On Monday, March 28, three groups came together to sponsor what became known as ‘The Justice Event’. The three sponsoring groups were “Hope for New York,” the Redeemer Church Diaconate and “Grace & Race ministries”. Details on these three groups can be found at the end of this story.

The event was planned for two hours, beginning at 7:00PM. It was held in a venue that held 800 people and all the seats were full shortly after 6:30PM The format was to be an interview by a professional journalist with Lead Pastor Tim Keller. Attendees were encouraged to turn in questions in advance to be used during the program. Martin Bashir, from NBC News (well known for his interview of Rob Bell) was scheduled to do the interview, but due to sickness had to withdraw.

Standing in for Bashir was Lauren Green, Fox News Channel’s Religion Correspondent.

Jonathan Cousar, an IT Developer and President of LazyLizard Internet, Inc. attended Redeemer Church for over 20 years. He is the founder of The Freedom Torch Network, a conservative political organization. FreedomTorch is a registered 527 political organization as well as an internet-based social network for conservatives.

Mr. Cousar transcribed the entire interview (you may listen to the audio here) [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.] and has given permission for the publication of several portions of this transcript which have drawn the most public attention. The numbers indicate the time within the transcript at which the exchange took place:

16:40 – 18:40 – Lauren Green asks him if we should be doing our duty only through the church or through secular organizations as well. She said she can name many secular organizations that are doing good work but aren’t preaching the Gospel.

Keller answered by saying that Christians should be willing to work in both. “If Christians only worked in Christian programs it would be a little too tribal. I mean I don’t think it would be fair.”

“The advantage of being a Christian and working in a Christian ministry is that you can be very overt about your faith. And you can say we’re doing this in Jesus’ name and you can pray with people and you can invite them to church as you’re rehabbing their house and that sort of thing.”

“On the other hand I think it’s good and humble for Christians to go into programs that help the poor where they’re not really in charge of the agenda. I don’t think they should be afraid to talk about their Christianity informally. But there’s a limit – you can’t formally say as you do the program that this is in Jesus’ name – because it’s not.

Christians believe in common grace. Christians believe that God gives non-Christians LOTS of wisdom, LOTS of insight because God is so gracious that he works through the whole human community. A lot of Christians don’t see that but it’s in the Bible. They act like staying in their own little tribal ministries; they basically show that they think everything outside of the church is darkness, bad and evil.”

18:40 – Lauren Green asks if you’re spreading the Gospel – is there still salvation in spreading the Gospel but not seeking to alleviate poverty DIRECTLY.

“If you think of all the Christians in New York City it would be terrible if we weren’t doing everything the Bible tells us to do. The Bible tells us we’re supposed to share our faith with people… I don’t know how in the world you can put a cork in it. You’re also supposed to love your neighbor and you’re supposed to meet the needs of your neighbor and be concerned for your neighbor and defend your neighbor and do justice for your neighbor whether he or she believes what you believe or not.

Frankly, evangelism – sharing your faith in which you’re urging people to embrace the faith and justice where you are caring for people regardless of what they believe seems very different. The Bible actually says that one leads to the other… that if you’ve experienced God’s grace and he’s changed your life you’re going to want to love your neighbor.”

22:45 – Who is poor? How much do we give them? When do we give and for how long?

“You can ask the government and they say a family of four with income of $23,000 or less. However, in the Bible poverty is generally seen more in terms of power. If you don’t have marketable skills you make very little money. In other words, you don’t have the power to command a decent salary. … So you can say poverty is seen as money, but I think the Bible would look at it in terms of people who are excluded from power and aren’t given the normal means to accrue it. … Because of the training the [inner city/disadvantaged] kids get – they find later on they don’t have the ability to access education and power.”

59:00 Lauren said that recently atheists have been mounting a campaign saying “I can be good without God.” So the question is – how does the Christian’s pursuit of justice differ from that of a non-Christian.

Hmm… well, that’s a good question. I just – there’s on the one hand then there’s the other hand.

