There is a WonderCafe poll going: "Did Russell Williams get what he deserves?" 75% said "yes."

But what does he deserve? Life in solitary confinement until he dies?

What do we, as Christians, owe to Russell Williams?

Russell Williams is a deviant, a one-in-a-million or so psychopath who crop up in the population every now and then. They don't often attain such high position and status, but are very clever at deceiving people and sometimes rise high. What he needs now is compassion and psycho-spiritual counseling. I hope he gets it at Kingston Pen.

I have a friend who works in the federal prison service, he told me that the inmates in general hold the Prison Clergy in high regard. I suspect that when you are part of a group of "untouchables" that a Minister or Priest may be the only person who you encounter who listens honestly, and communicates some level of compassion.  

The public is ugly and angry and the media, and the government feed the anger and the ugliness on a daily basis.  They do it for short term gain but the consequences are so great, as it encourges all the wrong polices to be developed, policies that divert needed resources (ie buidling new super jails).

We are not living in a kind time, ugliness is met with more ugliness.   All that hate poisons our souls. 

Russel Williams is a man who became a slave to his depravity and sold his soul to it. He will never be allowed out of prison despite the ravings of the Tories who say he could be released in 25 years. Parole boards would know they would face public vilification if they did.

wow, this thread will take some real soul searching.  what do we owe him?  what a spiritual struggle you have posed.  do we owe him forgiveness?  what comes after forgiveness?  with jesus as my spiitual guide, asking what he would do leaves me with nothing but a big blank.  i wish i had an answer.

Hi graeme,

Much like the rest of humanity might.

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis of Christianity owing.  I think if that argument is to be made it is better based on what Christians owe and, even then, I think a universal response isn't going to happen.

At any rate. . . .I believe that there is a duty of care that is owed both to Williams and wider society in general.  How that duty of care is best exercised is a matter of debate.  I do not believe that duty of care looks the same for all people at all times.

Issues like redemption and restoration come into play as well as what we, as Christians in particular and society in general are willing to invest in both.  Can either fail?  Sure they can, whenever human agency is involved success is, by no means, a guarantee.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Herein lies the real ethical challenge of Christianity, because ultimately - for all our theology and doctrine (and I wouldn't deny that those things are important) - our faith comes down to how we treat one another and what we acknowledge to be our responsibility to each other. The question was raised in the opening chapters of the Bible - "am I my brother's keeper?" What responsibilities do I have to those around me? And what responsibilities do I have (what do I owe?) to the less savoury among us? How do I respond to a person such as Russell Williams? (Or Paul Bernardo? Or Clifford Olson? Or Adolf Hitler?)

"A New Creed" tells me that I should "resist evil." Yet, Jesus tells me "do not resist an evil person." How do I hold those two statements in tension? Is evil to be understood as a spiritual force that can be fought against, while those who do the evil are understood as poor unfortunates in the possession of - well - something evil? Were the authors of the New Testament (and other ancients) actually on to something when they perceived a connection between at least some forms of extreme mental illness and demon possession? Not thinking literally with that one; just wondering what they were getting at with it. They certainly didn't understand modern psychology and its theories, but many (probably most) modern psychologists/psychiatrists probably don't understand a great deal about theology and spirituality either. The tension between resisting evil and not resisting an evil person brings me back to the somewhat simplistic notion (but perhaps there's a lot to it in the light of this reflection) of "love the sinner but hate the sin."

And for all that reflection and struggle, the question comes back "what do I owe Russell Williams." I think I owe him an honest attempt to understand what drove him to his crimes. I think I owe him an open mind to the possibility that he truly was not "in control" when he acted. I think I owe him the honest (and somewhat uncomfortable) acknowledgment that for all his crimes, the God I have come to believe loves me still loves him as well. But I believe he needs to be held accountable for what he did and punished for it. None of my thoughts about Russell Williams detract from my revulsion at what he did, from my knee jerk reaction of wanting him to be punished for what he did, for my admittedly far greater sympathy and compassion for his victims and their families than for him. But those feelings are easy and natural. One thing I've learned over the years is that Jesus doesn't ask us to take the easy way. We may choose it, but Jesus doesn't lead us to it. It's the hard things that are difficult.

What do I owe Russell Williams? See above. To the question of the poll. Did Russell Williams get what he deserved? No. But then again neither do I. That's called the grace of God - which is there for him as well as for me.

From a society point of view, we owe Russell Williams the opportunity to pay for what he has done through the serving of his sentence, we owe him protection against himself and other members of society by keeping him in a place where he cannot do what he has already done again, we owe him the opportunity of rehabilitation in this place (perhaps this is unlikely), we owe him the basic needs that are given to all who are incarcerated.

From a Christian point of view, we trust him, his life, his change, his redemption, his relationship with God, etc. into God's hands.

