Virtues #11: Justice = Ecclesia + Polis

Christianity is not just a list of beliefs you either intellectually assent to or not; it is a lifestyle that brings about the extraordinary transformation of persons, relationships, families, communities, states, regions, nations, and indeed, the whole world! Its power to do this for the good is so ubiquitously evident that people sometimes "can't see the forest for the trees." It's up to you and to me to make the Gospel reach the ends of the earth and to allow it to soak into our very bones and into the bones of our relationships and society. We need to do this so that people living on earth can truly be free, so that we can experience justice, which is one of the cardinal virtues and which is the common cry for every person and society throughout all time since Cain killed Abel.
        The United States of America was founded because the British colonists living here were deprived of justice. After many long years of trying to negotiate for just and equitable laws, courts, and governance, the leaders of the people determined that they needed their own government--but not more of the same kind of tyrannical governance that had ruled peoples mercilessly for thousands of years. No, the new American government would be different, an exception to history. They knew that there was only one way to do that: to found a nation on Biblical principles and to teach the people who would govern the nation by themselves to live upright, moral, and religious lives; and that is precisely what they did. Tune in to learn more.