Justice and Only Justice ( Absolute Faithfulness)

Justice and Only Justice
Deuteronomy 16: 18- 17: 13

The last time I took a student group to Israel, among the speakers we had in the evenings was a Christian Palestinian Israeli called Naim Ateek; his son was subsequently a student at our seminary. Dr. Ateek was born in Palestine during the British Mandate, and his family lived in one of the areas that were taken over by Israel in 1947–1948. He was eventually one of the pastors at the Episcopal Cathedral in Jerusalem and lived in East Jerusalem; it gave me food for thought that he was a bit concerned about walking around the Old City of Jerusalem late at night (I did so without thinking). In his doctoral dissertation he sought to think about the theological position of the Palestinian people and published the work as a book called Justice, and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation. His title came from this passage in Deuteronomy; it was shrewd to take up a passage from Deuteronomy in arguing the rights of the Palestinian people...