Our Vision
To ignite students and equip leaders to join in God's passion for the broken and the oppressed.
Our Mission
IJM Southeastern exists to glorify Jesus Christ by bringing light to the injustices in the world around us and by calling students to action.International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals work with local governments to ensure victim rescue, to prosecute perpetrators and to strengthen the community and civic factors that promote functioning public justice systems. IJM's justice professionals work in their communities in 12 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to secure tangible and sustainable protection of national laws through local court systems.
An IJM Campus Chapter is a group of students concerned about issues of injustice who desire to work together as advocates for the oppressed in a world of suffering. They partner with IJM in 3 ways:
1.
Raising their voices on behalf of victims of injustice through prayer and advocacy.
2.
Raising awareness on their campus and in their community of the reality of oppression in our world.
3.
Raising support to enable IJM to rescue more victims of oppression.
Our Response
International Justice Mission’s first priority in its anti-trafficking casework is to secure the protection of the law for trafficked women and children forced into commercial sexual activity. IJM investigators spend hundreds of hours gathering and documenting undercover evidence of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Using this evidence, IJM staff members then work with local authorities to remove victims from forced prostitution and ensure that they have access to aftercare services to meet their vital needs. IJM lawyers work to secure the conviction and sentencing of traffickers and other perpetrators in an effort to deter future crimes. Sex trafficking will endure as long as it remains a profitable criminal enterprise. By freeing victims and prosecuting their perpetrators, IJM operations increase the risk and decrease the profitability of trafficking. IJM works to combat sex trafficking in India, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines. In the 10 years since the organization’s founding, IJM investigations have resulted in freedom for hundreds of girls and women held by force in the commercial sex trade.
Neighbor Love
Luke 10:25-29 25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" 27 He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." 28 And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." 29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" The recent publication of the NRSV “Green Bible” has ignited a firestorm of response from some conservative (more likely Fundamentalist) Christians. The Bible is the standard NRSV translation—already a bad start for some extreme conservatives—with commentary from theological heavyweights like N. T. Wright. The passages that pertain to creation care are highlighted and social justice issues are tied to the gospel.
The fact that creation care is tied to the gospel is problematic to some conservatives as the gospel for fundamentalists only pertains to salvation of souls into a disembodied heaven and has nothing to offer for social issues, but one conservative leader responded to the “Green Bible” by claiming that the gospel only calls us to love God and our neighbor.
Of course, Richard Land’s comments are correct in sense as the scriptures call us to love God and our neighbors. And to go step further, we should care for our human neighbors more intently than we care for our non-human neighbors as there is a ordering in creation, but that the hard distinction he is calling for cannot stand.
There are simply times when environmental concerns are sanctity of human life issues. Consider the recent issues in China where whole water supplies were contaminated with chemicals, and even more recently, the infant formula was contaminated, and babies died. In situations like these, neighbor love requires us to act on environmental issues as what they are, matters of life and death.
Those who are familiar with the Luke passage quoted above will know that Jesus goes on to tell the Good Samaritan story to expand his interlocutor’s concept of neighbor. If we think that we can care for our neighbor, while ignoring his environmental problems, or even contributing to them, then we are no better than those lawyers who asked Jesus about their neighbor. We need the same shocking answer he gave them.
As far as the gospel goes, the gospel—the good news that the resurrected Jesus is Lord—affects the entire cosmos (col 1:15-20). This includes all of creation. Jesus was the agent responsible for creation and he is the agent responsible for its recreation in the resurrection. The restoration of creation is written all over the narrative of scripture and is a part of the mission of God and his CHURCH! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.
Cambodia: 13 Year Sentence for Sexual Assault Perpetrator
2 comments:
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Amen!
Saving souls is a crucial part of the gospel...but it's not all of it. Caring for creation is also part of Jesus' plan to restore all things to the way they should be.
Thanks for the shout out Daniel.
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