I think he is getting what we have as a society deemed the punishment;  life in prison. 

He appears to be an intellegent sociopath who was able for decades to blend well into society.  Sociopaths do that, they blend even though they don't understand emotion.

I doubt he is sincere in his appology as sociopaths don't feel emotions.  He is intelligent so he knows that an appology is what is supposed to be said so he said it.

Society is now protected from him.  He will not be rehabilitated, sociopathic, sexual offenders are not treatable. 

WE do not forgive him.  He has done nothing to us.  Forgiveness is from the victims.

I must say though that I found the "victim" influence on the trial unsettling.  According to the paper what I read anyway.  And I found the brother of the second victim very unusual on TV.  It was like he was proud of his 15 minutes of fame.  One time he even referred to his sister as "the body".  Then he said something like  "as long as he dies in jail I am happy"  Happy???

I agree, lastpointe, the forgiveness does not come from me/us . . . but, if ever, rather from those who were harmed by him.

I am not related to the victims other than I am a fellow human being and a mother. When I heard that the youngest victim said  "if I don't live through this, please tell my mother I love her", my heart broke. This trial brought the reality of these murders very close to home. Much like the Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey trials. In fact I believe Williams knew Paul Bernardo?

I am still processing what I heard and I can tell you I haven't reached the "forgiveness" stage yet. God help me!

The Forgiveness has to come from us. Jesus did not speak of it as an instruction to God. It was to us. In the whole of the Lord's Prayer, we are asked to do only one thing - to forgive. The evil was done unto us, all of us.

As I looked at Williams, I didn't see a man. I saw a body without content - no soul, no spirit, an absence of anything that God had created. At that point, it best to shoot him - as an act of mercy - as we might shoot a horse with broken legs.

What is there left for that form with a vanished soul? Of course, he has to be kept locked away as a danger to society. That has nothing to do with punishment. What meaning can it have as punishment? A warning to everybody not to have such a mental and spiritual collapse? And if you jail that empty body and whip it daily for the rest of its existence, that will that accomplish?

We do owe him forgiveness. Only by giving forgiveness can we see him as he is. I think Rev Davis is right in his guess that Williams is not possessed by devils. His possessed by no spirits at all, only by the basest mechanisms of a human mind.

I am saddened by the thought of that spiritless creature sitting in his cell year after year, sinking deeper into the misery of his own depravity. I once visited a man I knew who was like that. He had tried to kill he father with an ax. I had known him as a likeably, if pretty brainless, young man. I saw him as an old mad at 40, forever in chains, long bearded, and slumped into a bench, forever staring, his lips moving...an empty body until he died.

By all means, keep him away from people he could harm. But we need to remember that, for all the vileness of what he did, any of us could have become him. Any one of us could have become that emptiness we saw on TV. We need to forgive him, if only to strengthen our own spirits, and we need to do something for him.

Can you put your idea of "we need to forgive him" into specific words, graeme?  As in, what specifically do we need to forgive him for?  Do you mean as individuals, or as society?

As an individual, and perhaps as society, but not as a person directly harmed (as in other family/friends, etc. of the victims) what I see as to what I perhaps would need to forgive him for would be for the fear, distrust, dislike, distaste, anger, etc. that arose in me because of what he had done.

Jesus did not say "Forgive....if...." He just said forgive.

Forgiveness does not mean okay, forget it. no problem. If it were that trivial, Jesus would not put it into the Lord's Prayer as the only demand made of us.

If the decision is left to us, we make some pretty silly ones. The elder George Bush directed the CIA in a mass slaughter of 200,000 Maya. And, yes, half were women and many were raped first. Do you forgive the elder George Bush? Have you ever even thought of it? Richard Nixon order the two year bombing of helpless Cambodia, killing at least a half million civilians. Do you forgive him? Is it any of your business? Obama has killed at least hundreds of innocents and quite helpless civilians with drone bombs in Pakistan. Do you forgive him? He has delivered not one cent of promised aid to Haiti. As a result, we are watching at least hundreds die of cholera. Do you forgive Obama? Do you even think it necessary?"

Forgiveness means forgive everybody. It means love everybody. If you don't love you enemy,  you have missed the whole point of the story of the Samaritan. To say God bless our troops is obscene. There is only one God, and he is everyone's, not just ours. Our God is a tribal notion of long past millenia.

Forgiveness does not mean everything is okay. We still have a dangerous man who cannot be allowed to go free. To forgive him means to see him as a human with all the failings all we humans have, and to want to help him. We can't help those he destroyed. Our responsibility now to protect others, and to help that ruin of a man we saw on television. It's easy to forgive and to help people we like and approve of. We didn't need Jesus to tell us that. He said "forgive".  There were no exceptions mentioned, no special situations.

If you can't forgive, I don't see how you can be a Christian. Yes, That means forgiving Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Nixon, and both Bushes - and Williams.

I don't believe that we owe him anything. He tortured and murdered other human beings without mercy. He will rot in jail. As a society we decided that. I am okay with that.

You're free to decide whatever you like. We have all been parties to torture and murder. If you think Jesus didn't mean what He said,then you don't have to believe it. And you can still go to church and mumble..forgive us our trespasses as we....   And that will almost certainly fit you in the majority of those who call themselves Christians, and who submit posts worrying about whether they will able to get good  hockey seats in heaven.

I have trouble with the idea that God loves Williams, or that God created him that way on purpose.  The only way I can reconcile it is to think that God (whatever God is) is not all powerful.  God just does the best that God can. Williams is some sort of mistake.  His brain has some screws loose, clearly. 

Graeme, you condemn Obama for killing some of the Taliban.  So do you want them to take over Pakistan and slaughter thousands of people and brutalize many more?  That is what they will do if not held in check.    Then you turn around and condemn him for NOT interfering more in Haiti.  Why is it his job to fix Haiti? 

We all make mistakes, but some mistakes are more severe than others, and some are extremely severe and can never be made up for.

Russell Williams' mistakes are of the latter kind. An organ as complex as the human brain is bound to malfunction in the odd individual, and good necessitates evil. The Russell Williamses of the world carry for us the dark and heavy burden of evil so that we may bask in goodness and light. They deserve our utmost compassion.

we dont love his actions, but we still love his soul, even Hitler, between when he pulled the trigger and the bullet went through his brain, during that split moment, God may have come to his, and he repented, and was saved.

achieve that love for HItler, and you will be able to love Russell..

Jesus has many teachings on mercy.

"blessed are the merciful....."

"i will have mercy not sacrifice"

"God is merciful to the good and evil......be as your father in heaven is perfect...."

"if you do not forgive, then neither will your father in heaven forgive you"

"who among you is without sin, cast the first stone"

(these are loose quotes from memory)

and the parable of the prodigal son, the two debtors....

there are lots and lots and lots

so what do we owe him? im not sure...

but i believe we are to love him, show mercy, and stay away from Gods throne.

"go and learn what this means"

......I have not come for the righteous , but ti call sinners to repentance

Mely, how could you cram so many non sequiturs and inconsistencies into one, brief post.

I never said God created Williams that way. The Taliban are nowhere near being able to overrun Pakistan. Indeed, many Pakistanis have close relations with the Taliban - and they see their worse enemy as the US.

Why is it the job of the US to fix Haiti?

1. because the US maintained Haitians governments of the some of the worst dictators in History. Haitia had american supported and supplied thugs called the tou tou macounes, who tortured, murdered people in the thousand, and raped at will. The US paid for them. It kept Haiti impoverished for almost a centurty for American farming companies could take over haitian farms, and give cheap labout to American and western-owned European factories.

2. Because it promised aid to Haiti, and hasn't delivered a cent. (it used to budget billions a year for the dictators  and their thugs - who retired rich men.

3. Because it claims to be Christian - and there is suffering next door to it - a suffering made even worse by the behaviour of the US for nearly a century.

Hi Rev. Steven Davis,

There but for the grace of God goes (fill in the blank.)  While attribution for the statement is in question there is, I'm confident, few who appreciate the enormity of the phrase.  It seriously messes with our pride.

While I appreciate the necessity of the question and, to a degree the timeliness in which it is being asked I wonder if it is a question we can ask without acknowledging the presuppositions that it implies.  Namely, where do I end and where does Russell Williams begin.

Responsibility, be it personal, mutual or societal is now an act of pointing fingers and not the embracing of ownership for deeds done.  While I do agree that somewhere, somehow all need to take a look at the self and own what it is right to own I am convinced that the enterprise of doing so gets mired in issues of self and boundary.

I simply want to note that this is a different question than, "what is the right way for me to respond to a person such as . . . ?"

I suspect it comes down to how rigidly or loosely you will choose to define evil.

For the sake of argument I think understanding evil as a spiritual force that can be fought against works.  It can be used to qualify intent and action taken.  I am concerned about naming evil as a character attribute.  I know that it is used that way in the context of our scriptures.  I suspect that common use happens without a rigourous theological eye or bent.

Having wrestled with both dark angels and my son prior to an actual diagnosis of a bi-polar disorder I would give a nod to the optics of similarity.  I think that there is a difference in the root cause of a behaviour.  That difference is harder to recognize when the behaviour is in full-flower.  From a wider angle and personal experience the ability to demonstrate remorse is where I would draw the distinction.  Even there I would add that there are conditions that make remorse extremely difficult to feel without meaning that the individual so afflicted is actually evil.  Dangerous?  Yes.  Evil?  No.

