Ken Wytsma > Quotes

“A subtle reason for apathy is that justice rarely has much to do with our lives. Unless we've personally been victims of injustice, we can take for granted that life is generally fair.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“We may not choose apathy, but when we choose anything other than love and empathetic justice, we get apathy by default.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“Education is a means, not an end. We don't enroll in formal education ad nauseam as a way of escaping life. Rather, we educate ourselves in order to become equipped to respond wisely to God's calling.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“All scripture points to one thing: life is about God. The process of moving from confused wandering to purpose and joy is marked by faith, by waiting on the Lord in ready obedience.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Grand Paradox: The Messiness of Life, the Mystery of God and the Necessity of Faith

“Justice is the state that exists when there is equity, balance, and harmony in relationships and in society. Injustice is the state that exists when unjust people do violence to peace and shalom and create inequity, imbalance, and dissonance.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“We don't stray away from good doctrine or truth by focusing on justice and compassion for those in the margins - rather, we find Jesus and truth in the margins.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Grand Paradox: The Messiness of Life, the Mystery of God and the Necessity of Faith

“Obedience is frequently the opposite. It is a jump into the unknown. A move based on trust, not in a certain future, but in a dependable God.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Grand Paradox: The Messiness of Life, the Mystery of God and the Necessity of Faith

“Apathy is sustainable only as long as injustice doesn't harm us--and we don't care that it's harming others. Apathy lasts only until injustice knocks on our door, and we're forced to look into its eyes.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“It is no doubt an evil to be full of faults, but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and unwilling to recognize them,”
― Ken Wytsma, The Grand Paradox: The Messiness of Life, the Mystery of God and the Necessity of Faith

“In the midst of uncertainty and the paradoxical tension of having to believe God for the impossible, real faith requires actually trusting in Him, despite our inability to always understand Him.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Grand Paradox: The Messiness of Life, the Mystery of God and the Necessity of Faith

“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander. (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum qtd. in Halter)”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“The kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. It beckons us to gamble all, to trust radically, to come and die so that we might live--to give our lives away. Giving life away is a paradox. It's losing so we can win. It's giving so we can receive. It's risking for security. It's faith. The kingdom of God means living that tension.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“Faith makes all things possible . . . love makes all things easy.1 —D. L. MOODY”
― Ken Wytsma, The Grand Paradox: The Messiness of Life, the Mystery of God and the Necessity of Faith

“Yet while Satan lacks God’s eternal qualities, he has rational power to subvert God’s works”
― Ken Wytsma, Redeeming How We Talk: Discover How Communication Fuels Our Growth, Shapes Our Relationships, and Changes Our Lives

“Our lives are bound up with the lives of others. Our joy is bound up with the joy of others.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“Creativity alone, for those who follow God, isn't sufficient. Not even ongoing creativity. Our creativity, like God's, must be aimed at something good. We need redemptive creativity - creativity that aims not just for success, but freedom; and not just for ourselves, but for others and for the good of creation as a whole.”
― Ken Wytsma, Create vs. Copy: Embrace Change. Ignite Creativity. Break Through with Imagination

“This suggested that when we understand our bias we can adjust our behavior and act more fairly. Overall research indicates that we are able to reduce or eliminate implicit bias through counter-stereotypic training and exposure, education and awareness about bias, having contact with people outside our "in" group, and examining and incorporating other view points.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege

“At the end of the day--of almost any day, regardless of what we have done or left undone--apathy tells us that it's perfectly acceptable to live with illusions of our own justice.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“A white normative standard means that whiteness became and was ingrained as the bar or canon by which things were evaluated or contrasted. Whiteness became the racial category by which all others were evaluated. This white normative standard, or the elevation and protection of whiteness, speaks to foundational aspects of our culture, both in its functioning and in its phycology.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege

“God requires surrender because that is the only way we can truly find Him. It is only there that trust is made real.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Grand Paradox: The Messiness of Life, the Mystery of God and the Necessity of Faith

“Racism is the diminishment of worth in men and women in and through bias, systems and power structures that disadvantage them in tangible ways based on skin color. Reverse racism is a phrase thrown around when white people are singled out or described in terms of their whiteness. It is often, however, a gross misapplication of the idea of racism.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege

“Justice doesn't have a finish line, and neither does education. We never reach a point where we cannot learn, where ceasing to learn would make us, or the world, better. It takes perseverance to walk the road of justice, and we cannot know where or when--or if--it will end for us.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“. . . we are all giving our lives away--the only question is, to what? We spend ourselves on television, money, power, sex, leisure, adventure, and fame. They are a bad investment. If we look for life by spending ourselves here, we look in vain.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“Again, our spheres of influence reinforce normative behaviors and belief and also teach us which divergent streams of thought are threatening or dangerous to our way of life.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege

“White supremacy in the United States is a historical fact. White suprematists who held to preferential treatment of whites and a discriminatory view of people of color ruled our government for much of our history. They enacted laws, they built systems, they created powerful social groups, and pursued wealth in ways that cannot be fully separated from their racial views and racial policies.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege

“Learning to change the world is rarely easy or convenient--it can be complex, costly, and messy.”
― Ken Wytsma, Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live & Die for Bigger Things

“We must balance our desire for specific direction with an ability to be at peace in our current situation and the leading God has for us today. Somewhere along the line, as Christians, we are led to believe that there is a very clear map of God’s will for our lives, one that would make wisdom, prayer, and wise counsel from friends unnecessary because we would have such a clear understanding that all those things become irrelevant.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Grand Paradox: The Messiness of Life, the Mystery of God and the Necessity of Faith

“...I'm learning the need to actively seek diverse representation in decision making, leadership and speaker scheduling. To the degree we do not, we are consciously or unconsciously discriminating and thereby doing a disservice to the kingdom. To be clear, diversity doesn't trump competence, character, or having a message. Leaders and teachers have, and should have, a high bar of accountability with regard to teaching and influence.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege

“We were able to agree on the deep complexity of America's racial injustices as well as the dangers that can arise when we rush to judge others' actions. Each of us heard the other say that both subjects matter. The value of black and brown lives in America and the sacrifices made by police officers and their families on behalf of the public good. If we talk only about one side, it can seem to imply that the other doesn't matter. The challenge is to make sure everyone is heard, understood and valued.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege

“White privilege is largely hidden from our eyes if we are white. Why? Because it is structural instead of psychological and we tend to interrupt most things in personal, individual and psychological ways. Since we do not consciously have racist attitudes or overt racist behavior, we kindly judge ourselves to be openminded egalitarian, iberal, and therefore surely not racist. Because we have never been on the other side, we largely do not recognize the structural access, the trust we think we deserve, the assumption that we always belong and do not have to earn our belonging. The "we set the tone" mood that we white folks often live inside of and take totally for granted and even naturally deserved. Only the outsider can spot all these attitudes in us.”
― Ken Wytsma, The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege