The Rt Revd Dr Anderson Jeremiah, Bishop of Edmonton reflects on historic and contemporary understandings of justice and of how disability theology informs and expands our vision of Justice and our ultimate goal of shalom.
Is it possible to imagine Shalom (fullness of life) without justice? The consistent conclusion drawn from philosophical and theological traditions is that genuine peace is impossible without justice. Peace pursued without addressing the foundational imbalance and injury caused by injustice is a shallow, ultimately vacuous exercise that sacrifices accountability for premature peace. Justice is not a precursor to peace but an integral, non-negotiable component of the process, ensuring that the resulting peace, Shalom, is both costly and hard-won.
Making sense of Justice
Justice is the fundamental condition for restoring broken relationships and social structures. Its role transcends mere retribution or distribution of goods; it is the first virtue that secures the basis for all social development.
The concept of justice has remained the bedrock of moral and political philosophy for millennia. From the city-states of ancient Greece to the complex global institutions of the twenty-first century, thinkers have consistently regarded justice not merely as a beneficial attribute, but as the foundational necessity upon which all virtuous order is constructed. This enduring status is underscored by the convergence of classical and modern thought, which sees justice as both an inherent state of harmony and the principal guarantor of equitable social institutions.
The classical perspective, exemplified by Plato, rooted justice in the concept of harmony. Plato did not see justice primarily as a legal framework, but as an internal state of the soul and, by extension, the ideal state. He viewed justice as the harmonious balance among the soul’s constituent elements: wisdom, courage, and moderation. When reason (wisdom) governs spirit (courage) and appetite (moderation), the individual is just. Similarly, an ideal society achieves justice when its ruling, defence, and productive classes fulfil their proper roles without infringing upon others. For Plato, justice is the structural integrity that allows the individual and the polis to thrive.
Transitioning to modern institutional philosophy, John Rawls firmly articulates the foundational role of justice, declaring, “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.” This statement asserts that justice is not merely one goal among many, but the non-negotiable prerequisite for social structures. Without fundamental fairness—which Rawls famously explores through his theory of ‘justice as fairness’—institutions lack legitimacy and moral grounding, regardless of their efficiency or order. Justice, in this view, is the bedrock that secures basic liberties and equitable distributions, making the pursuit of all other societal goals possible.
While Rawls defines the necessary structure of justice, Hannah Arendt explores the essential process of achieving it. Arendt’s concept of reflective judgement is crucial for impartially assessing and repairing relational damage. This process requires individuals to cultivate an “enlarged mentality” or “broadened way of thinking,” which means judging from the standpoint of everyone else. By stepping outside one’s own self-interest and biases, an individual can achieve the disinterested perspective necessary for ethical and political action. Arendt thus highlights that justice is not a static rule, but a continuous, disciplined act of relational empathy and impartial assessment.
Further, Amartya Sen offers a critique of purely transcendental or ideal theories of justice (like Rawls’s), shifting focus toward the practical realization of fairness. Sen argues that genuine fairness involves a reasonable concern for the interests of others. His approach is comparative, focusing on reducing actual, observable injustices in the world rather than defining a perfect, unattainable ideal. Sen’s perspective grounds justice in real-world consequences and human capabilities, compelling the modern inquiry to prioritize the effective well-being and equitable treatment of people in society.
In this brief overview from Plato to Sen reveals a remarkable continuity: justice remains absolutely foundational. It has evolved from Plato’s internal psychological harmony to Rawls’s institutional mandate, transformed through Arendt’s rigorous process of impartial judgment, and finally, pragmatized by Sen’s call for real-world concern. Despite the shift in focus from the soul to the social contract, these thinkers affirm that justice is the essential virtue that structures life, legitimizes power, and ensures the possibility of a shared, ethical existence. When applied to conflict, justice moves beyond retributive punitive justice to embrace restorative reconciling justice, which focuses on repairing the harm and restoring the relationships. Peace is thus defined as the combination of justice, mercy, and truth.
However, moving from structural ideals to practical reality requires a critical lens. Hannah Arendt’s concept of reflective judgement necessitates an “enlarged mentality” or “broadened way of thinking,” compelling individuals to judge from the standpoint of everyone else for impartial assessment. Similarly, Amartya Sen offers a transcendental approach, arguing that genuine fairness involves a reasonable concern for the interests of others, prioritizing the reduction of actual, observable injustices over the definition of an unreachable ideal. It is here, in the practical work of assessment and reduction, that the necessity of truth emerges.
Truth initiates the repair process by actively exposing injustice. It cuts through obfuscation, ideology, and the constructed narratives that maintain inequality. Crucially, truth-telling exposes the fabricated concepts of ‘essential difference’ used to legitimize social hierarchy and oppression. By rendering the reality of the wrong visible, truth sharpens the collective sense of injustice and forces a reckoning.
Moreover, truth questions structural inequity. Dominant interpretations often attribute unfavourable circumstances to individuals’ own failings—a tendency to redefine systemic, structural problems as personal shortcomings. Truth scrutinizes these interpretations, shifting the focus from individual blame to the mechanisms of power and history that create and sustain disparity. This process of critical examination is profound, requiring the systematic deconstruction of the theological and ecclesiological paradigms that continue to exhibit colonial, racial, and exclusionary underpinnings. Justice cannot advance while the moral and cultural foundations of inequity remain unchallenged.
Finally, the public recognition of truth performs the essential act of vindication for victims. By placing the wrong firmly and unambiguously in the public sphere, victims and affected communities receive validation that their experience was real, unwarranted, and the result of external malice or systemic failure, not personal defect. This public acknowledgment is a necessary, albeit often painful, step toward healing.
