Social Justice | Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History

Pope Leo XIV, First American Pope, Successor to Pope Francis and Social Justice of Pop Leo XIII

Pope Leo XIV, First American Pope, Successor to Pope Francis and Social Justice of Pope Leo XIII

05/13/2025 Bruce Strom 0

Pope Leo XIV notes: “What is striking about these two attitudes is their relevance today. They embody notions that we could easily find on the lips of many men and women in our own time, even if, while essentially identical, they are expressed in different language.”
“Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.” […]

Pope Francis’ Autobiography: Be Compassionate to the Poor and Marginalized

05/08/2025 Bruce Strom 0

Pope Francis concludes his autobiography: “To learn to live, we must all learn to love. Let us not forget this! This is the most important lesson we can learn, to love, since love conquers all. By loving we can pull down barriers, we can win battles, we can defeat indifference and hate, we can melt and transform hearts.” “A disinterested love can change the world and the course of history. How many things would have gone differently if love and prayer had motivated us, rather than the thirst for power. Remember, the world need prayer more and more!” […]

St John Chrysostom: Lazarus and the Rich Man: When Are the Poor Unworthy? On Wealth and Poverty

04/09/2025 Bruce Strom 1

St John Chrysostom entreats us: “The poor man has one plea:” “Do not require anything else from him; but even if he is the most wicked of all men and is at a loss for his necessary sustenance, let us free him from hunger.”
“Christ also commands us to do this, when He said, ‘Be like your Father in heaven, for He makes His sun rise on both the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.’ The alms giver is a harbor those in necessity:” “whether they are bad or good or whatever they are who are in danger.”
A virtuous almsgiver is not a judge. “Charity is charity when we give it even to the unworthy.” “Need alone is the poor man’s worthiness.” “For if we investigate the worthiness of our fellow servants, God will do the same for us.” […]

St Basil on Social Justice: Assisting the Poor During a Famine in a Roman Province

10/04/2024 Bruce Strom 0

St Basil teaches us: “If you also give from your lack, you will have the vessel of oil ever flowing by the gift of mercy and the inexhaustible jar of flour. For the faithful, the grace of God zealously imitates these vessels, ever poured out yet never exhausted, returning double for what is given. Lend, you who lack, to the rich God. Have faith in the one who always personally undertakes the cause of the oppressed and makes recompense from his own resources.” […]

Was St Basil WOKE? St Basil the Great On Social Justice, Parable of the Rich Fool

10/03/2024 Bruce Strom 0

St Basil teaches us that whether we receive sufferings or blessings, both these should increase our two-fold Love of God and love of neighbor. St Basil teaches us:
“Temptations come in two forms. Sometimes affliction proves the heart like gold in a furnace, testing its purity by means of suffering. But for many, it is prosperity of life that is the greatest trial. For it is equally difficult to preserve one’s soul from despair in hard times, and to prevent it from becoming arrogant in prosperous circumstances.”
Who benefits more, those who contribute, or those who receive? St Basil teaches us, Through the fruits of your good works, “you produce for yourself, since the grace of good works redounds to those who perform them. You gave to the poor, and in so doing not only did you make what you gave truly your own, but you received back even more. For just as grain, when it falls upon the ground, brings forth an increase for the one who scatters it, thus also bread cast to the hungry yields considerable profit at a later time.” […]

St Basil On Social Justice To the Rich SMALL

St Basil the Great, On Social Justice, His Homily to the Rich

09/29/2024 Bruce Strom 3

St Basil speaks to the Rich Young Man: “It is thus evident that you are far from fulfilling the commandment, and that you bear false witness within your own soul that you have loved your neighbor as yourself. Look, the Lord’s offer shows just how distant you are from true love! For it what you say is true, that you have kept from your youth the commandment of love and have given to everyone the same as to yourself, then how did you come by this abundance of wealth?”
“The more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love. If you had truly loved your neighbor, it would have occurred to you long ago to divest yourself of this wealth. But now your possessions are more a part of you than the members of your own body, and separation from them is as painful as the amputation of one of your limbs.”
St Basis warns the wealthy: If you have “sound judgment, you should should recognize that you have received wealth as a stewardship, and not for your own enjoyment; thus, when you are parted from it, you rejoice as those who relinquish what is not really theirs, instead of becoming downcast like those who are stripped of their own.” […]

Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream Speech, March on Washington DC, Biography Chapter 8

01/19/2024 Bruce Strom 4

MLK’s I Have a Dream Speech begins: “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.” […]

Martin Luther King, Youth and Schooling, Lewis’ Biography Chapters, 1 and 2

01/10/2024 Bruce Strom 10

The biographer David Levering Lewis observes that “the King family belonged to what is known as the school hard preaching, of which cult of personality, and occasional pinch of exploitation, and sulfurous evangelism are indispensable ingredients.” Martin’s maternal grandfather founded the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and his father, Martin Luther King Sr, grew it into one of the largest and most prestigious black Baptist Churches in Atlanta.

His family was known for their involvement with civil rights. After the disastrous 1906 Atlanta race riots, his maternal grandfather was one of the charter members of the local NAACP chapter. He helped defeat a local bond issue that did not fund any new black schools and was instrumental in advocating the building of Booker T Washington High School, the first school in Atlanta for secondary education. […]

Loving God in Deuteronomy, and a Gentile’s Defense of Judaism, Part 2

12/29/2023 Bruce Strom 1

When studying the rabbinical commentaries on Deuteronomy, I was struck by the number of times the commandment to Love God was repeated in various forms, including the commandment to Fear God, which is roughly equivalent, so I decided to count them, there are about twenty repetitions. This was surprising to me as a Christian, for as St Paul exhorts, “the letter” of the law “kills, but the Spirit gives life.” […]

Q & A on Topic: Why Did You Leave Your Religion?

09/08/2023 Bruce Strom 0

To the ancients who lived in a warrior culture, Stoic philosophy is very appealing. The Stoics don’t ask the question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Instead, they admit that good and bad things happen to everyone, that the rain falls on both the bad and the good. Bad things happen to good people, that is part of life. The real question is: How can God help us endure and prevail over our suffering? […]

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