“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice,

to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.”

Micah 6:8

This prescription sums up life in the Spirit: A faithful disposition of heart, a practice of right relating, and an orientation toward the Holy One. In this context, justice and compassion are cornerstones of the spiritual life and the foundations of social transformation. As spiritual values, these are understood in the context of covenants of mutuality, inclusion and egalitarianism that foster right ordering of relationships. As transformative practices, they encompass a dialectical relationship between individuals and society, within which is an awareness of ways in which the dominant culture could be reordered to reflect life-enhancing values and just social systems. In this course, we will explore how these virtues cooperate in an engaged spirituality by performing a social analysis of a situation of oppression and injustice with a critical and compassionate eye, proposing solutions which are transformative, life-giving and just.