Weekly Response

One thing I found interesting about our readings this week was what I started to realize about the global perspective versus the domestic perspective.  Although there is some difference in certain issues I’m sure, so far I have not noticed many differences between the domestic and international perspectives on social justice issues and Christianity. The international feminism article was very very similar to the feminist article that we read for the domestic article. I guess I found it most interesting that we have similar perspectives because it is good to know that the United States is not too far off from the rest of the world in their beliefs on serious social justice issues such as these. Sometimes as an American, I feel as if we would vary greatly from the rest of the world on how we approach issues. I know certain issues such as gun control or health care and more political issues such as those we still differ greatly from many areas of the world. However, I find it good to know that on issues such as feminism or racism that deal with oppression that we do not differ greatly from a lot of the world, and we, as humans, can all agree to a certain extent that there are certain things that are not good.

The reading we did for Thursday over the HIV/Aids epidemic and its relation to the bible was very interesting. When I think of social justice issues that pertain to the bible, HIV/Aids is not the first issue that would pop into my head. I guess you can really relate any major issue in the world to the Bible though since it is such a large and diverse book with writings applicable to nearly anything depending on how you read it. I thought their take on how to treat the HIV/Aids epidemic in relation to the bible was one hundred percent correct. I would never say that someone’s suffering such as that is their direct punishment from God for their sins. I believe that God is a merciful God, and he would not blatantly go out of his way to punish someone so awfully like that just for transgressing. I also thought it was interesting how they related Job’s suffering and losing everything directly to the HIV/Aids epidemic. Although this comparison definitely makes sense now, that is not the first thing I would have thought to compare his situation to if I was to read that passage before reading this article.