The problem of justice

Do we want justice? or do we want justice only when it suits us?

When we hear on the news about some serial murderer or child abuser or rapist who butchered his victims, the natural feeling is a desire for justice to be done, for the person who did these evil things to be punished. There is public outrage when it looks like someone who has committed terrible crimes is being let off lightly. We want to see these people pay for what they've done, and we like to feel that the punishment fits the crime, we like to feel that the payment is at an appropriate level.

We have a desire for justice to be done. When we see someone weak being oppressed by someone stronger, we react with moral outrage - whether it's physical or verbal abuse, whether it's big corporations maltreating the poor, wealthy countries treating third world countries unfairly, etc etc etc - we see some kind of behaviour that seems to us unjust, and we get angry.

So, how do you think God feels? He made this world, he made us in his image - which means we have a capacity to love, to show compassion and kindness - but so often we choose a different way, so often we go with our selfish desires and simply don't care how many people we have to tread on in order to get what we want. We look at murderers and rapists and child abusers and see the evil in them, but how often do we look in the mirror and see the evil in ourselves? There was a sad joke I saw recently on Facebook, which said: "Please copy and post this as your status even if just for a few minutes, if you know someone who is alive today because you can't afford a hitman...." The truth is, though most of us do not actually kill people, we do have this attitude within us, we do have those times or situations of really really hating someone and wishing them ill, people who get on our nerves so badly that we wish we could press a button and make them disappear, people who are in our way and we feel our lives could be so much better if only they weren't there, people we hate so much that we actually want to see them suffer - the truth is we are not perfect and wonderful and loving and compassionate people, not all the time. We have both sides - they say Hitler was kind to animals and to children. We like to pigeon-hole people like Hitler and serial murderers and so on into some kind of "evil people" category, distancing ourselves from them as though we are totally different, but if we look at our inner thoughts and feelings, we'll see a much darker picture than we're comfortable with.

God sees that darker picture within us - he knows each of us inside out, he knows our most intimate thoughts and feelings, even the stuff we don't admit to ourselves. And he sees all our evil and selfish behaviour - not just the big things.

Justice - do we really want it? Do we want everyone to pay for the bad things they've done? Everyone - including ourselves?

The Bible says that a day will come when God will judge us - everyone, each and every human being who has ever lived is going to stand in front of God's throne. What will you plead when you stand before him? You are - like each and every human being who has ever lived, apart from Jesus - guilty. You may be guilty of lesser sins than Hitler, but have you led a perfect life, never hurting anyone? If you are human and if you look at your life honestly, you will realise that you are not perfect and that, like the rest of us, you are guilty.

There are two issues to be decided in a courtroom: first there is the question of whether or not the defendant is guilty. Once guilt has been established, there is the issue of sentencing: what will the punishment be?

When the day comes and we all stand before God to be judged, we will be able to do nothing other than plead guilty. But when it comes to sentencing and punishment, there will be two groups: people who will suffer for what they've done, and people who go free despite what they've done.

The difference depends on what you decide now, whilst you're still alive on this earth. The choice is simple: there is someone who has already suffered the punishment for everyone, and it's up to you personally to accept his sacrifice for you. Jesus died as an atoning sacrifice for the whole of humankind, once and for all, and those who believe in him will be able to stand before God's throne on that day and say: yes, I'm guilty, but Jesus' blood was shed to cover my sins.

I made that choice in July 2002, which means if I get hit by a bus tomorrow I know I'm safe. How about you? Have you made that choice yet? God's mercy is available, through Jesus, for everyone - but it's up to you to accept his offer.

Slightly over the top, in my view!

There are Christians in some countries who go to prison for their faith. There are places where people are tortured and in some cases even killed just because they have chosen to become Christians. And in England a nurse has filed a claim for unfair dismissal because she was not allowed to wear a crucifix on a chain at work.

I'm sorry but I fail to feel the slightest bit of solidarity with this woman. As the tribunal chairman pointed out when he refused her claim, wearing a cross is not a requirement of the Christian faith. She was not, as far as I understand from this newspaper article, required to hide her faith - the hospital had even suggested she might pin her crucifix to her uniform! Their reason for asking her to remove it from the chain was because of a health & safety concern that patients might pull on it - ok, I think that's health & safety concerns going over the top, but to suggest that this is a case of religious discrimination is way off the mark. And to say, "This is a very bad day for Christianity" - sorry, but it seems to me that a sense of proportion is rather lacking there.

