On justice

How is it that "justice" is such a popular buzzword in our culture, and yet our concept of it is so meager? That there is much more truth than we'd like to admit in the phrase "justice for you and mercy for me"? And really, that phrase doesn't even fully capture our hackneyed, distorted idea of what is just and good. We have our consciences for a reason — God has put his law on our hearts — and yet we are in desperate need of having our minds and hearts renewed to truly distinguish between good and evil (there is a dividing line between the two, despite the recent trend towards portraying the world in gray instead of black and white).

What has prompted these thoughts? I just watched Where the Crawdad Sings. There are many reasons why I would not recommend this movie/book (I did not read the latter but have heard the movie was a very accurate rendition), but the most important and, to my mind, most neglected is the moral worldview it presents. I am deeply troubled by how many people love this story (it has a 4.4 star rating on Goodreads), including many Christians, because it testifies to the level of moral depravity of our society.

Spoilers ahead, FYI. 

In this story, a girl with an extremely traumatic past has two extramarital intimate relationships (sequentially, not at the same time), and experiences great heartache because of these. The second turns out to be particularly nasty, as the man is concurrently engaged/married to someone else and quite abusive as well. To solve this situation, she murders him. She then goes on trial for murder and her lawyer manages to convince everyone that not only is she innocent, that they should feel bad for even suspecting her because of their prejudice against her. And she goes along her merry way, reuniting with Boy #1 and living with him until her death.

Now, let's be clear: she did have extremely traumatic things happen to her. Her family gave her no solid foundation. Boy #2 was horrible. And the townspeople were prejudiced and mean to her. But while these make her choices understandable, it does not make them okay. A lot of the heartache she experiences in these two relationships could have been avoided if she had made different choices. 

Somehow it seems unpopular to acknowledge this — because of the things that happened to this girl, pointing out her own sin issues is considered insensitive or even completely false. I know lots of people would defend her actions by focusing on the hard things she experienced: she was just taking care of herself, she had to do it, she's been victimized her whole life and now at last she's standing up for herself... But as a perceptive online commenter said, "It's not girl power if it's premeditated murder." 

Still other people will try to take the tack that the girl herself does: nature doesn't have right/wrong, good/evil. It just does what it has to do in order to survive. Morals are just a societal convention. Marriage isn't necessary if you love each other. Killing another person is okay if you felt you needed to do it to take care of yourself. The mild version of this philosophy — where "good" people justify their not-so-good choices, because they are "good" people overall — is not unfamiliar in movies. What made this movie so shocking was that it actually took this belief system to the extreme of justifying and condoning cold-blooded, premeditated murder. And more disturbing still, the majority of people reviewing this story seem to have accepted that justification.

However, no one thinks the infidelity and assault of the two men in the book is "okay," even though these things happen in nature. How far are we really going to take this logical train? Living life by no other compass than following our own desires and urges is a destructive path. "They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity — for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him." (2 Peter 2:19) I need to have my desires and urges restrained and redeemed — that is freedom.

If I got anything positive out of this movie, it was a reminder that God's path for our lives and his justice really are perfect. Submitting to his pattern for our lives bears good fruit, while rejecting his good plan will sooner or later lead to our own destruction. And that our sin has consequences is also good. The ending where the murderer gets off scot free is not a good ending. I didn't want the girl to get the death penalty, but neither could I rejoice that she was declared innocent. If we reap the fruit that we ourselves have sown, that is the just and right reward. If I I'm tempted to see God's justice as unjust, it's my vision that's the problem, not him.

In other words, I need Jesus's death for my guilt because I fully deserve my condemnation. It is just. But praise be to God! He does not treat us as our sins deserve (Psalm 103). He has paid the price in full. And as I trust in him more and more, he continues to redeem and renew my will and my conscience, so that I can see that his will is good, pleasing, and perfect (Romans 12:2), and life according to his plan is the life I want to live.

His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. (I John 5:3–4).

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I will run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free. (Psalm 119:32)