Annual Campus Theme

What is Justice?

The Campus Theme program facilitates and coordinates a host of events, lectures, and discussions throughout the year centered around an enduring and ultimate question of human experience.

For the 2009-2010 academic year, the guiding question our campus community will engage is, “What is Justice?” It is a question that befits our North Park identity as a Christian, urban and multicultural institution and should challenge us in the coming months to reconsider how we understand this most basic virtue of societies and individuals.

The question of justice is fundamental to who we are as global citizens and Christians. The question of justice guides how people live and flourish together amidst diverse communities and limited resources. It guides us in righting an imperfect world, lifting up the oppressed, and cultivating a vision for shalom within and across cultures.

Come join the conversations and events this year as we explore this important topic together.

Upcoming Events

• Tuesday, February 8: "Hip-Hop and Justice" by Dr. Paul Butler of the Law School at George Washington University
• Tuesday, February 25: "The Particular Injustice of Genocides" by Dr. Terry Lindsey of North Park University

Later in the Spring semester, the Campus Theme and a host of other organizations are currently planning a multiple day "Justice Experience Week" that will include several lectures on political, environmental, and theological conceptions of justice, workshops on urban justice and community renewal, and worship services centered on the theme of Justice in the Christian life. The dates for these events have yet to be finalized, but we will get the word out soon. 

Past Events

Plato and Rawls: Political Philosophy and the Problem of Justice

Tuesday, September 29 at 7:30 in Anderson Chapel

A lecture and discussion that presented the philosophical foundations of the meaning of justice and shows how the initial conception offered 2500 years ago by the Greek philosopher Plato compared to the contemporary American view of justice articulated by John Rawls. (Summary)