Just Courage

Gary Haugen, the president and CEO of International Justice Mission (http://www.ijm.org/), senses a restlessness among American Christians. We appear to be dissatisfied with the safety of our routine suburban Christianity in which we pray, read the Bible, attend worship services, and perform small acts of kindness for our neighbors. While none of that is bad and each of those activities is necessary to be fulfilled, we know something vital is missing in such a life.

In his new book, Just Courage, Mr. Haugen argues that many Christians are missing out on the risks and adventure of pursuing justice for the poor. Throughout the world, the poor are suffering from injustice. Little girls in southeast Asia are being kidnapped and enslaved in brothels by adults who will profit from their continual raping by violent men. Widows in Africa are being forced from their homes and property by bullies who would have never had the guts to take on their deceased husbands. Men, women, and children in India are being deceived into slavery and brutally beaten and mutilated so that they remain enslaved.

"The sin of injustice," Mr. Haugen writes, "is defined in the Bible as the abuse of power--abusing power by taking from others the good things that God intended for them, namely, their life, liberty, dignity, or the fruits of their love or their labor" (p. 46). He goes on to argue that Christians need to stand up against violent perpetrators of injustice. Feeding the hungry and providing medical care for the poor are good deeds, but sometimes the world's poor need something more: they need to be rescued from their oppressors, and they need men and women who will risk personal harm to stand between them and their oppressors. They need courageous Christians who will love and protect them.

In the last chapter, Gary Haugen writes, "There are two things that are always the will of God and almost always dangerous: telling the truth and loving needy people...Doing what Jesus does--telling the truth and loving needy people--is inherently unsafe in a fallen world of lies and selfishness...It's not safe to love people in need...It's messy, untidy, unsafe, and even dangerous. And yet, paradoxically, Jesus tells us this is where the deepest joy is found"(pp. 115-116).

Just Courage is a small book with a powerful message. If you are bored with your Christianity, this could be the book for you. You just might be inspired to join International Justice Mission in its efforts to rescue slaves and prosecute oppressors. You might be inspired to serve the poor in some other way. You will be challenged to have the love and courage to

"Seek justice,

encourage the oppressed.

Defend the cause of the fatherless,

plead the case of the widow" (Isaiah 1:17, NIV).

Jesus and Justice

In 1994, Gary Haugen was a Harvard-educated lawyer working for the U.S. Department of Justice when 800,000 people in Rwanda were slaughtered in an 8-week genocide. He was loaned out to the United Nations to direct its investigation of the murders.

His investigation changed his life. His eyes were opened to suffering and injustice in our world on a scale he had never seen. A few years later, Gary Haugen founded the International Justice Mission, an organization committed to freeing victims of oppression, prosecuting perpetrators, securing safe places of caring for victims, and changing communities so that injustice is no longer acceptable.

In his book Terrify No More, Mr. Haugen wrote,

"In former jobs I had traveled the world, witnessing the results of injustice, from abusive and murderous police and soldiers in the Philippines to South African apartheid to genocide in Rwanda. I had frequent conversations with attorney friends from church about a gap that existed in the great humanitarian efforts established worldwide. Wonderful organizations addressed many needs of the poor---providing comfort, housing, medical care, and food. But an obvious question emerged: Why don't we rescue them when they are being abused?

"There were, for instance, efforts in Cambodia to feed the hungry, heal the sick, shelter the homeless, and preach the gospel; some of these ministrations were offered within yards of the brothels of Svay Pak. Although some of these efforts might reduce the risk of some children being sold as sex slaves, what about the kids who were inside the brothels and getting abused now? Who was going to get them out? And who was going to do the most powerful thing to prevent it from happening again; that is, who was going to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice? What were we doing when the poor suffered because of the abuse and oppression of other people?

"The question became even more acute as I considered the commitments of my community of faith, and especially as I considered the teachings of Scripture on the matter. When I was directing the UN's genocide investigation in Rwanda, it became clear in the aftermath of those massacres that at the point of most critical need, as blood-hungry mobs circled the churches in which the victims huddled, those victims were not crying out for food, medicine, or housing. They were crying out for someone to restrain the hand of the oppressor. And likewise for the girls in the brothels of Svay Pak; their very souls were crying out for someone to rescue them from the hands of those who, day by day, abused them in ways that cannot be described in polite company. Who was going to respond to that need and see that the purveyors of such brutality were actually made to pay a price for their crimes?" (pp. 33-34).

Today Gary Haugen and his team of private investigators, attorneys, and social workers risk their lives to rescue victims of abuse and oppression around the globe.

In many ways, he is following the example of Jesus Christ. At the beginning of his ministry, Christ announced,

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18-19, NIV).

At the cross, Christ gave his life to rescue us from the abuse, oppression, and slavery of sin. He defeated Satan and his co-conspirators of injustice. He built a church to provide a safe place of caring for victims. His actions continue to change the world as more and more of us are no longer satisfied in doing nothing while our neighbors are being oppressed by sin.