Confession of Belhar prayer and confession exercise
An Excerpt on Justice from the Confession of Belhar
Friends, you are invited to take some time to read and reflect on each confessional point today. Perhaps read them aloud as a prayer of declaration to the Lord and ask Him to use your life, your gifts, time and treasure to serve as an agent of Kingdom justice.
- We believe
- that God has revealed himself as the one who wishes to bring about justice and true peace among people;
- that God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged; 3
- that God calls the church to follow him in this, for God brings justice to the oppressed and gives bread to the hungry;
- that God frees the prisoner and restores sight to the blind;
- that God supports the downtrodden, protects the stranger, helps orphans and widows and blocks the path of the ungodly;
- that for God pure and undefiled religion is to visit the orphans and the widows in their suffering;
- that God wishes to teach the church to do what is good and to seek the right (Deut. 32:4; Luke 2:14; John 14:27; Eph. 2:14; Isa. 1:16-17; James 1:27; James 5:1-6; Luke 1:46-55; Luke 6:20-26; Luke 7:22; Luke 16:19-31; Ps. 146; Luke 4:16-19; Rom. 6:13-18; Amos 5);
- that the church must therefore stand by people in any form of suffering and need, which implies, among other things, that the church must witness against and strive against any form of injustice, so that justice may roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream;
- that the church as the possession of God must stand where the Lord stands, namely against injustice and with the wronged; that in following Christ the church must witness against all the powerful and privileged who selfishly seek their own interests and thus control and harm others.
Therefore, we reject any ideology
- which would legitimate forms of injustice and any doctrine which is unwilling to resist such an ideology in the name of the gospel.
Synod 2017 adopted the Belhar Confession as a contemporary testimony for the Christian Reformed Church. It is a beautiful statement of unity in Christ and His Kingdom. To read the entire document click this link.
