Lausanne World Pulse – Perspectives Articles – Surprising Witness: The Story of Christians for Social Justice in Cambodia

By Samantha Baker Evens
October / November 2009

June 2006, Phnom Penh, Cambodia: A Christian working in a secular human rights organization started a discussion group for expatriate Christians interested in issues of faith and justice. He did so partly to give himself an outlet for thinking about faith and justice, as any attempt to discuss how his faith impacted his work was met with hostility by other expatriate human rights workers. Three years later, the group has had surprising results as it serves as a bridge that is breaking down barriers between the expatriate Church and secular human rights workers with positive results for the communities that both wish to serve.

An Overview of Christians for Social Justice
 Christians for Social Justice (CSJ) was initially focused on raising awareness of social justice issues with concerned Christians and being a place where it was safe to talk about the intersection of faith and justice. It quickly, however, moved toward offering Christians a chance to respond personally to issues of social justice through partnership with a local human rights organization.

Early participation for the CSJ group in social justice issues involved supporting a legal case for two men wrongfully accused of the assassination of a high-profile trade union leader, as well as the case of residents of an urban community who were being violently and illegally evicted from their homes by a land developer with connections to the government.

 

The experience of CSJ in partnering with secular human rights groups is one that is worth

replicating in other contexts.

CSJ members supported the causes by:

  • being a presence at trials,
  • participating in peaceful demonstrations,
  • releasing balloons,
  • meeting with their embassies to ask for foreign aid accountability,
  • holding prayer vigils,
  • attempting to visit political prisoners,
  • witnessing evictions to mitigate against violence,
  • sleeping overnight in communities with the knowledge of the developer to prevent unlawful evictions, and
  • hosting rural community leaders who came to the capital as part of a peace network to lodge petitions with the government over the encroachment and loss of their land and natural resources.

As a leader in CSJ said about attending a recent trial, “The idea is primarily to turn up; sit in the trial and be a presence and a witness in order to show moral support for the two men; send the message to the judge that this cannot be done in a corner, but that people, including the international community, are watching; be praying and interceding for justice and righteousness; and to show solidarity with our friends in the human rights movement.”

The unintentional side effect of CSJ’s involvement with human rights in Cambodia has been an informal reconciliation between Christians and secular human rights workers. When the group initially formed, there was concern bordering on hostility from expatriate human rights workers toward involvement with Christians.

At one point, the director of the human rights group, who had been attending the CSJ meetings, asked group members to come and talk to her staff because she was having heated conversations weekly with staff who were worried that she was getting involved with Christians. Over time, it became clear that these responses were often coming from deep wounding at the hands of Christians in the past. For instance, there was one investigative reporter who spent a long time researching clergy sexual abuse cases and others who had experienced condemnation and judgment from Christians in their families of origin. There were also concerns that Christians would abuse their positions to proselytize.

Samantha Baker Evens has been a member of the InnerCHANGE community for the last eleven years in San Francisco, Australia, and (currently) Cambodia. She is married to Chris and has two small sons.