Pre-requisites

None.

Co-requisites

None.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, the student will be able to:

• Understand, implement and critique analyses of power and its uses and abuses as well as powerlessness, marginalisation, and poverty through a biblical lens

• Identify and critically analyse how biblical and theological frameworks have been applied to injustice, exploring Christian commitment to development and community work in contexts of power and powerlessness, marginalisation and poverty

• Explore hermeneutics that foreground the voices of weak and vulnerable communities (including decolonial/post-colonial, feminist, liberation or from-below and indigenous approaches) in shaping global and local Christian responses to injustice and human rights concerns

• Generate theologically coherent and developmentally sound advocacy strategies relevant for action in a faith-based context.

• Develop resources and activities designed to motivate and mobilise Christians to advocate with (rather than for) those who suffer from marginalisation, discrimination or exploitation

• Demonstrate advanced knowledge of the biblical and theologica theological debates that have shaped historical and contemporary discourses on justice, power, and Christian social ethics.

Unit Description

This unit critically examines the role of power and systemic barriers in perpetuating poverty, with particular attention to rights-based approaches into development practice and community engagement. How do biblical and theological visions of justice inform faithful, contextually grounded, and locally led responses to poverty, power, and social transformation? Drawing on Old and New Testament perspectives as well as global Christian theological traditions, learners examine how justice has been understood and interpreted by Christians in contexts of poverty, dispossession, marginalisation, and unequal power relations. The unit critically engages the varied interpretations of Scripture and theology as applied to issues of injustice and reflect on the development of human rights and the movement towards advocacy as a key poverty alleviation tool. It examines human rights discourse and rights-based approaches to development, alongside decolonising, participatory, and locally led approaches to social transformation. Through case studies such as climate justice, gender-based violence, and Indigenous wellbeing, learners explore how churches, Christian organisations, and communities respond to injustice across diverse cultural and socio-political contexts. Students will develop a contextual theological framework for development practice, integrating biblical interpretation, theological reflection, critical analysis of injustice, and concepts of human rights and social transformation.

Topics

• Justice as found in the Old and New Testaments;
• Relevant theological and biblical themes (e.g. Imago Dei; Catholic Social Teaching)
• History and development of human rights
• Non-Western (e.g. Aboriginal, African, Asian, Middle Eastern) approaches to the Bible
• Other cultural resources (e.g. land) for understanding justice
• The roles, responsibilities, and tensions faced by Christian NGDOs, the church, advocacy organisations, and community groups
• Decolonised and local approaches to advocacy
• Issue of Non Government Development Organisations priority upon advocacy in recent years, involvement in advocacy for/by/with local peoples
• Advocacy opportunities and challenges (e.g. using digital platforms for advocacy vs “clicktivism”) to achieving positive change for vulnerable communities
• Advocacy to confront climate change and gender-based violence

Assessment and Indicative Load

Assessment types include Assignment, Minor Essay, and Journal. Indicative study load is 320 hours.

---

Unit offerings

Face to face: Semester 1, 2027 and Semester 1, 2030 (Every 3rd Year, Semester 1)

Please note

The Unit Offerings listed above are a guide only and the timetable for any year is the final authority. The College may vary offerings based on demand, regulatory requirements, continual improvement processes or other conditions.

This unit may be available in different modes of delivery i.e. online and face-to-face as listed above. The unit content will not differ between these modes of delivery. There will possibly be a difference in the schedule and/or the prescribed assessment tasks, however both will cover and assess the same content.