Westerns and justice

Another meager thought on justice. (I thought I blogged about this in '05 but maybe not).

Old westerns. I think one of the strongest themes in old westerns was justice. All the shooting and negative race relations run counter to all that compassionate people stand for. I'm not talking about that. Whether it's possible to look at westerns without those elements, I don't know. But if you're looking for stories about good and bad, right and wrong looking at the westerns where the conflict is more between cowboys than about Manifest Destiny or stories where heroes from different people groups have to work together to resolve conflict, the justice theme is strong.

It is possible, by the way, to take a less than perfect curriculum and use the information someone else has already gathered (history, news, movements, issues, etc. . .) and use it to teach the things you want to teach. Encourage discussion. Encourage young people to examine ideas, history, and the ideas that motivated groups of people to do what they did and look at the fruit (good and bad) and weigh it against what they know about God and His word.

There are a lot of social injustices out there that many of us know nothing about. What do we do with what we know? Do I have a responsibility to respond? If so, how?

Might be interesting to study a book of the Bible that particularly deals with justice and then take a curriculum like Just Choices and examine the similarities and differences.