I tentatively agree with you.  I am tentative because we have seen how a sloppy application of "love the sinner but hate the sin" leads to the conclusion that the sinner is the embodiment of sin and must therefore also be hated.  Such slip-shod application has shown up here in the WonderCafe initially targetting Gays and Lesbians and recently, I believe, targetting Islam.

Again, I think that the timing interferes with an ability to do a careful analysis on this.  There is a boundary issue involved, where do I end and where does Russell Williams begin?  At the same time there are competing interests/boundaries such as, where does Williams end and where do the victims of his crimes begin and; where does Williams end and where does society begin and, I think this will become increasingly relevant, where do the victims end and where does society begin.

While I applaud the intent of naming this particular debt I want to acknowledge that this may be a difficult debt to pay for you as an individual in particular and society in general.  It presumes that what Williams has done is understandable.  On one level I think that it can be explained.  I am not so sure that at the same level it will prove to be understandable.

This opens the door to the possibility of grace.  I think that such a possibility is a pre-requisite to the pursuit of justice.  This will not be a difficult debt to pay either.

This opens the door for both the possibility of grace and the empowerment of truth.  By that I mean that we, either as individuals or as society, make Russell Williams more monster than is warranted.  If his actions are evil (I believe the term fits) any attempt to expand upon that evil is an assault on truth and evidence of further violence which is not to be owned by Williams but rather by those who would engage in it.

That is an unfortunate construction.  I believe that your thought is best served by the conjunction "and" which includes rather than "but" which excludes.

Leaving aside the optics of bias which the inclusion of "punishment" raises.  I agree that Williams needs to be held accountable.  I suspect that holding Williams accountable will be a failure since I suspect that Williams does not recognize an authority which is capable of holding him accountable.

You and I would recognize the weight of social authority and as such we most likely would not embark upon committing these crimes in the first place.  This is where the difference of degree and difference of kind argument needs to be raised.  You and I might not seek to commit rape or murder, would we ignore posted speed limits?  Do we recognize that the criminal activity of rape and murder, though different from the criminal activity of speeding is a difference of degree or a difference of kind?

Well done.  You have seen the broad path which leads to destruction and sought to avoid it.

You are right, it is easy and natural to side with the victims and, in a way, the notion of social contract at the very least conditions us to see that a crime against one is a crime against many even though it does not so easily lead us to conclude that the crime of one is the crime of many.

In our easy and understandable siding with the victim I am concerned that we actually push the legitimate victim aside to claim a more tenable position from which to launch vengeance.

Consider for a moment that the notion of, "an eye for an eye" is not a command to seek vengeance but rather a command which limits the scope of vengeance.  Such limitations make sense in a limited fashion.

For example.  I knock out your eye.  The command now allows for you to knock out one of my own if you think that such action is warranted.  You are free, of course, to defer and attempt to reach another settlement which will satisfy you for your loss you may not, according to the command take more than the value of my eye.

It is a violent system though not draconian.  It is a system between the two of us, you as the victim and me as the victimizer.

If we add the dimension of social contract and we understand that a crime against you is a crime against society the ante is drastically increased.  So, having knocked out your eye and satisfied your demand for compensation I am now forced to face the rest of society and give them each the compensation that they demand.  Using census figures my debt to society runs about 35 million eyeballs.

That would be draconian.  Fortunately our criminal justice system has a sense of perspective.  One eyeball is worth one eyeball.  Common Sense often has little use for perspective and allows our collective outrage to make any sinner into something far bigger and much more malevolent.

This is also well done.  Your comment is, I believe, theologically sound and among the most truthful of theological statements that can be made on the matter.  Let's not kid ourselves though, folk don't want to do theology with Russell Williams, they want to do vengeance.  Further, they want to do vengeance and pretend that it is justice.

This is not going to be an easy moment.  Dealing with Olsen is not easy.  Dealing with Bernardo and Homolka is not easy.  Dealing with Picton is not easy.  It will not be any easier to deal with Williams.  I suspect though few of us would lose any sleep believing we have been two hard with any of the aforementioned, certainly we would lose more sleep if we believed we had not been hard enough.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Hi graeme,

Respectfully, he did not even say that.

The instruction in the LORD's prayer is that we invite God to apply the same standards of forgiveness towards us that we extend to others.

Forgiving me as I forgive others means not that I will not be forgiven unless I forgive others it means that whatever standards I set for forgiveness be the same standards that are set for me to be on the receiving end of forgiveness.

So, if I stubbornly offer forgiveness to those who have wronged me I should not expect for God to be so free in extending forgiveness to me when I wrong God.

Agreed.  Although if we want to model Biblical forgiveness there is an element of forgetfulness that applies.  When God forgives God keeps no conscious record of that sin it is, to use the language of the scriptures, remembered no more.

Agreed, with provisos.  I think that the timeline for forgiveness varies from case to case.  I believe it should be the ultimate outcome.  I just think that there will be many paths to get there and that simply because the paths for two may differ it doesn't follow that forgiveness is not in progress.

Agreed.

Ironic statement don't you think?  If I cannot forgive I cannot be a Christian and yet it would appear that you are not forgiving me my inability to forgive and are disqualifying me the label of Christian because of my inability.  I suppose if you are denying yourself access to the label for the same lack of forgiveness you are, at the very least, being fair.

Again, I see the teaching in the LORD's prayer regarding forgiveness more of a warning against hypocricy than a command to forgive.

Grace and peace to you.

John

These are my thoughts, and perhaps mine alone.

When we make it easy, it is easy.

___ is bad.

___ is evil.

___ is sick.

___ is abnormal.

___ deserves it.

It makes it easy to see them as "the other" and it makes it easy to see ourselves as the good, the righteous, the healthy, the normal, the innocent.
 

For me, I can only walk in The Way when I do not take the easy way. The Way, Jesus' way, the way of God, is hard. Each step can be unbearable. It can be gut wrenching. It requires peering into my own soul.

So, I take someone like Adolf Hitler (remember my family was tortured and killed during his reign) and I do not get to make him a monster. I could and it would be far easier. For me, I have to stare at him as a human being, a creation of God. The same with all in those uniforms or with those beliefs.... Prepare yourself, can I see them as my equal?

It is easy to see good folks as equals. I might have been born in another nation and hungry. It is easy to think that an accident of birth or I may be holding a child that is dying swatting flies from them, that I may have spent my youth climbing barefoot in mountains of waste or that I may have as a child had a gun handed to me to be a soldier.... that is all so easy to envision. There but for the grace of God go I.

What if I may have used that gun? What if I raped people in Congo? What if I heaped people in massive graves in Slovenia?

What about being born in an anti-semitic time and place? (the world was) Who might I have been? What about hearing propoganda, could I ignore it? What if there was mental illness could I have been able to stop where my mind headed?

As a sexual assault worker, I sat in prison interviewing child molesters. My job was to record their stories so that we could figure out what could be done to break the cycle, so that those we knew as victim did not one day become the perp. In their faces and stories, I often saw the children they once were, the lessons they were taught... the kids I worked with all grown up. I made the realization that as much as I despised their actions, as much as I held them in contempt for giving in to the impulses I could see the impact of sexual abuse on them. The same as I could the promiscuous girl or the prostitute who thought her only worth was sexual, the topless dancer who felt it gave her power over "them", the same as I saw it in the man who could not have sex with his wife, or the ones drowning in seas of alcohol or drugs, or the ones with protective walls of fat....

It is easy to say "Paul Bernardo, sicko" . It is easy to say "evil". It is not so easy, for some to delve beyond that. For me, it is easy. Once you have truly allowed yourself, it comes fairly easy.

I see a child growing up in a terribly dysfunctional family with generational abuse. I see a child with a depressed, abused mom eating herself to death in the basement and a child molester for a father figure. I see society thinking he would escape it all unscathed because he hid his life behind acting normal and smiling. What kind of society thinks "it won't affect him"?

Thinking sex offenders (or murderers or pick one) are perverse and evil has been the lens that people, even psychiatrists, view things from. That lens is media, religion and superstition. It is how homosexuality was viewed the way it was by "professionals".) That lens, using child molesters, made parents look at strangers lurking on every corner. It made them look for those who look "perverted". It did not warn them of the ones that were known or loved, the ones who looked normal or friendly.  

So, for me, there is something to be learned from Russell Williams. It cannot be learned with the focusing media's fixation of a military man in women's panties. It cannot be learned thinking the devil was in him or that any man in women's panties is dangerous or deranged. It can only be learned IMO by seeing Russell Williams as a person.

So, it might be easy to say "Russell Williams" followed by all kinds of words. For me, I want to know how he got there. Did someone catch him as a child dressed in women's underpants and tell him how bad he was, evil, sick, twisted.... Did he become what he was taught he was? Is there abuse, is there a world where you cannot be a hero and a transvestite or have a fetish? You are darn right there is.

I now know who he hurt and how. I want to know his story, who hurt him, how we hurt him.... I want to know how we help stop it from happening again.

As far a forgiveness, that is not mine to give (other than as a member of society who understands how our society creates or allows things) and that forgiveness does not mean he does not need to be kept apart. It also means that I do not see this time coming as time to punish... it is time to try to rehabilitate even if he can never be released.

The forgiveness, for me, is God's, the victim's family's, his family's... I cannot give what is not mine to give.

I can only say, that as a believer, I believe God forgives.

Russell Williams is a human being created in the image of God, perhaps more of his brokenness or humanity is showing, perhaps more of our society's brokenness and humanity is showing through him. Perhaps through him, we can glimpse more of what it is, what it means/demands/requires.... to walk in The Way.

Wow! talk about splitting hairs. you must have used an atom smasher. I understand now why the UCC so rarely actually ever does something.

Jesus expressed himself in brevity, and brevity is clear. To add more words to it is not to explain. It is to create a fog. In this case, it seems Jesus did say "forgive if...." and then must have gone on for twenty pages or so that were not recorded.

Hi graeme,

Brevity and clarity exist as both medicine and toxin.

A cool, clear glass of water refreshes differently from a cool, clear glass of vinegar or a cool, clear glass of sulfuric acid.

Just because it is brief and clear it does not follow that it is right.  Interpretation, the addition of words, doesn't necessarily increase the fog.

Grace and peace to you.

John

I understand where you're going with this graeme. You're referring to the problem of explanation at the expense of understanding. Sometimes, it's true, we do try so hard to explain things that we end up covering them with a veil of incomprehensibility. The contrast, though, are the clear examples of overly simplistic interpretations of Sripture ("the Bible says ...") that are equally lacking in any real understanding and that have led to serious and negative consequences. How do we strike a balance between these two problems, one of which -as you note - can lead to inaction (or at least slow action) while the other of which can lead to rash and inappropriate action?

 Hi John,

Just a few brief thoughts in response to your post:

I agree with your concerns about the potential sloppy uses of the phrase, and the fact that it can be used as an excuse to target people rather than as an encouragement to actually love them. The phrase also, of course, brings up the question of how we define "sin" and what actually constitutes "sin."

Agreed. Which is, of course, why I suggested that I owe "an honest attempt." To attempt something is not to achieve it, but it is to acknowledge the importance of the thing attempted (otherwise, it wouldn't be attempted.)

I disagree, although it may be simply that we're approaching this from a different perspective. Ideally, I agree that "and" would be the better choice. I was, however, trying to speak in more practical terms, noting that there is a tendency to replace what I should do with what I choose to do. Thus "but" which implies that replacement of one with the other rather than "and" which suggests that I will actually be capable of doing both. Even while acknowledging that I should do both, I'm not sure that I can do both.

 From New Scientist:

----------------------------------------------------

Graeme, the first paragraph of my post wasn't addressed to anyone in particular.  I was just giving my general thoughts.  The second paragraph was addressed to you. Sorry for the confusion. 

2.5 x 3 meter cell alone for 25 years. One hour for exercise. I would like to see the TV and phone privelges taken away, but that might be too cruel. I would also hope they remove the conjugal visits, though I bet his wife will do that herself. I would be surprised if he makes it 25 years, really.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/russell-williams-en...

Nice symbol of an angel. Should an angel come down and lash him every day? You're talking about revenge. There really is no such thing as revence. There is only the absence of any Christian quality. I've often thought that people express an thirst for revenge as an assurance to others - and perhaps to themselves - that they would never do such horrible things. But a great many Christians have killed more people, a;nd more cruelly - sometimes by proxy.

I quite agree about the dangers of being simplistic in uses of Crhsitan teaching. I think particularly of Baptists who condemn those who are gay but, for some reason, forget the injunction to stone gays publicly - and forget to present their clergy naked are regular inspections to ensure they are without blemish. Too bad. They could draw a lat of sinners with naked Baptist clergy on parade.

I think The Bible has to be taken as a whole, not in bits and fragments, and ithe spirit of it has to be treated as one in evolution. And the spirit of the whole seems to me to say forgive - with no ifs.

Who me?

yessir. yousir.

(no sir, not I, sir.)

yesser, yousir.

Hi, it's not revenge -- I think watching TV is a fate worse than death and the phone isn't much better.  The 2.5 x 3 cell isn't my idea, it's apparently the standard. Honestly, I don't know what to do with him. But like the article says, I think somebody like him is going to have a very hard time adjusting to life behind bars.

graeme, your question was not simply what did Jesus say. Your question, in your inital post, was "what does a Christian do" along with "what could we do to him to make the slightest difference".

If you want to say "Russell Williams. Jesus said forgive". Do not bother inviting discussion. If you want to just say what you believe, try the blog feature. If you want to get, "yep, yep, you are right" then it is a problem when you say "what do you think?". Maybe try" if you agree post, if not ignore".

Your response about my splitting hairs reads, "just say you agree with me". Problem is that I do not agree with you. I soooo do not agree. I do not agree with your assement, your theology, your opinion of Jesus....

You stated that you did not see a man, saw no soul and no spirit and provided why. You want apparently his shell forgiven, or is it a forgiveness of self (as society member). If so, is that not for another to give?

I answer that I see a man, once a child even, I see a soul and a spirit. I see him, as a human being, still containing that divine given to him, as being something more than a shell or garbage. I explained why.

