John Tucker lectures in Christian history and preaching at Carey and is part of Windsor Park Baptist Church. This article is an excerpt from the 2024 Baptist National Hui panel discussion on how the church has been and can be one of justice, mercy and humility. Watch the panel discussion in full here: Keynote 2: A church of justice, mercy & humility
How important is the word justice in the life and work of Jesus?
I love this passage in Matthew 11:
When some of John the Baptist’s disciples came and asked Jesus if he truly was the Messiah, he said, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Matthew 11:4-5)
In his life and ministry, Jesus demonstrated the very same care for the poor and the vulnerable that characterises the heart of God and the law of God in the Old Testament. While clearly Jesus was preaching the good news to everyone, he showed particular concern for the poor and the oppressed. He associated with the socially ostracised (Matt 9:13). He ate with tax collectors. He touched lepers (Mark 1:41; Luke 5:13). He raised the son of a poor widow (Luke 7:11-16). He resisted the sexism of his day by talking with women in public (John 4:27). He resisted the racism of his culture, by mingling with Samaritans and claiming that God loved Gentiles (like the widow of Zarephath or Naaman the Syrian) just as much as he loved Jews (Luke 4:25-27). He showed special concern for children when his disciples thought they weren’t worth his time (Luke 18:15). So, in his life and ministry, Jesus demonstrated the same care for the vulnerable that characterises the heart of God.
But then look at his teaching. On one occasion, when he was eating in the home of a prominent Pharisee, he said:
“When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” (Luke 14:12-13)
This is extraordinary. In Jesus’ day, society operated largely on a patronage system. People of means or wealth used their resources and networks to open doors for their clients, who would return the favour by watching out for their patron’s interests. In that kind of culture, banquets were a way to create and sustain these patron-client relationships. That’s why the only people you’d invite to a banquet were your peers and your rich neighbours. So, Jesus’s advice is incredible. He’s subverting the patronage system of his day. He’s saying, “Don't just share your homes and build relationships with people from your own social class or higher, people who will profit you. Do it with people who are poor and needy, people who could never pay you back with money or favours.” The patronage system of Jesus’ day reinforced the class divisions and the inequality that blighted the ancient world. And Jesus is saying, “Resist that system. Act justly.”
Historically, have these words been true of New Zealand Baptists? How? In what way?
Steve Holmes writes that “it is difficult to think of another Christian tradition that has so uniformly seen mission as being so central to its vision of the life of the church.” Baptists have been more relentlessly focused on mission than most other traditions. If Christ alone has the right to command the individual conscience, and no one can enter the church without first hearing the call of Christ in the gospel, then evangelism is an absolute imperative. You see this throughout the history of our movement.
But for Baptists, mission means not just evangelism. It also means justice. It means not just preaching the gospel to lost sinners, as important as that is. It also means preaching the gospel to fallen systems. It means bringing gospel renewal both to people and places. Over the last 400 years, Baptists have often been at the forefront of the fight against unjust and oppressive social and economic structures. Let me give you some examples from the story of Baptists in this region.
Take the issue of race. In 19th century New Zealand, there was enormous prejudice against Chinese. Newspapers frequently expressed concern about the “yellow peril”. Political leaders sometimes compared the Chinese with animals. One Sunday evening in June 1899, the police raided a Chinese gambling den in Christchurch, arresting thirty-two Chinese and four Europeans. They were charged with being unlawfully on premises used for illegal gambling, thrown into cells barely large enough for half their number, left to sleep on a muddy floor with one blanket between four or five men. Six of those arrested were members of Oxford Terrace’s Chinese Bible Class. As soon as J.J. Doke, the minister of Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, heard of their arrests, he went down to the police and sought bail. The police initially opposed it on the basis that all Chinese looked the same to them and if they were released it would be impossible to identify them again. Doke persisted and eventually everyone was granted bail, although the Chinese were required to provide bail of £25, compared to £5 for the Europeans. Doke didn’t stop there. He followed this up with a sermon on the issue, with public meetings, and with correspondence in the newspapers, calling for a public inquiry. Eventually, an inquiry was held, leading to disciplinary action against the police officer concerned, and the improvement of prison cells in Christchurch. For Doke, this kind of action was costly. But this was what acting justly looked like.
Take the issue of war. For much of the first half of the 20th century, New Zealand was either embroiled in war or in preparation for war. During this period, pacifists and conscientious objectors were subjected to appalling treatment – including school children. In 1909, the New Zealand government introduced compulsory military training in schools. In 1913, a Baptist teenager from Christchurch, Thomas Nuttall, refused on religious grounds to undergo compulsory military training. Along with twelve other youths, he was imprisoned for a month in a military fort on Ripa Island. For their refusal to do military work, the thirteen young men were placed on half rations and subjected to solitary confinement. The ‘Ripa Island martyrs’, as they became known, responded by launching a hunger strike. It was Charles Mackie, a member of a local Baptist Church, who led the campaign for justice. He filed a petition in parliament. The case became national news, prompting a parliamentary inquiry, and subsequently the government suspended its practice of military detention for conscientious objectors.
Take the issue of poverty. During the great depression of the early 1930s, unemployment in New Zealand peaked at about 40% of all male workers. For many people it was an incredibly difficult time. The poet Rex Fairburn writes of a man driven mad by his inability to feed his family, and of a widow and her son dying, unreported, of starvation. The government, for its part, did very little to help. If anything, its policies made matters worse. At the local level J.K. Archer, minister of Colombo Street Baptist Church and, at the same time, Labour mayor of Christchurch, was outspoken in his defence of the unemployed. When his own Labour-controlled City Council wanted to reduce expenditure and cut rates, thereby ‘catering for what was probably the largest section of its constituency, and certainly the most politically active – working people who owned their own homes,’ Archer vigorously opposed it. He suggested that the Christchurch City Council should increase rates by introducing a special levy to fund unemployment relief. When his colleagues warned him that this would not go down well with ratepayers, with the voters, his reply, ‘Damn the ratepayers!’ earned him that headline in the Christchurch Press.
For Baptists, mission means not just preaching the gospel to lost sinners, as important as that is. It also means preaching the gospel to fallen systems. It means bringing gospel renewal to both people and places.
Some people might think we are talking about a ‘social gospel’ and that this neglects ‘personal salvation’. How would you respond?
I’m currently reading a biography on the life of John Stott. He was one of the leading figures at the Lausanne Congress on world evangelisation. One of the key questions at that Congress was the balance between evangelism and social action. A number of delegates were deeply suspicious of social justice action because they felt it threatened a commitment to evangelism. Stott explained to the Congress that the Great Commission (make disciples) and the great commandment (love your neighbour) go hand in hand. He said, “If we truly love our neighbours, we shall without doubt tell them the good news of Jesus. But equally if we truly love our neighbours, we shall not stop there …. Love … expresses itself in service wherever it sees need.”
Evangelism and justice go hand in hand.
Image: Charles Hewlett, John Tucker, Colin Gruetzmacher, and Denise Tims at the Baptist National Hui 2024. Still from video recording.
