Don’t Go from Protecting Victims to Being the Next Bully

You hate injustice. Something rises up in you when whites use their power to oppress blacks, or protestors claim that God hates gays, or priests use children to satisfy their urges.
 

Such selfish acts are cruel and  morally reprehensible. You want to speak out against evil. That’s because you are created in God’s image, and he is just.
 
You are wired with a “justice monitor.”
 
We start the cry in childhood: That’s not fair! Something deep in us wants the scales of justice to return to proper balance.
 
Here’s where we need to be careful. Justice is important, and we must take a stand for righteousness against the evils of our day.
 
But justice is a funny thing — it demands payment, yet does not satisfy.
 
You can kill the killer, but the dead victim doesn’t come back to life. You can punish the criminal, but his victim still hurts.
 
Justice may balance the scales, but it has no power to heal.
 
Our challenge as Christians is to speak up for the oppressed without taking up a grudge on their behalf.
 
Here’s the danger: It’s easier to feel righteous indignation over the mistreatment of others than when we ourselves are mistreated. After all, we’re sticking up for the underdog against the bully!
 
But the same God who imbued us with an innate sense of justice is the one who says,
 

“Mercy triumphs over justice” (James 2:13).
 

If we forget this principle, we risk allowing our sense of  justice to escalate to revenge.
 
The same righteous Judge who feels indignation every day over man’s cruelty to man (Psalm 7:11) is the same Lord who inspired the apostle Paul to write:
 

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… Repay no one evil for evil…Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ ^… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” –Romans 12:14-21
 

Jesus himself said the same thing:
 

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also…as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” — Luke 6:27-29,31
 

So as we stand up for victims — ourselves, or someone else — let’s not forget the only way to break the cycle. It’s not through punishment. It’s not through revenge.
 
It’s only by love and forgiveness that the curse is turned into a blessing.
 
Otherwise, we simply create more problems.
 
Blacks are angry, so they riot and destroy and kill. Gays want rights, so they demand wedding cakes from bakers they really just want to sue.
 
A church member is abused by a pastor, so she clicks and shares allegations against any pastor who has ever been accused of any kind of abuse, without hesitation or investigation or prayer.
 
What ever happened to “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses” as 1 Timothy 5:19 says?
 
Whatever happened to blessing instead of cursing?
 
Whatever happened to love?
 
How many people’s reputations have been irreparably damaged because it’s too easy to click and ruin?
 
How many victims have become bullies, cyber or otherwise?
 
I think of Monty Python‘s “In Search of the Holy Grail,” the scene where King Arthur tries to explain his authority to a peasant who will have none of it.
 
I don’t want to be that mud-slinging peasant, shouting, “Help, help, I’m being repressed!”
 
In my concern for justice, I don’t want to become the next bully on the block.
 
You?