 For me, forgiveness, for society's part, without society doing anything is empty.  As emtpy as ayn apology that could be given not meant.
 

When I read Matthew 19, the not murdering, the not committing adultery, the not stealing... the honouring my parents and loving my neighbour is not enough. I am supposed to give what I have (which for me includes my ego that I am somehow better/immune/with more willpower/more alive/more whole/ less broken... ) and follow Jesus. The hard way and the easy way...

For me, that means never thinking someone, ANYONE, is soulless.

I have no "ifs", other than what is God's is God's and what belong to others is not mine to give. My ability to see a human, with a soul and a spirit that can be tormented by all manner of things, means I forgave Russell Williams as much as I could with no "ifs".

To me, the Lord's prayer is not some rote and "just do what it says". It requires you to "get it". Getting it means more than "forgive those who trespass against us".  It means really getting,  "Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven". It means we get we are called to create it.

I wonder what the hell our witholding or our granting of forgiveness is to God without action to not repeat it.

Russell received justice.  But for me, the question is: what is a grace-based response to Russell's crimes?  David is the only person in the Bible described as "a man after God's own heart."  Yet David was a murderer and an adulterer.  Last year our church was rocked by a somewhat analagous scandal.  CF was a pillar of the community.  He was a beloved school  psychologist and gifted artist who went the extra  mile to serve local charities and the hurting members of our church and community. He regularly conducted excellent and thoughtful children's moments in our services.   In my conversations with him, CF was only concerned about deepening his spiritual journey and finding new ways to serve our church (e. g. helping out with church music and helping start a Christian coffee house in the community).  

But CF had a dark secret that caught up with im last  January.  He had molested a young boy and tried to molest another.  I''ll never forget my disbelief when I learned that CF was in the local jail.  Almost no one in our church or community was willing to give him the presumption of innocence.  When he decided to confess to spare the family the ordeal of a trial,  he became the target of such hatred that church members seemed to resent my desire to minister to him weekly in prison.   His crime alienated his children and brought his already troubled son to the brink of suicide.  CF's remorse made much of his life in jail an unrelenting hell.   When some of us wanted to send him a birthday card, several people left the church, irate that we would "coddle" this slime. and convinced that I was trivializing the gravity of his crime by attending to his needs in jail.   

CF was sentenced to 14 1/2 years in a prison too far from me for continued visitation..  Fortunately, his family came to realize that they still love him unconditionally and they visit him in prison.  CF is able to teach self-help courses to other prisoners.  Cases like this bear witness to a spiritual tragedy:  we who profess to believe in God's grace so often show by our attitudes, words, and deeds that we have no clue what the grace of God really means.  Even after justice is meted out, we often close our minds to "2nd chance" spirituality.  When we assess each other as "sinners,"  we cannot see ourselves on a continuum with the CFs of this world.  Instead, we unconsciously feel as if God is pretty lucky that we are loyal church attenders.   

I am the same person I was all those years ago, when in a prison a person asked me "do you think God forgives me?". I replied, "I believe God does". It was genuine, the God I believe in would.

Would I ever just  say,"Yes"? No, I would not.

Why?

I am not God and I never get myself and God confused.

Amen, Beserk.

Thank you for posting this in an way that makes things clear in my mind.  I must remember those two little words "I believe" . . .  The words "I believe" enable us to share our understanding of God and what and who God is, based on our learning, life experience, and understanding we have come to at any point in our lives . . . and then allow the person to whom we are sharing come to a conclusion as to who God is and what God would do in their own mind.

I need to remember this for myself.

Thank you for sharing your story Berserk . . . a glimpse into grace.

Thank you, berserk. It's nice to be excused from a responsibility to do anything. Hey. that's what church is all about. That's one reason I just stopped going. I don't mind criminals. I can't stand do-nothing hypocrites.

Forgiveness means Williams should be in prison because he's dangerous. Perhaps he should be there forever because he will be forever dangerous. What we can do is recognize him as a severely ill person. We should make sure he has intensive psychiatric examination. We should make spirital counselling available.

Neither of those is a priority of our prison system.

As to confusing oneself with God, that is quite a silly statement. The orders to forgive come from God. They come to us because there ain't  nobody else to go to.

When asked by a Christian where he'd like to spend eternity, Mark Twain replied:

"I'd prefer heaven for the climate and hell for the comany."

graeme,

This paragraph you wrote-
"As to confusing oneself with God, that is quite a silly statement. The orders to forgive come from God. They come to us because there ain't  nobody else to go to."

Invites my asking, what you mean by it. I understand you think my statement silly. My question is about the end of your statement, not the part about the order to forgive comes from God. I am not entering debate one whether the Lord's Prayer is something Jesus said or that the whole forgiveness of sin thing. I am just asking about "they come to us because there ain't nobody else to go to".  Is that because you do not believe in God or you do not believe in a God who forgives,  or because you do not believe people can go to God or that God is not knowable, unreachable...what is it that you mean, when you say "they come to us because there ain't nobody else to go to"?