In the pursuit of enduring social order, justice and peace cannot exist in isolation. Dialogue toward justice and peace must be foregrounded in truth-telling. Peace will remain distant and elusive without accountability—the consequence of truth—and a genuine commitment to both speak and listen to the truth. Thus, truth is not merely a philosophical concept; it is the active, dismantling tool that clears the ground, allowing the foundations of justice to be laid anew, securing a legitimate and peaceful society for all. Truth telling is an urgent task and a prophetic theological vocation that is essential for both justice and peace. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu famously stated, “there can be no healing or peace without truth”.
Justice, Love, and Shalom: The Theological Imperative
The biblical tradition places justice at the core of God’s character and the moral life of humanity. The divine command, “You must be holy because I, the LORD, am holy” (Leviticus 20:26), is understood through the attributes of hesed and sedeqa. Sedeqa could be understood as Justice, which advocates for respect, equity, and freedom. Hesed on the other hand means steadfast and unconditional love, selfless and covenantal. Theologically, this creates the proposition that there is no love without justice and no justice without love. Love not grounded in justice risks drifting into obsession, while justice not grounded in love can descend into tyranny.
This inseparability is embedded in the concept of shalom (wholeness/peace). The Hebrew root slm, when used as a verb, means not only to bring peace but also to repay, recompense, restore, and make right. This signifies that shalom possesses a strong backbone of justice; it is wounded in the absence of justice and must pass through justice first to be achieved. The prophetic call (Micah 6:8) directs us “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God,” making public acts of justice an indispensable part of holy living.
The early Christian community, as described in Acts 4:32-35, embodied this shalom in a covenantal community where they shared everything and ensured “there was not a needy person in their midst.” This radical egalitarianism established the Church as a counter-community and the “work and instrument of God’s justice.” Peace without responsibility is thus vacuous; the powerful must repent/empty themselves for justice to begin its work.
True forgiveness, according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, is not an isolated act of “forgive and forget.” As Francis X. Clooney notes, it is a commitment to a changed relationship, the restoration of an offender to the community, and an ending of ostracization. It liberates the person who has suffered from the burden of animosity. In this way, forgiveness is part of the longer process of peace, which emerges out of and alongside truth-telling and reparatory justice—a process to remember, repair, restore, and set right. Ultimately, peace is a reciprocal process toward shalom, a conversion of the heart from selfishness to service, and the restoring of just relationship.
Learning from Disability Theology
Disability Theology is a critical, evolving field that seeks to re-read and interpret the core tenets of the Christian faith through the lens of the historical and contemporary experiences of people with disabilities. As theologian John Swinton concisely puts it, it’s an effort by both disabled and non-disabled Christians to enrich and challenge traditional theological understandings.
Nancy Eiesland says, ‘Seldom is the resurrected Christ recognised as a deity whose hands, feet, and side bear the marks of profound physical impairment. The marks of profound physical impairment. The resurrected Christ of Christian tradition is a disabled God’. (The Disabled God) Furthermore, dignity and justice are the heart of doing theology from the disability perspective.
At its heart, this theological perspective is driven by a deep commitment to radical inclusion and equity. As Aaron Brian Davis notes, disability theology is fundamentally concerned with the recognition of all persons—regardless of their physical, cognitive, or mental state—as equal heirs not just of simple dignity, but of the profound hope and justice promised to all humanity through Scripture. It pushes back against narratives that often marginalize or pathologize disability, instead asserting the full personhood and value of disabled individuals as central to the Christian community.
The “Broken Middle” and Human Experience
A powerful philosophical concept that resonates with the insights of disability theology is Gillian Rose’s ‘Broken Middle.’ This idea refers to a diremption (a painful tearing apart) between seemingly disparate domains, such as: Morality and legality, Autonomy and heteronomy (governance by others). Crucially, the brokenness of this middle doesn’t mean these tensions should be eliminated. Instead, disability theology, by centring on experiences of dependency, fragility, and non-normative existence, offers a powerful lens for accepting this fracture as a permanent, honest feature of life. Former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, suggests that God doesn’t seek to “mend the middle” but rather “echoes its brokenness.” Our human imperfection, rather than being a flaw to be overcome, is what “encourages us not to give up the work of witness.”
A Call to Witness Shalom
“All humans bear God’s image, including us disabled ones” Amy Kenny
Disability theology offers a crucial framework for understanding faith and reimagining structured society, primarily by challenging and re-evaluating our pervasive cultural norms. It pushes back against the common societal obsession with ideals like independence, productivity, and physical wholeness as the primary metrics of human value. Instead, this theological perspective foregrounds the essential worth found in interdependence and vulnerability, redefining human completeness not as self-sufficiency but as a web of mutual reliance.
This re-evaluation leads to a profound affirmation of value in difference. Disability theology posits that genuine, full inclusion is not simply a matter of human charity or social justice but is, at its heart, a theological imperative. By valuing and integrating all people, including those with disabilities, we gain a more accurate and complete picture of God, whose image is fully and equally reflected in the rich diversity of humanity.
Ultimately, disability theology serves as a powerful witness to the broken. It invites all people to embrace the “broken middle”—the honest, lived reality of suffering, limitation, and injustice. By doing so, it encourages a more compassionate and honest engagement with life’s difficulties. Crucially, it transforms the experience of disability itself into a vital source of theological insight, reminding us that vulnerability and need are universal human experiences. In this view, true strength isn’t about standing alone, but is often discovered in our shared, fundamental reliance on one another and on God, the source and the fountain of our being in whom we experience Shalom.
References
Aaron Brian Davis, Disability Theology and Eschatology
Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice
Amy Kenny, My Body is not a prayer request
Francis Xaviour Clooney, Comparative Theology
Gillian Rose, Broken Middle
Isabelle Hamley, Embracing Justice
John Swinton, Becoming Friends of Time
Nancy Eiesland, The Disabled God
