JustFaith Opens Eyes to Injustice, Moves Hands to Action

c. 2006 Religion News Service GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ If she wanted, Mary Crowley could live an insulated life in her home in Hudsonville. She could go to church, go to work and do other things embedded in the fabric of suburban West Michigan culture. Three years ago, the schoolteacher’s eyes were opened to the […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ If she wanted, Mary Crowley could live an insulated life in her home in Hudsonville. She could go to church, go to work and do other things embedded in the fabric of suburban West Michigan culture.

Three years ago, the schoolteacher’s eyes were opened to the broader world and her place in it. Now, Crowley serves a meal once each month at Hard Times Cafe in Grand Rapids and devotes a portion of her tithe to area hunger organizations. She also teaches English as a second language to Hispanic immigrants and is learning Spanish to facilitate the process.


“They’re very deserving of our efforts to make them feel included in our country,” said Crowley, a third-grade teacher. “It’s looking at justice through Christ’s eyes and what he would do. I keep asking myself that question.”

Where would a 50-something Catholic get a conscience like that? From JustFaith, the growing nationwide effort awakening people of faith to social injustice _ and helping them do something about it.

A program of spiritual formation emphasizing compassion for the poor, JustFaith was launched in 1989 in Louisville, Ky., and since has tutored more than 10,000 people across the country with a kind of evangelistic fervor.

About 300 Catholics in Grand Rapids have gone through the process, said Jim Rademaker, diocesan director of the secretariat for social justice. The program has also been introduced at Methodist, Episcopal and United Church of Christ congregations.

“It’s taking ordinary people sitting in our congregations and parishes and enabling them to develop and grow in incredible ways,” said Rademaker, who sits on the JustFaith Ministries board and has led several classes with his wife, Sandy.

“We probably aren’t all called to be Mother Teresas, but we are called by our faith to make a difference in the world.”

The JustFaith process involves readings, videos, retreats and “border crossings,” or face-to-face visits with poor people to hear what their lives are like and how they got that way. Making people aware of life beyond themselves _ and injustices all around _ is the first purpose. Making them passionate about healing society’s wounds is the ultimate goal.


Crowley and about 20 others at her parish in Jenison have completed the JustFaith process since Deacon Richard Pitt started leading groups three years ago.

“I have men and women in tears because of what they see now,” said Pitt, parish director of social justice. “It opened me up to looking at people with a different viewpoint. You begin to ask the question `Who is God’ and `Who are his people?”’

The graduates volunteer in several hunger ministries, collect school supplies for needy students, support the families of migrant workers and have started a political advocacy group on immigration reform.

A delegation every six months visits a remote Catholic parish in Mexico and is helping build a school dormitory there.

“Charity is easy. It’s time to truly live the gospel,” said Pitt, who lived in a homeless shelter for one of his border crossings. “We can’t just read about it. We can’t just talk about it. For Pete’s sake, let’s do something.”

Crowley had just read “The Purpose-Driven Life” by Rick Warren and was searching for a way to deepen her faith when Pitt gave a homily about JustFaith at her church. She felt like God was calling her to the process, which “changed the way I look at the world” and “taught me how to live my faith.”


Now, Crowley is becoming more politically active and trying to cut back on consumption, for example, by eating less often at restaurants. And she continues to look for ways to put her faith into play outside the walls of her church.

“I don’t think (Jesus) spent his time in the synagogue. He spent it out among the people and the poor,” Crowley said. “We need to become Jesus’ heart and hands and feet, so we can walk among his people and do his work.”

Mark Mauren is doing some things and not doing others. After learning through JustFaith about sweatshop clothing production, Mauren is taking a stand against shopping at popular stores _ and trying to help his preteen children understand why it might be unjust to wear trendy threads.

His family also is trying to stop watching television, which Mauren sees as a promoter of cultural injustices.

“You’re bombarded (through JustFaith) to the point where you’re just going `Uncle,”’ said Mauren, a 44-year-old computer consultant. “You kind of go through this process where you say, `Hey, I’m not going to be party to these injustices anymore.”’

“We don’t buy new clothes anymore. We shop second-hand stores. Goodwill has been our good friend.”


Alongside the list of don’ts is a list of do’s for Mauren, who leads a Bible study and serves Communion at a maximum security prison in Ionia. He cooks meals at a homeless shelter, strives to recycle household waste and coordinated fundraising for a hunger initiative in Africa.

“It’s not just about believing in Jesus,” Mauren said. “You’ve gotta be out there doing it, too.”

From environmental preservation to anti-consumerism, the issues mobilizing JustFaith graduates tend to smack of liberal politics. Robert Marko, chair of the theology department at Aquinas College, said the social justice espoused by JustFaith indeed is fundamental to the church, but the program’s reading lists tend to differ from the texts he uses to teach Catholic social ethics in the classroom.

Borrowing insights from progressive Protestants to Gandhi, JustFaith is “more aimed at conversion of heart and mind rather than more of an academic perspective” on social justice rooted in Catholic traditions.

“We have a tradition that goes back to the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures and we have a tradition that has been lived since the time of Jesus,” Marko said. “(JustFaith) is a new way of trying to live this out. It’s not the only way.”

KRE/JL END RNS

(Matt Vande Bunte writes for the Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Mich.)

Editors: To obtain photos of Mauren, Rademaker and Pitt, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.


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