12.04.2008

love the sin, hate the sinner

Don't read this if you're easily provoked to anger or don't want to cry, or scream even.

Reading this morning's headline was not a good way to start the day, and I wasn't the victim or her family. I can only imagine how broken and angry they must be. The bold print was bad enough, but the details that followed made it even more difficult to comprehend. Last week, a child, a beautiful and completely innocent two year old baby girl had been raped and beaten. Yesterday she died from her injuries. The young man who has been charged with the crime, if he did it, is obviously deranged and terribly disturbed. The story says he was a friend of the baby's daddy.

If I spend much time thinking about it I become very sad. But then again, I don't have to pick out a last little dress or decide among the kid-sized caskets or look prematurely for a place to bury it. I don't have to wake up tomorrow with the numbness of a dazed parent who'd just thanked God for their baby blessing only a week ago. I don't have to figure out what to do with a newly emptied baby bed, a chest full of childless toys or a closet full of memoried toddler outfits. By week's end the press will have moved on and this story will be replaced. Most of us will no longer see little Katelynn Sinnett's baby picture smile. But all the hearts and hands that held her close will still be struggling to adjust to days and life without her.

It is a billion percent beyond me how a human being with any sense of daylight and dark can come to the place of doing such a terrible, terrible thing. At what point does the brain rationalize something so evil? The better questions is, when, in the process of such outrageous abuse does the heart, the conscience disengage? They tell me that even in a prison full of hardened offenders there is not a safe place for the child abuser, let alone a child murderer. Even to the common convicted criminal there is a line.

The story is sad, mostly because a child is gone, but partly because there are others who aren't even mentioned who grieve as well. There are parents, maybe siblings and friends of the accused who are trying today to sort out a million emotions. How does a mom or a dad show devotion to a son who has just violated and killed a baby? Knowing that most everyone who is aware of his deed wants him tortured and killed, what do you say to him? How do you love someone that everyone else hates? How much of the blame do you put on yourself? Do you even acknowledge your place in his life, or his place in yours? The newspaper never mentions them, but there are other broken humans to consider.

So far the responses from the community, with the exception of a very few, have, in my opinion, not represented God very well. After years of sermons telling us to hate the sin but love the sinner, there seems to be an exception here. The online edition of the newspaper that ran this morning's story is allowing readers to comment. I've been mostly disappointed in what I've read from my self-identified brothers and sisters in the faith.

"I'm a fairly calm, cool, and collected person. I'm a Christian... I think a splintered log rammed into his rear might be a good start. Then drop his torn and tattered butt off of the roof of the prison that he's in only to be met by several inmates that proceed to beat him to a pulp and whatever else they may choose to do to him. Then... lastly, make him crawl to the execution chamber so that the state can rid this world of such evil and filth... My prayers go out to Katelynn's family... I'm so so sorry for your loss!"

"I have never considered myself a violent person, but allow me to preside over the punishment of this pervert. In the end, he would beg for death to ease his punishment... The only comfort in this story is that the little girl died, and the Bible tells us that she is now in heaven, sitting on the right hand of Jesus..."

"Can I pull the trigger...please?"

"There is no other punishment that would fit this crime - send him straight to the execution chamber. And before all you self-righteous people go saying "no death penalty" and "eye for an eye does not make this right" answer this question - if this was your daughter, or granddaughter, or niece that this happened to, would you honestly feel that the death penalty was not the right punishment in this case? If you can honestly say you could forgive this man, I envy you. I could not."

The last poster has a good point. I've often said myself that there are only a small handful of people in this world that I'd be willing to go to jail for, and they all share my last name. I don't want to have to think about how I'd react if I were in the place of Katelynn's parents. I don't know if I'd feel satisfied in knowing that the person who hurt and terrified my baby, the last person to see her alive, was screaming from the pain of torture. I've contemplated and personally wrestled with this conflict from time to time - from a distance of course. This is what I do know; I feel great sadness for a family knowing terrible, tremendous loss. I feel great anger toward the man who did the despicable, pathetic deed. I get no joy knowing that a child did and the perpetrator will likely experience great pain.

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