Compassion, often referred to today as “social justice,” has an ancient derivation: it comes from God. Marvin Olasky, editor in chief of WORLD Magazine, wrote The Tragedy of American Compassion in 1994. We have been reflecting on Olaskay’s seven principles, first in There is No True Social Justice Without Personal
Tag: compassion
Total 22 Posts
Social justice (aka compassion) arises from a warm heart and matures in a clear head. In a recent post we highlighted two of seven principles of compassion (Affiliation and Bonding) identified by Marvin Olasky in The Tragedy of American Compassion. This post is the second of the series. Olasky’s third
In his book, The Tragedy of American Compassion, Marvin Olasky suggests seven marks of compassion. Taken together these add powerfully to our view and practice of biblical social justice. Social Justice and Affiliation The first mark is affiliation, defined by Webster’s 1828 as “adoption; association in the same family or
Compassion didn’t come out of nowhere. It came to the world from God and His incarnate Son. Mercy is not to be found in Christless world. The standards of a fallen humanity include hardness of heart, cruelty, and malice. The Bible, on the other hand, is a treasure of compassion, as
In two recent posts, (Compassion, the Noun That Used to be a Verb and Mom’s Compassion is Like God … and So is Dad’s) we examined some of the Bible’s key vocabulary about compassion. God himself is the author of compassion. If we are serious about compassion, we must understand
Our recent post, COMPASSION: The Noun That Used to Be a Verb, introduced some of the rich biblical vocabulary behind the English terms “compassion” and “social justice.” Why should we bother to study the biblical vocabulary? Because compassion is central to our faith, and comes from God’s heart. Yet it
It is a truism that we build societies in the image of the God we worship. The Psalmist put it this way: 15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 16 They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not
“Compassion” has become one of a growing number of politicized words (like ‘access’ or ‘diversity’) whose meaning has been corrupted beyond redemption. So writes Thomas Sowell the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow at The Hoover Institution of Stanford University. While I would agree with Sowell that the word has
When I was in college I read Dr. Karl Menninger’s book Whatever Became of Sin? Menninger was one of the world’s leading psychiatrists and founder of the world-famous Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. He wrote the book because he became convinced that mental health was connected to moral health. He
The phrase “social justice” has made a surprising comeback within Evangelical circles in the past few years. But what exactly do people mean when they use this phrase? For some, it simply means helping the poor in general, but I’ve found that when you push a bit, it often involves a particular approach,
