To Save an Adulteress

(I wrote this some time ago. It’s worth reading, but I think it may have a few flawed notions within)

A poor woman surrounded by an outraged crowd armed with rocks and prepared to exact Biblical justice. Her crime: adultery. Her sentence: death by stoning. Justice? Or excessive cruelty? Challenged by the Pharisees and confronting the mob, Jesus spoke words destined to be remembered until the end of time. “Let he who has no sin cast the first stone …” he said.

The result … one by one the crowd walked away starting first with the elders. In the end, only Jesus and the woman remained.

Did Jesus throw his stone? No. He let her go with the simple exhortation to “Go and sin no more.” Jesus saved her life showing mercy where Biblical Law had insisted on bloodshed.

The Crime of Adultery (Mercy vs. Justice)

With 2000 years of history to look back on, from today’s perspective, it is starkly obvious that Jesus was in the right. The woman may have committed adultery, but that hardly warrants death as a punishment. Did Jesus let her go without punishment? I’m not sure about that. It might be more accurate to say that Jesus let her go without further punishment. She was punished to a certain extent. She was humiliated and terrified by the crowd. Does that constitute punishment?

If it was, Jesus appears to have regarded it as sufficient. He let her go and told her to sin no more. Perhaps, Jesus thought that her sin really warranted no punishment but, short of turning back time, there was no way to erase the punishment she had already endured.

So, He demonstrated mercy and cut her punishment short. Where Biblical Law demanded death, Jesus let her off with a simple exhortation to sin no more.

This leads me to an important question. To what extent does mercy annul justice, if at all?

Consequence

Here in the U.S. this is not an insignificant question. In fact, it seems to be one way of distinguishing between the Right and the Left in politics. This may be something of a generalization, but the Right seems to support justice whereas the Left seems to side with mercy.

Justice demands a consequence for criminal acts. But the Left, perhaps with Jesus’ example in mind (or perhaps not) wants to pardon and forgive crimes. Who is correct?

I think some clarification is in order.

Crime and The Broken Windows Theory

I hear about this on conservative talk radio on a regular basis. In the 1990’s (I think), New York City was a haven for criminality. Then Rudy Giuliani became mayor and started enforcing what he called “The Broken Windows Theory.” The idea was … well, hardcore justice. No mercy. No exceptions. Any crime – even something as simple as breaking a window or jumping a turn style – was punished according to the dictates of the Law.

The result: New York City cleaned up its act and once again began to prosper with far lower levels of crime. Rudy Giuliani’s plan worked. At least, that’s the way the conservative podcasts present it.

In contrast, the conservative podcasts claim, everywhere that the Lefties are in control chaos and crime become more prevalent. A case in point: San Francisco. San Francisco was once a beautiful city, now, thanks to the Lefties (or so the Right says) the city is overrun with crime, homeless people, and human feces – Yuck!

Basically, the crux of the issue can be summed up in one word: consequences. The Right believes there should be consequences for crimes. The Left, I think, believe that in the name of compassion or understanding, crimes should bring little or even no real consequences (unless the criminal is a Republican – or so the Right says).

I kind of think that the Left’s thinking, in a way, can be traced back to Jesus. Jesus forgave sinners. Shouldn’t we try to emulate Jesus and do likewise? Should we, as good Christians, forgive the criminals?

And What Is the Virtue in That!

I think it was the “Sermon on the Mount” where Jesus summed up a moral framework that was almost obsessive with its treatment of love, mercy, and forgiveness. He says something along the lines of “If you love those who love you, what is the virtue in that?” I’ve always understood this as being, basically, an exhortation to be loving, forgiving, and merciful to the nth degree. You may love your friends and family, but, wow, so what? Love this guy who did this horrible thing. That’s a challenge. That’s where virtue lies.

And I think it may be that kind of thinking that the Left believes it is embracing. And I guess, in a certain sense, they really are.

But should we? The concepts of mercy and forgiveness combined with the exhortation: “What is the virtue in that!” – seem to imply that there should be no punishments for crimes. Did Jesus believe that? He did talk about hell on occasion, and hell seems to be the ultimate punishment/s. I (and many other people) think there is an issue with the existence of hell when God is described as being ultimately a loving Father (although I have a unique solution to that problem). But do Jesus (and, consequently, God the Father) think that one should be so prepared to forgive others that no punishment should ever be meted out?

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged Yourself

Similarly, nearly everyone has heard Jesus’ maxim, “Judge not lest ye be judged yourself.” That, too, can be taken to be an exhortation against punishing people for their wrongs. At least, superficially – I mean, you can’t punish somebody without first determining that they are guilty of some wrongdoing. Does not that determination of wrongdoing necessarily imply some type of judgment?

And, so, if we aren’t supposed to judge, then, it seems at least plausibly arguable that we aren’t supposed to punish either. Is that what Jesus wanted?

Let’s examine the notion of non-punishment a little more closely.

In the case above of the adulteress, Jesus prevented an admittedly excessive punishment from being meted out. But, as I asked above, does that mean, he didn’t think she should be punished at all? (I used to think so) Or, did he think that the punishment she had already endured (humiliation and fear of death) was sufficient (or simply done and over and not undoable)?

