I just finished reading Mae Cannon’s Just Spirituality– How Faith Practices Fuel Social Action. The book tells stories of such doers of justice like Mother Teresa, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Watchman Nee, Martin Luther King Jr. and more. I was excited as soon as I saw the cover of this book, as it tells stories of those who changed the world with love, conviction and non-violence. The other reason I was excited about the book was because of the author, Mae Cannon. Mae put out the Social Justice Handbook in 2009 and it has proved to be a great resource in my library.
I have read about many of the people Mae wrote about in her book, but to read about these men and women and their taking a stand agains injustice through non-violent ways in the name of Jesus was refreshing. This book was not only informative and inspiring, but it also challenged me to continue fighting for the things that I have deep convictions about, specifically in areas of injustice.
3 years ago I helped start a non-profit called Steps of Justice. The reason we started Steps was because we were sick of people getting all fired up about injustice and then doing nothing about it because they didn’t know what to do, or it was just to hard and inconvenient to do anything. So, we found ourselves being romanced by the idea of ‘doing justice’ but inconvenienced by the actual action it took to bring change to unjust situations like extreme global poverty, gender injustice, racial prejudice, slavery and more.
Reading Mae’s book brought me back to that place where I was when we started Steps of Justice. That place of inspiration that lead to action. That place of wanting to bring change and make a difference. Reading about these hero’s of the faith who stood up for their convictions brought on through their relationship with Christ moved and changed me to change the world. I pray that I will be someone worth writing a book about. That my life will be counted among the greats who heard God’s call and obeyed.
