Just Faith? A National Survey Connecting Faith and Justice within the Christian Reformed Church

Bibliographic Data

ID4973085
AuthorsR Janzen (0000-0003-0505-6057, Centre for Community Based Research, corresponding author), Steve Van De Hoef (Christian Reformed Church, Burlington, ON, Canada), Alethea Stobbe (Centre for Community Based Research), Allyson Carr (Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, ON, Canada), Joshua Harris (0000-0001-5706-1873, Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, ON, Canada), Ronald A Kuipers (0000-0003-1580-6413, Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, ON, Canada), Hector Acero Ferrer (Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, ON, Canada)
Year2016
Volume58
Issue2
Pages229-247
Publication date2016-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReview of Religious Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2211-4866 • E-ISSN: 0034-673X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s13644-015-0245-y
OpenAlexW2243133968
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited18

Does the call to pursue justice live in the hearts and minds of contemporary Christians? If so, to what extent? In order to address these questions, our research team used a community-based research approach to investigate how Christians in a specific denomination (the Christian Reformed Church in North America) conceptualize the relationship between justice and faith, what priority justice holds in their lives, and the barriers and enablers they identify to pursuing justice. This article reports on the findings of a survey that was distributed to a representative sample of 264 congregational members across Canada. Findings show that understandings of justice from "the pew" are multifaceted even if conceptually vague. Yet justice is clearly understood as being connected to faith even if there is ambiguity as to how it fits into the spectrum of Christian life. There is subsequently a need to assist congregants in translating their awareness of injustice and desire for justice into action. In particular, survey results emphasize the importance of pairing a Christian vision for justice with opportunities to experience exemplars of justice work. Further research could explore the extent to which these on-the-ground perspectives are shared across Christian and other faith traditions, and across world regions

Ambiguity · Economic Justice · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Faith · Injustice · Political science · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology