Life & Faith

Michael Ramsden on how we respond to injustice: as nations, groups, and individuals. --- “There’s a very interesting phrase in the Old Testament where it says you’ve turned justice into bitterness. In a more poetical translation it says you’ve turned justice into bitterness, so your righteous acts taste like poisoned fruit. In other words, if your motivation for justice is bitterness, even if you get that which is right, it can taste like poison to everybody else.” Michael Ramsden has been thinking about our culture’s struggles with injustice and disagreement a lot lately. In this conversation with Natasha Moore, he talks about what it means to live in a “victim culture” - according to definitions from history and psychology, rather than the opinion pages that rail against “snowflake” millennials! - and our options for responding to past trauma.  From the Balkans to the Holocaust, Superman movies to very personal stories of trauma and forgiveness, Michael helps us interrogate how we construct our identities,