How about the next famous case: the repentant thief on the cross. The thief was being crucified for his crimes next to Jesus who, in turn, was being crucified. The thief sincerely asked to be remembered in heaven and Jesus promised that the thief would be with him in heaven. The other man mocked Jesus. Presumably, the other man went to hell after death – although that’s probably not a certainty. Anyway, the repentant thief was punished for his crime. He was crucified. Again, from a modern viewpoint, that is probably excessive for the crime of theft, but Jesus did not reverse it (assuming He could – if He was truly God, which is a whole other argument).

So, we have an adulteress who was punished less than the Law demanded and a thief who was given consolation and comfort (and possibly a ticket to heaven) at the time of his death. So, the question remains: Did Jesus support any kind of punishment or was he against all forms of punishment?

Looking at these examples in conjunction with the notion of hell seems to imply that He was okay with some level punishment.

For a long time, I was kind of in the liberal camp on this issue. Because of that single phrase, “And what is the virtue of that!” If forgiving someone for insulting you is good, how much better is it to forgive someone for murdering you! Of course, Jesus did, pretty much, do that last.

How about … is a Christian obligated to forgive someone who murders his/her spouse? Turn the other cheek? Someone is trying to murder your spouse … as a Christian, are you forbidden from using violence to stop them?

As I am not Jesus, I don’t know what He says to these questions. But here’s my 2 cents.

Good and evil are not simply binary qualities. The best analogy for the nature of good and evil is, unfortunately (for race reasons), a color scale where total blackness is the ultimate evil and total whiteness is the ultimate good (again, I’m not trying to say ANYTHING about race). As Socrates said, a few hundred years before Christ, we all fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Basically, all of us can be described as being certain shades of grey.

With that in mind …. Often (though not always) saying a certain action is good/evil in a binary sense is misleading or incomplete. Point yourself to the pure good (pure white – again, this is NOT about race) and strive in that direction.

If you happen to be crucified for a crime you either didn’t commit or which doesn’t warrant crucifixion (which, I think, is every crime in the book) and you forgive your executioners … I would say that your act of forgiving your executioners is very bright on the color scale.

Adultery is somewhere in the darker grey. Forgiving adultery is a few shades whiter. Theft … pretty much the same. Murder … yeah, that’s really kind of black. And so on.

Absolute Forgiveness

So … should a murderer be forgiven? Should he have his slate wiped utterly clean? If a murderer is “forgiven” and he suffers no consequences for his actions, will not he (and others) be less deterred from committing murder again?

Can murder be forgiven? According to most Christians, the answer is yes. I agree. Yes, murder can be forgiven. However, I think the point of contention is who has the Right to forgive a wrongdoer. And I think it is precisely here where the Left goes astray.

If my friend Sam is robbed by Paul, it isn’t up to me to forgive Paul. The person with the Right to forgive Paul is Sam. Not me. Not you. How about God? Clearly, I think God can forgive Paul, but I don’t think even God has the Right to forgive Paul on Sam’s behalf. When God forgives, He forgives on behalf of Himself. But God can’t/won’t override Sam’s choice of whether or not to forgive Paul. Is it morally better for Sam to forgive Paul? Once upon a time, I would have just said yes. Now, I’m not so sure.

The degree of evil in the sin committed here should be considered. It’s one thing to forgive someone for a minor offense to you, it’s quite another to forgive someone of something truly awful like murder or rape. In the latter cases, if the perpetrator is guilty and refuses to repent, just forgiving them and letting them go about their way, is actually dangerous. The perpetrator will learn there are no consequences and be even less deterred from repeating the crime. So, if you are brutally assaulted and you forgive the unrepentant criminal, that may just lead to a string of similar crimes that could have been prevented.

But … what is the virtue in that? The unrepentant man is the most difficult to forgive. But it is precisely that reason why we should strive to forgive them. But perhaps, forgiveness does not mean there is no punishment.

Hmmm. Not sure.

War and a Thinker’s Guide to Truth

I was having a conversation with my brother a week or so ago about my recently published book, “A Thinker’s Guide To Truth” – that I have mentioned on this blog elsewhere. Anyway, part of that conversation kind of triggered the thought in my head that I’m not sure I was clear about the distinction between killing and murder.

For those that don’t know, murder refers to ending someone’s life to serve your own ends, whereas killing refers to ending someone’s life in the service of your country – at least I read that somewhere along the way (I think it was in a Dennis Prager book, actually).

Anyway, I just want to say that I’m pretty sure that murder is always wrong and I think I made that point in the dialogue. As for killing… I’m honestly not sure. If given the choice, I would always try to not choose war, and thereby eliminate the need for killing. But this is an imperfect world. War sometimes happens – we even have two (involving allies of ours) going on as we speak. In light of that, I might characterize killing as a dark grey act as opposed to an act of pure unadulterated evil. Not as bad as murder, but still not desirable. Of course, there are a plethora of factors that can influence such.

Of course, this in turn impacts the “absoluteness” of the Right to Life and could lead to a long, complex discussion – a discussion I did not have in my Dialogue, or at least, this Dialogue. I touched on it only briefly in order to say that I think murder is always wrong/evil/whatever – so that there is a certain “absolute” character to murder, but, possibly not killing. And, if not killing, then not the Right to Life either.

Anyway, I will probably address the issue in more detail in some future dialogue on war, perhaps. Maybe. We’ll see how these first few dialogues on truth work out. And go from there. Oh, yeah, one more thing, once again my post about the adulteress is being postponed a week or so.