 I do not wish to put words in your mouth.

I believe in God. I certainly don't understand God.  I feel that God is within each of us. And, even as I say that, I'm  not sure exactly what it means. I only know that I believe. That's why it's called faith, and not science.

My remark was a flippant one because, so far as I know, we are the only creatures to address such an order to. But -given the infinity of space and time - who knows?

re Mark Twain - I think Shaw made the same comment about Don Juan in Hell.

graeme,

Ok, so if I follow the entirety of this conversation, you believe God is within each of us but you did not see it in Russell Williams. Is that becausesome are not blessed with it? Is it because in him it does not exist? It it because his brokenness or your horror hid it? If it is truly absent, was it once there? Can people be born without it? What happened to it? Can it be found, restored?

I read you thinking the most merciful thing is shooting him and yet wanting him forgiven. To you is death more merciful than life in prison?

I am confused.

Are you still processing how you feel?

Russell Williams has his sentence and the doors will close. Our prisons need reformed and need to be more than warehouses and pens and places to be raped and all that stuff.  They are not and Russell will go into what exists. Counselling, support, resources.... should be available to him. They may or may not be, our penal system is not equal and it is not just.

The choice to make use of those things or not should also be his. He owes time served. He does not owe society a conversion experience or religion or the right to poke and prod and delve. If he chooses to, it should be for self. For me, if he is not prepared, willing, equipped... to deal with "how" and "why",  forcing him  (whether from psychiatrist oir pastor) is worse than the stocks and waterboards and any other inhumane treatment one can inflict.

Again, I see a boy, a child, a teen and a man.... none of whom are something apart from God and none who are too soiled, too bad, too far gone... for God. There are murderers and rapists who turn themselves around, whether they stay in prison the rest of their life or not. Some get out and go on to be productive members of society.

Can Russell Williams be part of society? That is up to him and us.  

It's not at all up to us if we adopt your attitude. And to say somebody deserves punishment is to play God.

Bush killed over one and a half million innocent people. His father killed at least 200,000 as head of the CIA. If they were hanged, would you just shrug your shoulders and say, "They deserved it." ?

Would you publicly suggest they should be arrested, and tortured as they had others tortured. Russell Williams is small stuff beside those butchers. We all participate in that sort of killing. Isn't it just a touch of hypocrisy to say Williams deserved what he got? What do you deserve? What do I deserve? Aren't we all pointing the finger at Williams to avoid the fingers that point at us?

I do completely believe in Christian forgiveness - I have had quite the opportunity to be testing my own strengths and limitations in this regard myself the past year, as without getting into details, this story and this question hits particularly close to home for me. However, at the risk of being accused of parsing words, I do think it's important we also forgive ourselves when we reach our human limitations of patience and understanding. Looking at someone who is struggling deeply with their own emptiness is absolutely tragic and heart-wrenching; but there also comes a point, when they reject all offers of compassion and support, where I think it is indeed 'forgivable', and perhaps even a moral imperative, to turn to winnable battles - the Serenity Prayer comes to mind here. It is so often forgotten forgiveness is a two-way human interaction, involving both the giving and receiving. Should forgiveness be rejected, or even perhaps met with more of the same behaviour, while perhaps it might fall short of the Christian ideal, I do not think one can equate the sin of anger (especially when enmeshed so closely with compassion - for the victims, for the community affected etc.) with the sins committed by the likes of Russell Williams. One shows human frailty; the other shows inhuman weakness.

If posters are interested, I may eventually start a thread on what I'm about to claim.  There is an implicit undercurrent in the New Testament and the earliest 2nd century Christian apocalypses.  It can be expressed this way: none uf us ultimately make it unless we all make it.  Your success is my success; your failure is my failure.  Heaven cannot truly be heaven for the righteous as long as they are lovingly aware of souls separated from God.  God is love and God's love pursues souls eternally and can only be thwarted by freely chosen seperation from God.  I once served as an unofficial advisor for a PhD thesis in New Testament that examined the case for these principles.  The biblical issues are complex, but the pattern of teaching is identifiable.  I like C. S. Lewis's maxim: "The gates of Hell are only locked from the inside." I ask myself how these principles might be relevant to people like Russell in the afterlife.

This I hold to be true.  I equally hold that society's inability to accept or forgive - choose your own word - people like Russel Williams directly impacts on what happens in the future. 

Somewhere above, I think it was Berserk, mentioned 2nd chances.  To me, the life of Jesus was all about second chances and the resurrection the ultimate metaphor.  It is also apparent to me that God allows second chances but humans do not.  Perhaps this is what ultimately separates mankind from God.