The Great Debate, part 1...

Charity vs. social justice. There seems to be some idea that only one or the other is necessary. Actually we need both and we should be challenged to be engaged in both. Charity puts us front and center in 'need'. We are face to face with the least, the lost and the left behind; the widow, the orphan and the alien. That's a Biblical way of discribing "the fringe of the fringe", the people who are without about anything and everything most of us take for granted: regular meals, continous housing, on-demand medical care, means of earning money to get lots of stuff. (We do loves our stuff!) We must be aware of the need that charity responds to...and that's all it does. Responds; react. A sack of food will only stave off hunger, not solve the problem of not being able to get food for ones self. A nightly shelter will only keep a person off the street a night at a time, not address the reason they're on the street in the first place and get them permanently off the streets. We will always need charity. There will always be a place for the immediate response to pain and suffering.
BUT...
Social justice is about addressing the reason for the charity's creation.