Nees Lectures in Social Justice

[Ryan Scott]

Tom Nees gave the inaugural Tom Nees Lectures in Social Justice at NTS this week. Yesterday's was about the long tradition of such ministry in the Church of the Nazarene, but today's was looking forward. I found it very inspiring.

The recording can be accessed at the link below:

http://wesley.nts.edu/podcast/chapel/nees12-mar-2008.mp3

[Amy Schultz]

I just read the transcript of his messages. Wow! you're right, He is very inspiring. We do need to revisit our foundations and take our churches out to where the need is. That is how we built the church in the first place! I love what he said about the social gospel. I also just read a commentary by Winward that said of the Old Testament books that dealt with God's judgment on Israel that God's indignation is simply the other side of compassion. His judgment is his concern for man. God's judgment on the wicked is the consquence of God's compassion for their victims. I thought it interesting to see the harshness of God put on the other side of the coin as his mercy and compassion toward mankind. The book of Amos interestingly barely touches on idolotry as Israel's sin but expounds in detail on social justice issues. My passion for helping others really is not so much about connecting resources with need but of finding the issues (the medley of issues) that create this need we have among people in our affluent land! This is good stuff! I was encouraged to see in our beginnings, our charitable programs led to some sort of activism in encouraging social reform. Don't you think we are at that point again in our current history?