Thursday, July 9, 2015

The Perpetrator's Gospel

The gospel of forgiveness is a perpetrator's gospel. Forgiveness is good news to those who have perpetrated injustice because it offers them redemption and allows them to change, but it is not enough for victims. Offering forgiveness to victims is just insulting. Victims need justice and a gospel that fails to offer justice is no gospel at all.

Perhaps the biggest problem with our current system of justice is that it can only act after the fact. We are not very good at preventing crime from happening, we only know how to punish it later. To recognize and address crime after the fact is better than nothing, but it can never replace preventing the crime in the first place.

Jesus was not in the business of selling fire insurance. He had no time for those who desired his seal of approval but were unwilling to practice justice now (Luke 18:18-21). The idea that the gospel is all about what happens in the afterlife is actually a slap in the face to everything Jesus ever taught and it reflects a genuine insincerity of faith. What if I told my fiance that I was incapable of being faithful and I still wanted to marry her but was concerned about whether or not she would forgive me after the fact? I would essentially be telling her I had no intention of being faithful. Forgiveness is important but to focus on forgiveness over justice is to say essentially "I have no intention of doing the right thing."



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