Ron Sider; An Evangelical Theology of Liberation

"The third aspect of the biblical teaching that God is on the side of the poor and oppressed is that the people of God, if they are really the people of God, are also on the side of the poor and oppressed. Those who neglect the needy are not really God’s people at all -- no matter how frequent their religious rituals or how orthodox their creeds and confessions. The prophets sometimes made this point by insisting that knowing God and seeking justice for the oppressed are inseparable. At other times they condemned the religious rituals of the oppressors, who tried to worship God while continuing to oppress the poor.

Jeremiah announced God’s harsh message that King Jehoiakim did not know Jahweh and would be destroyed because of his injustice:

Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice;
who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing, and does not give him his wages; . . .
Did not your father eat and drink
and do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well.
Is not this to know me?
says the Lord [Jer. 22:13-16, RSV].

Knowing God necessarily involves seeking justice for the poor (cf. also Hos. 2:19-20)."

-- Ron Sider