It is always striking how quickly the focus of the news media changes. As I write this article the focus is on the war in the Middle East. At the end of last week, the focus was on the victory by the Green Party in the Gorton and Denton by-election and what this would mean for the future of the Prime Minister and British politics in general.
Before that the focus of the media’s attention was on the fallout from the release of the US Justice Department’s files on the American millionaire and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and specifically on the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Lord Peter Mandelson on suspicion of committing the offence of misconduct in public office. It was also revealed that in a totally unrelated case the Bishop of Lincoln, Stephen Conway, had been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault.
In this article I want to return to the news of the three arrests of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Lord Peter Mandelson and the Bishop of Lincoln and consider how we should respond as Christians to the news coverage of the arrests of senior public figures.
The first thing I think we need to do as Christians is not assume that the people concerned are guilty of the offences of which they have been accused. Proverbs 17:15 declares that ‘He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord’. The principle of 'innocent until proven guilty’ is an important safeguard against the second of the sins mentioned in this verse.
For someone to be rightly punished by the law or in the court of public opinion it has to be established ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that they have committed the act of wrongdoing of which they have been accused and until that point they have the right to be treated as innocent not only by the legal system but also by anyone commenting on, or even thinking about, their case. The discipline of regarding someone as innocent until their guilt has been properly established can be a hard one to observe because of the temptation to think that ‘there is no smoke without fire’ but it is one to which Christians need to strictly adhere.
The second thing we need to do as Christians is to avoid publicly (or secretly) rejoicing when a prominent public figure is brought low. What the Germans call schadenfreude - the joy that results from beholding the misfortune of another - may be a natural human reaction, but it is a natural reaction consequent upon the Fall. In other words, it is a sin. Proverbs 17:5 tells us that ‘he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished’ and as Thomas Scott comments, what this verse tells us is that ‘everyone, who rejoiceth, when he seeth others fall into calamities, will be condemned as guilty of envy, spite and selfishness.’
Rather than engaging in schadenfreude what we need to do instead is to follow Paul’s injunction to ‘rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep’ (Romans 12:15). Just at it is wrong to take a curmudgeonly attitude that refuses to rejoice with others because we are jealous of their happiness or good fortune, so also it is wrong to harden our hearts and refuse to feel sadness over other people’s misfortunes - no matter how much we may be tempted to feel they are deserved.
This means that we should feel sorrow when a prominent public figure is brought low and remember to pray for them, that the Lord will bring them to repentance if needed, comfort them in their affliction and even bring good out of their troubles, knowing that he is able to do so. Two classic examples of this last point are the stories of the prominent British and American politicians Jonathan Aitken and Charles Colson, both of whom went to prison following convictions for criminal activity and both of whom came to Christ as a result and engaged in fruitful Christian ministries thereafter.
The third thing I think we need to do is avoid the temptation to think of ourselves more highly than others, even if they are eventually found guilty of wrongdoing and punished as a result. We must not think that their wrongdoing gives us the right to sit in censorious judgement over them. Jesus was specific on this point, warning us:
‘Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.’ (Matthew 7:1-5)
As John Stott helpfully explains in his book The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, the reason Jesus warns us against censorious judgement is because it is 'to set oneself up as a censor and so to claim the competence and authority to sit in judgment upon one’s fellow men'.
He explains, 'But if I do this, I am casting both myself and my fellows in the wrong role. Since when have they been my servants responsible to me? And since when have I been their lord and judge. As Paul wrote to the Romans, applying the truth of Matthew 7:1 to their situation: "Who are you to judge the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls" (14:4). Paul also applied the same truth to himself when he found himself surrounded by hostile detractors. "It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore, do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart" (1 Corinthians 4:4-5). The simple but vital point that Paul is making in these verses is that man is not God. No human being is qualified to be the judge of his fellow humans. We cannot read each other’s hearts or assess each other’s motives. To be censorious is to presume arrogantly to know the judgement of the day of Judgement, to usurp the prerogative of the divine Judge, in fact to play God.'
Stott goes on, 'Not only are we not the judge, but we are among the judged, and shall be judged with the greater strictness ourselves if we dare to judge others. Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. The rationale should be clear. If we pose as judges we cannot plead ignorance of the law we claim to be able to administer. If we enjoy occupying the bench, we must not be surprised if to find ourselves in the dock. As Paul put it, "Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgement upon him you condemn yourself, because you the judge are doing the very same things"' (Romans 2:1).
There have been those such as the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy who have argued that Jesus’ warning against judging means that law courts should not exist, since of course they exist precisely in order to enable judgement to be passed. However, this argument, plausible though it might initially seem, overlooks the fact that when judges in court pass judgement they do so not in a personal capacity but as those acting on God’s behalf to restrain the effects of sin by administering interim human justice on God’s behalf (Romans 13:5). I say ‘interim justice’ because final and comprehensive justice will only take place when Jesus returns to judge humanity at the end of time (Revelation 21:11-15).
The fourth thing is that we should not be surprised if and when senior public figures are found to have committed wrongdoing (which, I repeat, has been alleged but not proven in the cases of Mountbatten-Windsor, Mandelson and Conway). The reason we should not be surprised is the same reason we should not sit in judgement on others, namely, that all human beings, ourselves included, are affected by original sin, what the Church of England’s Thirty Nine Articles call ‘the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam’. Therefore we all have an inherent tendency to commit sin, including those serious forms of sin which we label as crimes, and if it were we who were in the dock would we not be crying out to God for mercy? If we are honest with ourselves, we know that we all have to say the words of the prayer of general confession in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer:
‘Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us.’
Belief in the doctrine of original sin means that Christians ought to be pessimists when it comes to the question of the perfectibility of human endeavours and institutions. Everything that humans do is done by sinners and therefore will fall short of perfection in some way and may very likely become corrupt and oppressive.
GK Chesterton made some perceptive comments in his book Orthodoxy, written at the beginning of the twentieth century in response to those in his day who challenged existing institutions as corrupt in the name of a doctrine of human progress:
‘I have always maintained that men were naturally backsliders; that human virtue tended of its own nature to rust or to rot; I have always said that human beings as such go wrong, especially happy human beings, especially proud and prosperous human beings. This eternal revolution, this suspicion sustained through centuries you (being a vague modern) call the doctrine of progress. If you were a philosopher, you would call it, as I do, the doctrine of original sin. You may call it the cosmic advance as much as you like; I call it what it is – the Fall.’
The fifth and final thing we need to do is not to let a recognition of inherent human sinfulness lead us to take an ultimately pessimistic view of the world. This is because in the words of Paul:
‘For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous. Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 5:19-21).
Because of the primal disobedience of Adam we are all sinners, and codes of moral instruction (the ‘law’) merely underline our sinfulness. This is not to say that due legal process should not run its course or that people should never be held accountable if they have done wrong - they should. But it is to remember that God’s grace in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ gives each of us the possibility of a new start with God which initiates a process of healing from sin (‘sanctification’) which will be concluded in the world to come. In addition, as Paul insists in Romans 8, when we are healed all creation will be healed with us, as we rule over the world in righteousness as God intended all along.
Furthermore, although the monarchy, parliamentary government, and the Church are, like all human institutions, run by sinners and capable of becoming corrupt and oppressive as previously noted, they are nonetheless God-given institutions called into being by him to serve our temporal and spiritual good in this world. Therefore we should not be cynical about these institutions - nor the people involved in them, even when, as at present, they become enmeshed in scandal, but we should continue to honour such institutions and those involved in them, pray for them and act in obedience to what they decide in every situation except when to do so would be to disobey what we know to be the will of God.
