Way back in 2012, part of the way through my own deconstruction, I wrote the book Becoming Love. Avoiding Common Forms of Christian Insanity. In a section entitled “Mercy and Judgement,” I wrote:

“I recently learned an acquaintance of mine who I have known many years was arrested and charged with a crime. He tried to be involved in the Rock ministry but it was apparent his aggressive “the ends justify the means” view of the Kingdom made that very difficult as it was a foreign culture to our ministry.

When it became apparent I would not adopt his aggressive style of ministry, he and his wife tried to go over my head to other leaders. At one point he offered a large amount of money to support the ministry building project, and “by the way,” could he get a seat at the board table? We rejected his offer.

Later, when we decided to deconstruct our ministry for simpler forms, he and his wife were publicly and unfairly critical of me and this had serious repercussions for myself, our family and ministry.

Your mom and I did our best to shelter you from most of this, but this was a very painful season and I’m sure you guys saw some of that.

So now I wrestle with learning of his arrest, and while I feel sincere empathy for this fellow and his wife, I struggle not to go to a place of, “Now he’s getting his. Now maybe he’ll know how I felt when he and his wife did what they did to me.” I know how harsh our community can be and I know what this will do to his marriage, reputation and particularly his ministry, but sadly in myself, the twisted sense of justice is crouching at the door.

When we are hurt we feel pain, and we want those we have deemed responsible to feel as bad as we do. This is neither fair nor just, instead, it propagates brokenness and injustice. George MacDonald states so well:

“Because we hate wrong, but, not being righteous ourselves, more or less hate the wronger as well as his wrong, hence are not righteously pleased to behold the law’s disapproval proclaimed in his punishment, but unrighteously pleased with his suffering, because of the impact upon us of his wrong.”1

What we really want is others to feel as badly as we do, to experience the pain of the loss we have.” This has, in no small way, shaped our idea of justice. It is an “eye for an eye” sort of approach, but as many can attest to, this doesn’t reduce the amount of pain from the loss.

I continue a little further on...

“For evil in the abstract, nothing can be done. It is eternally evil. But I may be saved from it by learning to loathe it, to hate it, to shrink from it with an eternal avoidance. The only vengeance worth having on sin is to make the sinner himself its executioner … The path across the gulf that divides right from wrong is not the fire but repentance.”2

Therefore punishment makes sense only to the extent it leads to the destruction of sin; towards repentance, reconciliation and redemption.

Punishment cannot be an end unto itself to satiate justice but can be a merciful tool in the hand of a loving Father to bring about repentance. It is in this way punishment can serve love but never satiate justice.

Epilogue My Confessions

I find wisdom in MacDonald’s insights. I suppose I would nuance the term punishment. Maybe replacing it with the natural consequences of unhealthy actions, or maybe if I let my pain slip some more and offer FAFO.

Suffering must not be equated with justice. We must tenaciously hold Love and justice together - ideas like restorative justice. Love inspires justice that restores and makes whole. Justice that aspires to see an enemy become a friend with a genuine path towards that goal.

If we champion and delight in the suffering we inflict in the name of justice we are complicit in injustice.

In the years since I wrote this I have (am still) learning to sit with and work through my own pain, instead of projecting it. It’s hard work.

In our current context, I find myself faced, again (and again) with questions like: In the pressure of these tumultuous times …

• Is the conviction of self-giving love all that important as a central value?

• Will I betray my sincere desire to love well?

• Can I quiet my lizard brain enough to make space for compassionate thoughtfulness that informs deliberate action/resistance?

• Will I weep with the victim and aggressor alike (but differently)?

• Will I champion Love, empathy, mercy, nonviolence, and equitable justice when I’m told it’s foolishness, naive… or sinful?

• What about when the tough, ugly stuff lands closer to home? My friends, family, home or country?

• Maybe harder still, will I champion Love, et al., when I wake up at 3 am in a cold sweat pushing back against the cruel accusations of my inner congregation - charges of foolishness, delusion and throwing away my life for what?

So far so good. Because I am reminded:

I get to choose how I will be in the world.

I can choose how I’m going to show up to life and the challenges within it. I am reminded of the wisdom of Viktor Frankl:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”3

Moment by moment, as an act of faith, personal integrity and restorative justice, I choose to love, by opening my heart again and again to be empowered and inspired (picked up off the floor, dusted off and healed) by divine love. Frankl:

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”4

There. For this moment, Yes. Trusting (sometimes with white knuckles) that there will be grace for the next moment. Like all of life - we must choose, moment by moment, who we are, what really matters and how we will show up in the world.

Sola Caritas,

+Michael