pursue justice is like offering them a shirt six-sizes too large—they swim or get lost in it, rather than looking fresh and acting accordingly. If moral instruction must ultimately be particular, it’s no wonder Christians find general instruction to these weighty questions disappointing.
But we can say more. Return to the metaphor of tailored clothes. For someone to look good and act well in their clothing, it must fit their specific body. Aquinas makes a similar point about moral instruction.
Particular moral matters can be considered in two ways: first, with respect to the moral matter itself, for example, this virtue or that vice; second, with respect to the special states of individuals, for example, subjects and prelates, people in active or contemplative life, and so on for other differences among people.
In addition to focusing on the particulars of justice as a virtue, we can examine what justice requires or looks like in specific roles. Justice’s obligations are different for college professors in a classroom, say, than for students in the same room. Sure, some of the obligations are the same. But I, as a college professor, am uniquely responsible for moderating class discussion to ensure equitable conversation patterns. Who hasn’t suffered the unjust experience of a professor that won’t address the discussion-dominator? Similar reasoning applies to all social roles. We need moral instruction that helps us dress for our God-given part.
But what to do when you can’t give tailored moral guidance? What to say when you’re writing a blog post to a variegated audience?
Here’s a starting point: Act and speak in light of Susan Ambrose’s et al’s book How Learning Works. Ambrose et al demonstrate that beginners possess a “sparse and superficial” understanding of what they’ve started to learn. Consequently, those beginning to develop a more just gaze and asking “What should I do?” need to appreciate that their understanding of the unjust realities and issues before them is “sparse and superficial.”
This double-deficiency in understanding and familiarity matters. As Daniel Willingham explains in Why don’t students like school?:
Research from cognitive science has shown that the sorts of skills that teachers want for their students—such as the ability to analyze and think critically—requires extensive factual knowledge.
Willingham continues:
Thinking well requires knowing facts, and that’s true not simply because you need something to think about. The very processes that teachers care most about—critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem-solving—are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is stored in long-term memory (not just found in the environment).
Possessing significant foundational knowledge is necessary for good thinking and problem-solving—including when they’re aimed at determining a personally tailored answer to the question: “In the face of these evils, these injustice, what should I do?”
To be clear, I’m not advocating knowledge acquisition merely for thought’s sake. Instead, I’m rifting on James’s epistle by championing that those who are “learners” will also be “doers” of what they learn. Robust learning facilitates just, merciful, and faithful action. As Charles R. Lawrence III observes, reflection and action must remain in “radical interaction,” for “if one is sacrificed—even in part—the other immediately suffers.”
To those beginners asking “What should I do?” I offer this partial answer: Commit yourself to the loving action of deep learning so that you might promote justice, mercy, and faithfulness from the particular roles God has given you.
