Jesus Loves Everyone but still "Takes Sides"

I wrote you back via email, but let me add some brief substance to this real quick.

By “taking sides” here, we’re talking about the side of the underprivileged as the, paradoxically, only privileged view. One cannot see the most basic truths of history and justice or injustice without either entering into solidarity with or actually be materially deprived. This is not to say that the spiritual and the material can be separated of course — nor am I necessarily romanticizing the poor. It’s just become my deep conviction — through reading Scripture in a different light — that the vantage point of the victim is the most trustworthy and objective, though not that it’s perfectly trustworthy and objective, obviously. It remains a finite perspective like every other.

This could also be called the “prophetic” perspective. There is also a place for the “contemplative” perspective as its complement, but they it’s not simply two sides of the same coin. The contemplative is blind without being transformed by the content of the prophetic.