Kenya is astoundingly different than our South Asia post. One of the most striking difference is that Kenya, for the most part, is a Christian nation. This makes it a lot more familiar and somewhat like home, though here church leaders are often also politicians and that causes all sort of problems. While I am grateful for the Christian base, the misunderstanding of God’s wrath causes problems in our work. In Kenya we do a lot of work with children and young persons who have been sexually assault by their neighbors. What often happens next is that someone reports to the parents that their child has been sexually assaulted and they go and confront their neighbor. The neighbor admits to his “sin” and ask for a Christian forgiveness. It is imperative for the neighbor to avoid having this matter reported to the police and him being tried because the sexual assault of a minor can mean life imprisonment. The parents, believing that Christ would forgive this man forgive him, and usually the assault continues.
There is a valid concern here about what Christ calls us to do. What does justice mean in this instance and how much grace can we give to a man/woman who rapes a child of God? I am reading a document prepared by UNDP and there are these two sentences “In traditional context, both society at large and the police may favor negotiation and compromise as the appropriate way to deal with SGBV (sexual gender based violence). This leads to situations in which men forgive men for violence committed against women.” In approaching these situations we have to ask: who has the man offended? Do the parents have a right to forgive him? If they don’t, does a 10 year old, who doesn’t understand how she has been defiled other than the pain, forgive him? A person who rapes another not only defiles that person but the very temple and image of the Lord. Grace is not a license to continue to keep on sinning but an opportunity to right ourselves before God. A man who begs forgiveness for rape may be given this grace and this opportunity but I don’t know that we, as Christians, have the right to stay his legal and earthly punishment
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Interesting questions posed by this post... you've got me thinking.
ReplyDeleteDad
Well said...
ReplyDeleteHmmm... I tend to favor justice over forgiveness. (Hardly surprising given my education!;) Forgiveness is meant for people who actually try to change, not for people who are just trying to get out of the consequences of their actions. And child abusers have an extremely high recidivism rate - which suggests to me that it is something messed up in their wiring that can't be fixed, rather than a poor choice someone made once but won't do again. Which makes me think the 'I'm so sorry I won't do it again' even if sincere is not compelling enough to prevent bad behavior in the future. First and foremost, we should care about protecting the innocent and helpless. That is something real and concrete and FAR more important than a lofty ideal of forgiveness, however well-meaning.
ReplyDeleteI think you really hit the nail on the head when you say, who's right is it to forgive? It's the people who are harmed directly that have more right to forgive, and parents doing it on behalf of their children just doesn't seem honest.
But on the other hand, it is a different culture, with different values. And I can see the value in resolving things through compromise and forgiveness, rather than bringing the judgment of the law down on someone. Our system in America, which locks people up and throws away the key has its problems too. We tend to lock people away who are poor, uneducated, and minorities of some kind who have less resources to defend themselves with - even when they are innocent.
I think this shows that every choice of values has consequences. And those consequences never seem to fall with equal force on all people in society. I get VERY suspicious of the motives behind these value choices when the weakest members of society suffer the brunt of the burden - whether it is our society or another.
But I realize that even if you try to make all the right choices and protect everyone and be totally fair, the system of justice seems to find an outlet somewhere...and it leaks all the pressure onto the most downtrodden and oppressed. Sigh. It is a constant battle to keep things fair, and very messy to be on the front lines of the effort to do so. I really admire your willingness to face these difficult issues and do your best to try to make things right. The world needs more people like you!!!
Good luck!!!
~Rania~