Jesus, Justice, and Poverty

Jesus, Justice, and Poverty is a daring, unflinching annual program sponsored by Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, a Christian organization that works primarily with college students. However, it’s so much more than that.
Christianity doesn’t have the greatest of reputations when it comes to social justice, with a legacy of both destructive and hypocritical decisions and a host meaningful, social-​justice oriented causes claimed by followers of Christ. The JJP Conference doesnt’ attempt to speak for Christianity, or for organized religion, so much as be a meaningful nexus for social change. This annual event gathers college students, Christian organizers, social justice practitioners, and tries to meaningfully enact Jesus’ call to love and serve the population around us.
My faith is an incredibly important part of my life and my identity and I try my best to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. But I’m also somewhat cynical in regard to some of the actions other followers have taken on in the name of the God I believe in. Understandably, I was a bit cynical when my friend Anna invited me to the JJP conference as a guest. But I pushed past my initial reserve and decided to go. I was incredibly blown away by the experience.
JJP is a day long, serious conference, and one that puts its money where its mouth is. In addition to inspiring speakers that really looked at teh question of «Who Is My Neighbor?» and «how do I love him or her?», the conference included an entire afternoon spent actually making substantive efforts towards that end. The theme of this year’s conference was «Rehumanization: Seeing through the Eyes of Another,» and spoke of the very simple idea of attempting to see our neighbor in all the people around us. The biggest, and most dangerous idea of the conference was focusing on the isue of immigration. San Diego is the largest border-​city in the United States, and the border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana one of the most trafficked international borders in the world. The conference pulled no punches as students went on specific site visits and worked up close and personally or learned from immigration organizations, social justice crusaders, Christian activists, and groups as diverse as Desert Angels who seek to save those who’ve been lost in the desert crossing into the United States, to The Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition (BSCC), an alliance of over 60 government and nonprofit agencies in the United States and Latin America that is convened in and along the U.S.-Mexico Border Region to combat slavery and human trafficking. (
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The day was incredibly powerful, as students learned the theme of «Rehumanization in a real, and meaningful way. No longer were people just discussed in blanket terms: Immigrant. Illegal. Migrant. They were instead, real people, with voices, and lives, and families, and hopes, and dreams, and aspirations, and struggles. People, not population statistics. Faces, not figures.
At dinner, all guest attendees were admitted based on their nametags. Some nametags had previously been stamped with «Illegal» on it. These people were not allowed to eat until anyone else had, and were not allowed to eat inside the building.
Some had nametags marked «Refugee». Those people had to endure a dizzying series of paper forms to fill out to even be allowed to eat, possibly inside the building. If such a thing seems unfair and even arbitrary, perhaps it’s arbitrary that we are able to enjoy incredible freedom and privilege while others aren’t. At least that’s what the conference seemed to be saying.
The personal stories of migrants, of workers, of immigrants, of refugees from anywhere from Sudan to Afghanistan to Mexico were discussed, humanizing the polarizing images and ideas often exchanged. I was humbled and amazed as a conference sought not to indoctrinate, or order, or change, but rather, simply love people as they were, as they came, regardless of status, rather like Jesus himself would have. That’s real Christianity in my mind. Dangerous, challenging, not comfortable in society. Not hypocritical so much as open, loving and willing to try to meet the brokenness of this world with hope.
The words of Elie Wiesel, the wiry-​haired, articulate Holocaust survivor came to mind as I sat and learned and listened in the sanctuary of the San Diego First Presbyterian Church:
«You shall know that no one is illegal. It is a contradiction in itself. People can be beautiful or even more beautiful. They may be just or unjust. But illegal? How can someone be illegal?»
I left Jesus, Justice, and Poverty humbled, moved, and thankful to have seen that Christianity, the movement of Jesus Christ, is not going to be simply claimed by right-​wing polemicists that use it to maintain their comfort. Rather, the teachings of Christ are revolutionary calls to love and radical giving and transformation.