Editorial February 26, 2018 Issue

Protest and progress

Margaret Rogers

Protests against injustice around the globe have often brought progress despite stiff resistance from entrenched and corrupt interests. Many that moved the public heart are remembered for simple but powerful messages, such as the 1968 march of black sanitation collectors in the United States protesting for better working conditions. They wore signs that said, “I am a man.”

Human beings aren’t commodities to be used and thrown away. Each has worth and intelligence to respect. The protest “I am a man” is even more potent when you consider a spiritual meaning of the word man. The Bible’s opening chapter says, “God created man in his own image …; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27).

Lasting progress comes from understanding what man in God’s image is, and yet too often people don’t probe the revolutionary meaning of that idea. The word God essentially means good. Good isn’t a material commodity, but a spiritual reality, present and knowable by everyone, particularly as love. Man as the image of God is innately spiritual, expressing male and female qualities of goodness, such as strength, wisdom, and kindness.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Bible Lens

Bible Lens—February 26–March 4, 2018