I’m
sure the events in Boston this week are the basis for blogs and commentary
worldwide. What can one lonely blog like this add? Probably nothing new. Yet
from a Christian perspective there is always something fresh to consider.
Justin
Trudeau’s remarks this week have stirred up controversy. His reasoning for the
bombers’ actions was based on them feeling excluded from Canadian community.
Subsequent facts indicate they were well established within their societal
framework after all.
Never-the-less,
the liberal idea that perpetrators of this sort are victims is a common reason
given for their actions, usually leaving the real victims of the attack
sidelined. In fact, I’m sure we’ll hear much less about those bereaved or injured
in Monday’s blast than about the bombers themselves.
Of course,
we are all victims of some sort, but few of us resort to life destroying acts. Our
awareness of our vulnerability should, and does, lead to empathy for others,
not violence against them. The Bible exhorts us to love those we may consider
our enemies.
So
how do we figure justice for the remaining bomber? He, like his victims, was
created in the image of God, and as such should be treated with the same
dignity as anyone else. I’m glad that western courts, imperfect though they
are, seek to ensure guilt before judgment—a legacy of Christian influence.
But justice
also requires that the penalty fits the crime, inherent in the idea of an eye
for an eye, and life for life. That regulation required just punishment but
also denied escalation of revenge as well as. If someone knocked one of my teeth
out, I could not knock out two in response!
I can’t help
musing on where we have come in regard to the death penalty. In many western
nations it has been removed completely, capital crimes now often penalized by
some years in prison. This devalues the life of the victim to just the length
of the violator’s sentence.
By contrast,
we terminate the life of the person in the womb for any and every reason,
euthanize those near death despite their innocence, and increasingly kill
infants who survive the torture of forced abortion—capital “punishment” for the
innocent is alive and well in Canada.
We also need
to separate forgiveness from consequences. It may well be that one of the bombers’
maimed victims is a Christian, willing to forgive his assailant and cancel the
debt to himself, reflecting God’s cancelled debt against us. But the bombers’
debt to society remains.
God demands,
“from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man,”
and the Bible forecasts that “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his
blood be shed” (Genesis 9:5–6). Human courts derive their authority from God
(Romans 13:2).
The first
bomber met his death while continuing the rampage he began. The second was hunted
down to face the consequences of his crime. Will the punishment fit the crime? I
doubt it. From past experience, sympathy for the perpetrator will outweigh
justice for the victims.
