We value and depend on a large variety of voices. The work we do in the Christian Reformed Church justice ministries is intentionally shaped by many voices, through committee members, congregations, synodical recommendations, experts in the field, and ecumenical partnerships.

We want to hear from you! Here are a few ways you can dialogue with us about posts on Do Justice: 

• Comment on the article on the Do Justice Facebook page.
• Comment on the article on the Centre for Public Dialogue Facebook page (only for articles pertaining to Canada).
• Send us an email—We make every effort to respond carefully and in a timely manner to emails. [email protected]
• Ask us to lead a discussion or facilitate a workshop in your community about the issue(s) in question in your community by emailing us at [email protected] or [email protected].

When you do comment online, please respect our commenting guidelines. These guidelines are not exhaustive, but they're intended to help understand our approach to user-posted content. It all boils down to being polite, courteous, and Christ-like in the way we communicate online. These guidelines are the same as the CRC commenting policy used on The Network and The Banner. 

In our view, a good comment

• is directly related to the original post.
• is concise and easy to follow.
• is friendly and polite in tone and language, even when you strongly disagree.
• contributes something new and positive to the discussion.
• has clear authorship—that means using your real name.
• is truthful and avoids making or repeating false claims.

And avoids

• making derogatory remarks and/or personal comments about others.
• dominating the discussion.
• undermining the church or its ministries. Constructive criticism is welcome.
• posting under false pretenses—including for commercial gain.
• posting primarily to advertise or solicit funds.

All comments regarding public policy should refer only to the policy in question, and refrain from mentioning explicitly supporting or opposing* specific politicians or parties. Any comments judged to be of a partisan nature will be reviewed and/or removed.

If you see a comment on Facebook or The Network that you believe does not meet the standards listed here, please bring it to the attention of our moderators ([email protected]). Moderators aren't perfect, but we try to make the best decisions we can for the good of the whole community. A moderator's decisions are final and comments may be removed without further explanation. Discussions about why a comment was or wasn't removed will be deemed off topic and removed.

If you have questions about these comment guidelines, don't hesitate to email us at do.justice@crcna.org

*This guideline comes from the Canada Revenue Agency guidelines on public policy dialogue and development: "A charity that provides a platform for the public to comment on and discuss issues (for example, a website or blog) must monitor these platforms, and remove messages that support or oppose a political party or candidate for public office. In such a case, a charity might choose to add a notice to its platform that messages that support or oppose a political party or candidate will be removed."  

Do Justice is a conversation space for justice in the Christian Reformed Church. Conversations and the insights gained from them are richer when the conversation partners are diverse with regard to age, ability, gender, location, etc. We desire to live ever more deeply into the reality of the diverse and reconciled family that we are in Christ. That's why we strive for the following goals on Do Justice: 

• On issues that especially concern people of colour (eg. mass incarceration, Doctrine of Discovery, immigration), we will make every effort to find writers who are people of colour. This does not mean that white people can't also write about these subjects, because seeking justice requires allies across ethnic boundaries, but we will prioritize elevating the voices of those most affected by the issue in question.
• We will make every effort to avoid tokenism. In other words, people of colour and other marginalized groups will be invited to write not just about issues that particularly concern them, but will be invited to share their perspectives on many different issues.
• We will strive for at least 25% representation of people of colour among our authors. We will also seek to amplify the voices of a collective of writers who are diverse with regard to age, ability, gender, location, et cetera. We will also strive for at least 50% representation of women among our authors. 
• The images we choose to accompany the articles will reflect diverse ethnicities, abilities, ages, and genders. We will choose images that show people's dignity (their gifts, capacity, relationships, etc.) rather than highlighting their needs.
• We will always seek to promote and model listening to diverse voices, recognizing and questioning privilege, and seeking justice in solidarity with, not on behalf of, marginalized people.
• We will strive for a ⅓ - ⅔ balance in readership between Canadian and U.S. readers respectively, in order to roughly mirror the number of Christian Reformed congregations in each country. 

Lifting up voices that are not always heard is a key value and goal of our ministries and especially of this blog. We are committed to transparency with you, our audience, about how well we are meeting our goals with respect to the diversity of our writers.