“On the one hand it may not be any different and I tried to give you Christian reasons why a non-Christian could be as just as a Christian. I said because we’re all made in the image of God. Paul says in Romans 1 and 2 that all human beings have moral intuition. And you may not believe in God but you still have those moral intuitions.

You may not believe in God and yet you feel strongly about human rights and dignity. … So on the one hand, I don’t know, a non-Christian is certainly going to be different in many ways but may not be all that different when it comes to doing justice.

On the other hand, I’d like to say that the Biblical understanding of justice is broad enough that it tends to encompass both the conservatives – I can talk about justice in terms of individual rights, and liberals I can talk about justice in terms of collective rights. … There’s a tendency if you don’t have a grounding in the Bible today … there are different views of justice liberals and conservatives have very different views of justice. Christians will probably be sensitive to the whole range if you are more controlled by what the Bible says about justice than what your POLITICAL PARTY says. I would actually say being a Christian could give you a leg up but not necessarily because of the common grace that God gives everybody.”

Lauren then asks at 61:45 – So should it look a little different?

It could look different, I wish more Christians were different. But honestly most Christians get their idea of justice not from reading the Bible. Their Christianity makes them want to care for their neighbor but their real understanding comes from politics or from you know school. They haven’t gone to Scripture. Scripture has a lot on justice.”

62:15 – This next question has to do with politics… how involved should the church be in politics? Isn’t practicing mercy simply treating symptoms of social systems that helped to create them. How should Christians work to change social structures? Politics? Creating non-profits, etc.?

Yes, they should do both. … … “It’s good to go run the soup kitchen, but that’s mercy. It’s good to work on the things that would keep people from needing the soup kitchen and that’s working on the system.”

Lauren – 64:40 – The political system works on a different time frame… so politics is almost at odds with social programs.

“Christians want to think that all… that there are 3 ways of dealing with the needs. Relief is direct mercy – helping people with a need. Development is trying to bring them to self-sufficiency so they don’t need the mercy. It means giving them an education, job skills, etc. And then there’s reform. Reform is change the overall social policies that very often – for example, why are the schools bad?

There’s almost no way to deal with that without getting into reform. You gotta do something in politics or you can’t reform the schools. And that’s the area where everybody’s frustrated and most Christians say ‘I don’t wanna do that – I wanna do these two other things’ and I would say Christians have to be involved in all of them.

And Lauren is right in saying our democratic political system works against certain extremely important reforms because in the short term… ‘I’ve gotta please people right now and I can’t think ten years ahead’. So the system is difficult and I don’t think Christians can wash their hands of it and say it doesn’t matter, because it does.

66:45 – How do YOU personally practice living justly?

“I wasn’t kidding – some of you laughed when I said this earlier… but I wasn’t kidding in saying that my preaching and my training of people to do justice, my not only motivating them to do it but giving them the foundation, there’s motivation, and basic understanding, then you move up to actually coaching people who are doing it… and then doing it. So I’ve always been down further. Doesn’t mean that I and my family haven’t been involved in volunteer ministries and justice ministries, but I just know I can kick up a lot of energy by doing what I do best – so I have a tendency to work down here (“down here” meaning not actually working in justice or mercy ministries but motivating others to do so).

If I write a book and I preach well and I motivate a lot of people I’m actually getting a lot more done for the needy of the world than if I personally give some money to this group and go out and spend time on the street. I’m gonna give money and I am going to spend time on the street, but I know that’s not the main way I’m going to help people.

Lauren: So you’re mainly an idea man?

Tim: Well, you know… you know – that’s right.

79:30 Lauren: As a church, how should we as Christians and how should the church view gay rights and gay marriage?

Ha! I would definitely say this is time to come to a conclusion! (Laughter).

I would definitely say… a thoughtful Christian Biblical response doesn’t fit into any of the existing categories out there. It’s not a simple matter of saying there should be no moral differentiation between any kind of sexual activity. Christians can’t go there. They can’t say no it doesn’t matter. It’s also true however, that this is a country where we’re supposed to love our neighbor. This is a country where a Christian is supposed to care about a just society for ALL our neighbors whether they believe like we do or not. And that’s gotta mean our gay neighbor.