Faith in humankind?

I had an online dialogue recently with my cousin in Israel who was questioning the apparent discrepancy between the teachings of Jesus and the way Christians live. I tried to draw his attention to the difference between those who call themselves Christians and those who really are followers of Jesus. I tried to explain that following the teachings of Jesus is humanly impossible and that it is only through being born again of God's Spirit that we are given the ability to do this.

It felt like a bit of a ping pong match. He kept saying: look at all those awful murderers who were Christians (e.g. the Spanish Inquisition etc), and I kept saying: just because these people called themselves Christians, that doesn't mean anything. He kept giving me more and more examples of people who did awful things whilst calling themselves Christians, and I kept saying: just because people call themselves Christians that doesn't mean they've been born again. People who really love Jesus wouldn't be able to do that sort of thing.

The other side of the coin was him saying: there aren't any Christians who do live up to the teachings of Jesus about love and about turning the other cheek. At some point he accepted that maybe there are a few, but he reckons they are very few. I said: I don't know the numbers, nobody does except for God, but my point is, if you want to see the teachings of Jesus lived out, don't look at the nominal Christians, look at born-again believers.

He suggested that even Christians who do good works, even they only help fellow Christians. At this point I was outraged. How dare he write off all the works of charity being done all over the world, Christians who go out to live in all sorts of difficult conditions to help the poor and needy simply out of the love that Jesus has put in their hearts!

But this is where we run into the stumbling block of humanism - faith in the goodness of humankind. For a humanist, all the examples I could bring of Christians showing kindness would be of no value, because to him the kindness of human beings is taken for granted - he believes we are naturally good. To him the aberration is when we do evil.

Whereas I look at the old me, the natural, sinful me, and I know how much evil there was in there. I know that I was not born good - far from it. I was born selfish and self-centred, and consideration for others is something I had to be taught. We like to think of babies as sweet and innocent but the truth is we are born completely self-centred, not yet aware of other people and only aware of our own needs and wants. When a baby is hungry, it cries. When it's uncomfortable, it cries. When it cries and doesn't get what it needs quickly enough, it screams. It takes us time to grow and learn to appreciate other people as separate human beings with their own needs and feelings, to learn that other people can be hurt by what we do or say - and once we've learned that, we have choices: do we use the power that we have to hurt others, or do we withhold that power? Sadly for many people the answer is: depends if you'd get caught or not. Through being punished we learn not to do things that we shouldn't. We are taught certain ways of behaviour that are deemed acceptable by society. I remember at school when someone in my class had upset another pupil, the teacher made him stand in front of everyone and apologise. The teacher could make him say the words, but was he really sorry? Was he sorry that he had upset the other pupil? Or was he just sorry that he had got caught and that he had to go through the humiliation of standing in front of the whole class and apologising?

It would be nice to think that human beings are nice and good and loving. But open the newspaper, turn on the television, check out the news any given day and you will see plenty of examples of people being far from good. Are all of these examples really the exceptions? We like to think so. We like to hear about some particularly awful murder and think: look at him, he's evil. Because then we can allow ourselves the comfort of believing that we, in comparison, are good. But are we really so good? Are our hearts full of love for everyone? Even my humanistic cousin, who believes in the goodness of humankind, says of course he doesn't love his enemies - but what sort of goodness is it that is kept only for those who are nice to you? (Yes, Jesus said something like this.) Being kind to your friends is relatively easy, being nice to those who are nice to you is relatively easy. If you're nice to your friends, that doesn't make you good, it makes you pretty normal and sensible - very early on in life we learn about the value of friendships, the value of belonging to a group, and for the sake of this belonging we sacrifice some of our self-centredness, because it's worthwhile to us. And even doing good to those who aren't our friends (I don't mean our enemies, I mean just strangers) is something we sometimes do for selfish reasons - for the nice warm feeling it will give us, or for a chance to do something interesting, to get out of the house, to have a sense of purpose. (I speak as one who in December 1994 went to help prepare and serve Christmas Dinner to homeless people simply because I'd split up from someone after a very long relationship and was suddenly faced with the prospect of spending Christmas Day on my own. Good deeds? yes. Unselfish motives? not quite.)

What I find odd is how easy people find it to believe in the goodness of humanity despite all the evidence to the contrary, whilst at the same time they seem to find it so difficult to believe in the goodness of God. Which of these demands a greater amount of irrational faith?