Where do we find hope in a time like this? I came across this question on my Twitter feed the other day, asked sincerely and desperately by a friend. I’ve heard this same question raised in some form or another many times in the last couple of years, both in person and on social media, both in the church and outside of it. Hope can feel like an elusive thing, particularly when confronting the overwhelming wrongness in our world—climate change, war, systemic racism, misogyny, xenophobia, the prison industrial complex, the list goes on. What many might see as stunning and collective inaction in the face of these wrongs only adds to the hopelessness.
I resonate. I’ve been gripped too by this sentiment of despair. But these days—and every day—I continue to find hope in the truth that God is in the business of setting all things right. Right, in this case, carries the deepest possible meaning of the word. God is pouring goodness, restoration, and life into every cranny and nook of creation. God has said so. In other words, I have hope that God is who God claims to be: a God of justice. (It has helped me often to remember that justice and righteousness in our English translations are the same word in the text, δικαιοσύνη.)
We see this movement of setting the world right in what God has done in the person of Jesus, of course, but we also see it today in what God is doing to animate the church through the Spirit. The kingdom over which God reigns is and will be one of righteousness and justice. And it inevitably comes, on earth as it is in heaven.
This issue of FULLER magazine engages with this question of justice—of what it looks like for wrong to be made right, and of how we are to be part of this work. In her illustrations, Kate Turner captures our need for divine help, from heaven to earth, in her arc of images that move from desolation to life. In the Story section, profiles of alumni Wendy Hu-Au, Amber Height, Gail Schlosser, and Autumn and Joel Gallegos Greenwich highlight the hands-on work of justice happening in local communities around the country—from refugee resettlement, to a fight against gentrification, to investing in a city’s public schools and small businesses. The Theology section, guest edited by Dwight Radcliff, features articles by Fuller faculty and others that offer insights on interpreting the Scriptures with justice-colored lenses, on reorienting our dynamics of power, and on restoring the relationships we have with one another. Interviews with Nikole Lim, Andre Henry, and Chris Lambert in the Voice section showcase how hard-fought renewal can come in the wake of sexual violence, in the fight for Black lives, and in the beautification of a community. And finally, photographs throughout the magazine, curated by All Angels’ Church in New York City, offer beautiful glimpses of the world from the perspectives of brothers and sisters living on margins.
As you flip through these pages, we invite you to sit both in the difficult realities of our world and also in the hope we find in it. Be encouraged, reader, by a God who takes us from wrong to right, by a God who calls us to and equips us for the righteous work of justice.
Jerome Blanco (MDiv ’16), editor in chief of FULLER magazine and Fuller’s senior content editor.
Where do we find hope in a time like this? I came across this question on my Twitter feed the other day, asked sincerely and desperately by a friend. I’ve heard this same question raised in some form or another many times in the last couple of years, both in person and on social media, both in the church and outside of it. Hope can feel like an elusive thing, particularly when confronting the overwhelming wrongness in our world—climate change, war, systemic racism, misogyny, xenophobia, the prison industrial complex, the list goes on. What many might see as stunning and collective inaction in the face of these wrongs only adds to the hopelessness.
I resonate. I’ve been gripped too by this sentiment of despair. But these days—and every day—I continue to find hope in the truth that God is in the business of setting all things right. Right, in this case, carries the deepest possible meaning of the word. God is pouring goodness, restoration, and life into every cranny and nook of creation. God has said so. In other words, I have hope that God is who God claims to be: a God of justice. (It has helped me often to remember that justice and righteousness in our English translations are the same word in the text, δικαιοσύνη.)
We see this movement of setting the world right in what God has done in the person of Jesus, of course, but we also see it today in what God is doing to animate the church through the Spirit. The kingdom over which God reigns is and will be one of righteousness and justice. And it inevitably comes, on earth as it is in heaven.
This issue of FULLER magazine engages with this question of justice—of what it looks like for wrong to be made right, and of how we are to be part of this work. In her illustrations, Kate Turner captures our need for divine help, from heaven to earth, in her arc of images that move from desolation to life. In the Story section, profiles of alumni Wendy Hu-Au, Amber Height, Gail Schlosser, and Autumn and Joel Gallegos Greenwich highlight the hands-on work of justice happening in local communities around the country—from refugee resettlement, to a fight against gentrification, to investing in a city’s public schools and small businesses. The Theology section, guest edited by Dwight Radcliff, features articles by Fuller faculty and others that offer insights on interpreting the Scriptures with justice-colored lenses, on reorienting our dynamics of power, and on restoring the relationships we have with one another. Interviews with Nikole Lim, Andre Henry, and Chris Lambert in the Voice section showcase how hard-fought renewal can come in the wake of sexual violence, in the fight for Black lives, and in the beautification of a community. And finally, photographs throughout the magazine, curated by All Angels’ Church in New York City, offer beautiful glimpses of the world from the perspectives of brothers and sisters living on margins.
As you flip through these pages, we invite you to sit both in the difficult realities of our world and also in the hope we find in it. Be encouraged, reader, by a God who takes us from wrong to right, by a God who calls us to and equips us for the righteous work of justice.
Jerome Blanco (MDiv ’16), editor in chief of FULLER magazine and Fuller’s senior content editor.
Mark Labberton, Clifford L. Penner Presidential Chair, reflects on the ways God’s love is intertwined with God’s justice.