And I would say people in the more conservative movement don’t really want to talk too much about that because they’re very upset because they feel like the gay agenda is too anti-Christian and too anti-religious.

So I would say – the reason it’s good to end on this question is – it’s not something, the way forward, I don’t see spelled out anywhere in public. I don’t see anybody in public taking all the Biblical concerns about justice and mercy in that area and speaking about them. But I’m certainly not going to get started.

Just to let you know I don’t really think the current options out there – about what we should do – are really the best ones from a Christian standpoint.

Lauren Green: Maybe that’ll be for the next one (time we do this).

Tim: Uh… I don’t know about that! (Laughter). Maybe we should have a different interviewer – and a different answerer for that one!

Sponsoring Ministries for the Justice Event:

1. Hope for New York. HFNY is a free standing not-for-profit organization that started through the ministry of Dr. Keller and people from RPC. Their website provides the following history of its formation:

In the early days of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (1989-90), Rev. Timothy Keller offered the congregation a number of important concepts, some of which became the “seeds” of Hope for New York. First was the importance of the interaction between “word and deed” ministry by offering the Gospel message to the whole city. Second was an understanding of the strategic importance of the city in God’s view. Third was an emphasis on the prophetic, priestly, and kingly aspects of leadership in ministry. Through this, individuals would be empowered to use their spiritual and physical gifts for the benefit of the city’s less fortunate.

In 1990, about 40 interested individuals began to think strategically about mercy and justice ministry. They organized a half-day workshop called “The City Redeemed: How New Yorkers can Change New York City” comprised of teaching and small group brainstorming sessions about affecting grassroots change in the city. In 1992 much of that same core group traveled to other major cities to study what they were doing and find out how their lessons could be applied in New York. The Hope for New York model also took into account some of the unique factors of the church community in the city of New York.

Funding for Hope for New York began with seed money from Redeemer. Today, HFNY is funded through individual donations, corporate gifts, special events and the Easter Sacrificial Offering received at its partner churches.

2. The Diaconate. Following is a description of the work of the Board of Deacons and Deaconesses at Redeemer Church taken from their website:

The Diaconate, a group of men and women nominated, trained, elected and appointed by Redeemer elders and members, exists to contribute to the building of a repentant and rejoicing community through loving, truth-telling relationships where practical, visible needs are being met while hearts are being changed through encounters with Jesus and one another. We express in practical ways Christ’s command to all believers to love our neighbor as ourselves.

The Diaconate is a ministry of mercy that reaches out to people in Redeemer’s congregation who are in crisis or in challenging circumstances and offers help in assessing their needs and working together to find solutions. Unlike elders, who are responsible for teaching the Gospel, administering healing prayer, and overseeing the church, the Diaconate (deacons and deaconesses) focuses on extending mercy and compassion. God’s mercy moves Him to relieve suffering and misery. ‘Mercy’ is the impulse that makes us sensitive to hurts and lacks in others and makes us desire to alleviate them. Our purpose is to show God’s love and mercy by trying to help people out of difficult circumstances and to be facilitators of the work God is doing in their lives.

3. Grace & Race. This appears on the Redeemer website under the category of
Congregational Life. According to the website, Congregational Life serves to build community at Redeemer by getting people connected to the church and each other. Our events provide opportunities for new fellowship to begin and existing community to be strengthened. The four different areas in this category include a 20’s-30’s group, a Men’s Ministry, a campus ministry similar to RUF, and Grace & Race. The Vision and Mission of this particular group includes:

Vision: To grow as a congregation in our awareness of racial/ethnic differences in order to experience the richness of human community made whole in Christ.

Mission: To provide events and resources which cross racial/ethnic lines through prayer, conversation, training, and the sharing of cultural goods.

Since April of 2008, Grace and Race has sponsored prayer and fellowship nights, town halls and panel discussions on building cross-cultural community as well as interracial dating and marriage, open discussions based on books (Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria) and movies/TV (Crash, The Office), and presented poetry and dramatic readings of pieces about racial identity and conflict.

[Editor’s note: The original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed.]