The pathos of God is on the prophet. It moves him. It breaks out in him like a storm in the soul, overwhelming his inner life, his thoughts, feelings, wishes and hopes. It takes possession of his heart, giving him courage to act.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel

You know how when you are in a conversation with someone and stumble upon some topic that they are really into, and they start getting all passionate and animated, and it makes you take a step back and say, “OK, tell me how you really feel about that.” Well, I believe for God, that issue is justice or what we might more precisely call biblical justice.  Biblical justice is the more precise term that I prefer, mostly because it reflects the range of justice issues that I see God clearly and deeply cares about, as witnessed in scripture and in my own experience.  The issues of biblical justice are social, economic and environmental.  They are also intertwined and interconnected.

The U.S. Government’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons recently released their 2009 Trafficking in Person Report. At the release, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton remarking on the ramifications of the current economic downturn said, ”Economic pressure, especially in this global economic crisis, makes more people susceptible to the false promises of traffickers.” While that is entirely true, it is only the initial one-off assessment of interconnectivity.  My own research into human trafficking has followed the river further upstream from the horror of human trafficking and beyond the economic pressures of poverty to the heart of the environmental crisis.

I first encountered the interconnectivity when I was doing some research on migration crises from countries like Cuba or Haiti to the U.S.  I was researching mass migration and looking at the typical “triggers” that people point to (i.e. natural disasters – such as hurricanes – and civil unrest) that cause people to make choices.  I quickly realized things like natural disasters and civil unrest were only triggers because there were other issues placing people in desperate situations in which a natural disaster or civil unrest was the final trigger to their leaving their home for something, anything else.

The desperate situations and issues before the final trigger included issues like health and immense poverty.  The fact is, most victims of human trafficking were all ready living with the consequences of the environmental and economic crisis when lured into that life.  As I continued to dig further in my research, I found that it was indeed an environmental factor that had set off so many people’s trek down this treacherous pathway into the vile clutches of human traffickers and those who prey upon the weak.  With little or no economic hope for even subsistence farming due to de-forestation and soil erosion (those are interrelated, especially in a place like Haiti), farming communities cannot eek out a living.  Compounding the environmental degradation is the loss of generational-knowledge of good farming techniques due to the decimation of HIV/AIDS or the push of “advanced agricultural techniques” wanted or unwanted on the farming communities from “advanced countries”.

The primary cause of Haiti’s environmental degradation has been caused by Haitian’s need for energy. With an electricity sector that only covered 10% of Haiti’s population in 2006, chronic energy shortages have contributed to Haitian’s search for alternative sources of energy.  Unfortunately for Haiti’s natural environment, wood became and continues to be the principal energy source for most of the populace, accounting for 70 percent of energy consumption in 2006.  This has directly impacted the environment with the steady deforestation  with an estimated 6,000 hectares of soil lost each year to erosion.

These factors contribute to increase poverty as people leave the countryside - the place of their relational community core, family and support – for the overpopulated urban environs.  Poverty – both urban and rural – and the risk of disease place people in desperate situations, even to the point of believing (whether they really believe it in their heart) that their children are better off having a chance elsewhere.  They are more susceptible to being blinded by the lies and false promises of a better life, a way out of their present life, for themselves or their children.  This vulnerable situation is preyed upon by human traffickers, and desperate people sell themselves or their children who may starve tomorrow into labor trafficking slavery (they call them restaveks in Haiti) and as household servants of the urban and suburban wealthy, where eventually they might become a sex slave or be sold into sexual slavery and/or more labour trafficking slavery and brought into the U.S. or other wealthy nations.  We must realize the market-aspect of this activity of injustice.  It is the wealthy nations like the U.S. which are the major destination-countries of human trafficking, including Europe or Japan. Human traffickers are bringing their commodities to the marketplace. Justice is being trampled in our streets.

But the dots were connecting for me, seeing illegal immigration and human trafficking connecting to the situation of extreme poverty, in turn rooted in an environmental crisis.  As I was talking to my boss at the time about my research, I told him, “If we could get to work on the root ‘push’ issues of poverty and environmental crisis (while still working on the “pull” issues of sexual dysfunction and deviation in the U.S.) … if we could do something about them, these ‘homeland security issues’ might evaporate…” Then he looked up at me and said, “Steven, please, we’re not the Church; we’re just the government…”

This struck me as a very astute assessment.  It was one of those “a-ha” moments where all the brain-work I had been doing took the elevator to my heart and began working there.  I realized something.  I walked away from my time in government fighting against human trafficking with the firm conviction that my boss was essentially correct:the Church has to fight against this and be the place where the broken walk toward healing in community in Christ.  But we have to also realize that it’s really difficult – nay, impossible without God – to do justice, while still loving mercy, not to mention walk humbly with our God.

If you’re interested in learning more about how issues of justice are interconnected and what you can do about it, join us for the RE:FORM Conference 2009 in the Baltimore, MD area on Sept. 16-18. For more information, visit the RE:FORM website at www.Reform-Now.org