On compassion and jusice

Thought-provoking quote on the difference between compassion and justice from David Crowder's interview with Christianity Today:

Do you worry that popular culture sometimes presents a social cause as a popular trend to ride?

Crowder: That's another difficult thing about this move for social change with so many people's involvement—immediately I get cynical. Down the road, when you see all the marketing dollars spent in the (RED) campaign and other programs, callousness starts to build up. When American Idol goes to Africa to raise awareness, it raises red flags for some of us, [though good is still accomplished].

It's important to remember that there is a big difference between compassion and justice. Compassion would be like seeing someone drowning in a river and automatically you grab that person and save him. But as you stand there, you see more and more people coming down the river drowning and you just keep pulling them out. Justice is when a person goes up the river to find the source of problem, to find out why these people are in the river in the first place. They take what they see in front of them—people drowning in the river—and their feet start moving. They acquire knowledge in process, and move from compassion to justice. We still need people downstream pulling people out, but we also need someone to get to the source of things too.