Christianity consistently teaches us that God’s justice is both proportional and merciful. “I the LORD search the mind and try the heart, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings” (Jer. 17:10 RSV). This means, if we are to follow God, we must be fair to others. “A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight” (Prov. 11:1 RSV). Similarly, we are to be merciful to those who have gone astray because we, ourselves, have often gone astray, and when we have, we received mercy from God. “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Lk. 6:36 RSV). We would hate it if someone looks at us, criticizes and dehumanizes us for something we have done (especially if our offense was extremely minor). We know that such a reaction is not just because it denies our fundamental human dignity. If we, therefore, would hate it if people were judgmental with us, we must not treat others with such a judgmental spirit.
Might does not make right. We must avoid thinking that vengeance as a way of obtaining justice. True justice seeks not to destroy but to lift up and heal society from the injustices done to it. We must strive to make things equitable for all, promoting both the common good and the good of every person. That is why, if someone commits some injustice, we are to seek restorative justice, not retribution; if we seek retribution, we risk experiencing the same happening to ourselves:
Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back (Lk. 6:37-38 RSV).
I am surprised at how often I have to repeat this simple message, not just to non-Christians, but to Christians because it is a message which is found throughout Scripture and the Christian tradition. True justice is merciful and not vengeful. Christianity is not about might makes right; it is not about retribution. It is about restoring and making better what has been unjustly harmed. With Christ’s promotion of mercy, Christians must not accept or support disproportionate responses to the wrongs (like crimes) which people have done (that is, if someone has truly done wrong, for it is even worse to make people suffer for what they have been falsely accused of doing, and doubly so if the response is worse than, or not proportionate, to what they have been accused of doing).
This, sadly, is something which has been lost or ignored by too many Christians, especially those who favor the policies of Donald Trump and the Trump administration. Whenever Trump or his administration acts with cruelty towards someone accused of a crime, especially a minor crime such as crossing the border illegally, too many Christians defend it by saying Trump is merely enforcing the law. There are many things which can be said about such a response, two of which is that the means Trump wants used to enforce the law often breaks the law itself , and that, as the response (whether or not it is legal) is way out of proportion to the supposed crime, making it unjust and so not something Christians should accept.
Authoritarian states always use the rule of law as an excuse for their degenerate cruelty, and the reason why we know such regimes are bad is because of the excessive nature of their response to supposed crimes. With the Trump administration, many Christians know that the official response is wrong, but they don’t care. Why? Because they are bloodthirsty and have hatred in their hearts, and they feel they are finally free to do as they wish (instead of what they should be doing). This is especially the case with migrants. Too many Christians are nationalists, indeed, racists, and have not learned to love the other, to love people of other races, and so they are happy for migrants, legal or not, to be treated with cruelty. Rounding up migrants en masse, ignoring basic human rights, having them suffer without proper medical care, engaging mass deportations, sending migrants (or even American citizens who look like they are migrants) to countries with known human rights abuses, is far from a just response. Most often, the only crime, if any, committed by them are minor infractions, misdemeanors equal to jay walking or speeding, and yet because such actions are “illegal,” Trump supporting Christians say it is just to round them up, ignore their human rights, ignore their God-given dignity, and treat them with cruelty. Thus, though they speak of law and order, it is neither which motivates them.
Such cruelty only becomes worse the longer it is not exposed or stopped. Again and again and again, those who support it show they do not care for justice; while they might speak about law and order, they only it such claims as a deflection for their injustices. They think might makes right, that those who have power are free to do whatever they want. As long as cruelty is justified, there will be no end to it; indeed, it will be a race to see who can become the most cruel, engaging the most disproportionate responses to supposed wrong-doings. We can see this in the way Trump is pushing the United States to fight against the rest of the world, a fight which, if not stopped, will lead to war, be it in Venezuela (with the strikes against boats accused of drug-running, which, even if it were the case, could have been stopped in another, and so more just fashion), Nigeria, Greenland, or even Canada. There is always some supposed wrong which is used as an excuse for the actions taken, but the actions taken not only transcend what is needed to stop the supposed wrongdoing, they are often far worse (as can be seen in the order to kill any survivor of a boat which the United States had destroyed in the waters around Venezuela).
It’s not just the world at large which suffers from this disproportionate response from the United States. It is happening to those living in the United States. Trump is consistently calling critics, those who resist him, traitors; sometimes, he makes death threats, and at other times, such as when he is dealing with news organizations, he threatens their licenses. What is clear is that he, and his administration, is becoming very authoritarian. He says whatever he does is legal, and if it is legal, it justified because he in power. He uses this to conclude that anyone who does not obey him, or anyone who criticizes what he tells them to do, is not only in the wrong, but they are engaging an illegal activity. Many Christians, no longer understanding what justice entails, end up agreeing with him, promoting policies which one would expect from Nero, not a follower of Christ.
It is imperative that Christians are reminded what Scripture and the Christian tradition say about justice and its proper execution. Justice must always be merciful, and when someone needs to be stopped from causing grave harm, they must be stopped with the least amount of force as possible. Excessive force is disproportionate, and those who embrace excessive force are gravely unjust in their actions. Christians should keep in mind the golden rule; they must desire others to be treated as they themselves would like to be treated. The more they forget or ignore this, the more they will be willing to accept gravely disproportionate responses to supposed wrongdoings. This will lead them far from Christ and what Christ would have them to be like. The more they ignore what a just and proportionate response would allow, the more they accept and justify outrageously disproportionate responses, the more they say Christians must agree because Christians are to follow what people in positions of authority tell them to do, the more they show us how much they have turned Christianity upside-down; they are no longer the salt of the earth, but instead, they have joined in with the structures of sin and the destruction or rot which sin creates.
* This Is Another Post From My Personal (Informal) Reflections And Speculations Series
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