Prophecy as Incarnate Justice

In this article, I explore the idea of justice that emerges from the Hebrew prophetic tradition, in relation to the theme of this special issue: Christian ethics as prophecy. I proceed in three steps. First, I turn to the Hebrew Bible and describe the context in which this idea of justice first evolves. Second, I draw out some of its defining characteristics, including its intimate ties to a distinctly prophetic pathos, centred on the incarnate, embodied dimensions of life. Finally, I discuss the significance of this idea of justice for the present moment and offer my own account of what it means to affirm Christian ethics as prophecy. I argue that we find ourselves at a historic crossroads, where the need to articulate an explicit Christian ethics is more urgent than it has been in a long time, not least in light of the ways in which Christianity today is being appropriated by far-right political actors for exclusionary and at times openly racist and misogynistic aims. At this moment, I argue, we need to bring to light the deeply prophetic nature of the Christian gospel and spell out what its idea of incarnate justice entails.