Woman Caught in Adultery
So, what is the religious component to this prison policy change?
Any theology can be misused and misrepresented. Anything that is true when said in a balanced way, can become untrue when only part of it is misused or when it is misunderstood. And, this has been true of Evangelical/Fundamentalist theology with relation to the prison issue.
One of the strong preaching points of Evangelical Theology is that any sin makes you guilty of all sin. That is, Evangelical Theology has correctly pointed out that any act of rebellion, regardless of how small, makes you guilty of breaking the whole law. James 2:10 says, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” Particularly because Evangelical Theology has a crisis model of conversion, this verse is a very handy one to use when preaching to those who have trouble seeing themselves as sinners. Since essentially everyone will admit that they have sinned in at least one thing, this verse helps them see that, before God’s eyes, they are as guilty as a multiple murderer. And, if they are that guilty, then they are deserving of hell, therefore, they had better repent and accept the Lord.
Another strong point is the emphasis on our being fallen and damaged creatures. Especially Martin Luther did an excellent job in pointing out that we are so permanently damaged by the Fall, that, until the Lord returns, we will always be having to fight ourselves. At times he seemed to almost be a pessimist with regard to sanctification–something that Jean Calvin was not–regarding our growth in Christ to be a matter of “two steps forward, one step back.” If Martin Luther has been correctly criticized for being overly pessimistic, then Jean Calvin (and some of the monastics) have been criticized for having an overly optimistic view of the human possibility of deification/theosis.
However, these theologies, when applied to prison issues have a most unintended effect, and we see it in various ways. For one, despite all of the talk about love and acceptance in Evangelical/Fundamentalist circles, when it comes to crime, almost the exact opposite attitude is visible. As a group, studies and interviews show that the general attitude among Evangelicals/Fundamentalists has become that if one is guilty of even a minor crime, one is a criminal guilty of all crime. It has, therefore, also become the attitude that almost any crime deserves a clear retributive punishment. That clear retributive punishment may not be financial, but must be prison time. This is true to a much higher percentage than in almost any other demographic.
An example of those attitudes is found with respect to illegal immigrants. The almost universal viewpoint among those of the Religious Right is that it is not possible for illegal immigrants to become legal immigrants. Because they have committed a crime, it would somehow be wrong to grant them any type of “amnesty” regardless of the conditions imposed to receive that “amnesty.” That is, even if the undocumented immigrant has to pay a strong fine, pay backtaxes, etc., that is not enough. They have committed a crime, therefore, their situation cannot be regularized. They must leave the country, there can be no “fix” for them.
As I have worked with undocumented immigrants, I have even been told by members of the Religious Right that once an illegal immigrant begins to follow the Lord, my first duty is to tell them that they must return to their country of origin. I have also been asked why I am not actively turning in to the police the undocumented immigrants I run across. The fact that, in either case, they would immediately close themselves to me and none would then hear the Word of God appears to be irrelevant. But, it has become obvious that the attitude of many in the Religious Right is such that it almost appears that the “crime” of the undocumented immigrant denies them the right to hear the Gospel and denies me the right to do anything but preach to them the moment I encounter them and then either turn them in to the police or help them to immediately leave the country.
Frankly, and to put it in the strongest terms I can think of, the attitude with regard to crime among the Religious Right is of such a type that though they love to preach on Jesus’ forgiveness of the woman caught in adultery, they would have been the ones with the stones in their hands. And, I suspect that Jesus, himself, would have been denounced as a Jeremiah Wright type of character for forgiving her without exacting the penalty required by the Law.
That is, the Religious Right has misinterpreted Evangelical/Fundamentalist theology and has forgotten that God always put mercy together with justice. An Orthodox believer would say that this is not surprising, since an overly strong belief in a particular theory of substitutionary atonement, to the exclusion of other statements the Scriptures have made about the atonement, leads to an image of a God who cannot forgive but must exact the full penalty of the Law somehow.
Mind you, the normal Evangelical theology is that we can extend grace precisely because the full penalty was paid by our Lord Jesus Christ. That is, Jesus did not need to punish the woman caught in adultery because he was going to take her penalty on the Cross. Therefore, we, also, can extend mercy, grace, and forgiveness towards others. But, I can only suppose that the Religious Right is insisting that the sin of undocumented aliens is of such a type that, like blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, it is unforgivable and, therefore, we cannot extend an amnesty similar to the amnesty that Jesus gave to the woman caught in adultery.
In fact, the Religious Right’s arguments over incarceration and retribution do appear to say that rehabilitation could not possibly be a Godly way to behave toward criminals.
But, what do Scriptures have to say, if anything at all, about the handling of criminals?
===MORE TO COME===
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