When I began studying architecture in college, I wondered how to integrate the call to service in my Christian faith into designing the kinds of built spaces that I had come to love, spaces where light and texture and proportion enfolded me and those around me in a transformative sensate experience. Though Jesus has strong words commanding us to provide tangible care for the “the least of these” – the poor and the immigrant in need of food, drink, clothing, or shelter (Matt. 25:34–40) – the culture in which I grew up connected this kind of care to charity rather than justice, things we might feel obligated to do with any excess resources at our disposal. I was beginning to sense their connection to broader injustices and wondering if I should make it central to my work.

God’s justice is all-encompassing, wrapped up with peace and truth and righteousness and kindness into a whole new configuration of the world.