What does Justice mean to a Christian?
Who do you think should win the Nobel Peace Prize? Should you win it if you help lots of people, or is it more to do with how long you work for?
How would you punish a murderer?
This term of learning is intended to be taught as a programme of study to develop students’ understanding of Christian beliefs in action.
Students form, and reflect on their own belief of the nature of justice and the methods in which it can be achieved. Students investigate what justice meant to Jesus, and the different ways since that Christians have worked for justice: this is done through a study of the voting rights of prisoners, the slave trade, poverty in India and El Salvador and capital punishment. This unit promotes verbal reasoning through debate. Students will debate the value of the methods used to achieve justice by Mother Teresa and Oscar Romero, and the ethics of capital punishment and. The final assessed task is in the form of an essay in response to the statement ‘There is a place for capital punishment in the world today’. There is an opportunity to bring RE out of the classroom by exploring the work and life of famous Bristolian Christians of Bristol who contributed to the abolition of the slave trade such as William Wilberforce, John and Charles Wesley, Josiah Tucker and Hannah More (see the Teacher resources section for contacts to arrange trips).
