Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

Yesterday, former Chilean dictator and tyrant General Augustin Pinochet died of a heart attack. The reaction to his death was a mixed one in what remains a somewhat divided nation some thirty-three years after he took power in a US-supported coup against an ineffective and highly socialist leader (President Allende, whose neice Isabelle writes some terrible dreck for novels, including one this writer had to read during high school). He then instituted a reign of terror against leftists (particularly young ones) who disappeared, and were presumably tortured and slain. Even after he gave up power to give Chile a fragile (but so far well-functioning) democracy, he still had immunity from facing justice in this life for his serious crimes against humanity. Despite some attempts by Spain and England earlier to bring him to justice, he remained unconvincted despite his serious wrongs.

So now he is dead, and can no longer face justice in this world. The result of his death was a mixture of cheering and mourning, of riots against Chile's recent attempts to try the aged Pinochet for his crimes, cheering people who claim (in a news article I read on it) to love Pinochet like they love their own children, and mourning people who feel as if the opportunity for justice has been taken from them. We live in an unjust world (and some of us have a more intimate and personal understanding of this than others, and some of us understand the injustice in different ways because of our own different personal experience). This world has always been unjust, and as long as humans govern I do not have hope that it will ever be entirely just, though I would hope for it to be a good deal more just than it is now. The world was probably more unjust in the past than it is now, but there is greater dissatisfaction at justice now than before, and injustices people used to get away with without comment now bring harsh condemnation (from people like myself, often).

There are two ways of viewing this growing dissatisfaction with the injustice of this world. One view, largely a holdover from wicked days in which leaders ruled harshly without accountability for their often wicked actions, considers leaders to be some kind of divinely ordained power figures who are only answerable to God and not to mere mortals (especially cranky and somewhat mistrusting mortals like myself). Simply because leaders behaved this way through much of the course of human history (and because of the undeniable appeal of leading when one does not have to answer to the hoi polloi, that is, the common folk) this still appeals in politically backwards and ungodly leadership models.

The other way of viewing this problem is the one I hold. In the two millenia since Jesus Christ came to this earth certain evils which were tolerated in times of old have become less tenable. Slavery, which was a "necessary" evil in the times of Paul (see Philemon) gradually became morally untenable as the commands to love slaves as brethren increasingly meant (as it was intended to originally) that one should not have slaves at all. The same is true with polygamy as being against the biblical mutual respect of men and women and the understanding that a man and a woman become one in marriage and thus it is sinful to cleave to more than one person. In the same way, the evils of "gentile" government that were tolerated have become increasingly morally untenable as they go against the true biblical understanding that as we are all God's children, created in the image of God, we should all be respected as such. Those who claim to rule with God's authority must meet the same moral standards God does, and if they do not they must be accountable to God's fellow children for their failings because leaders have no moral nature higher than those they rule (and often a good deal lower of a nature). We are all equals in the eye of God, who is no respector of persons. We should not be respectors of persons (or titles) either.

Unfortunately, this world seems not to have been created with an eye towards making sure justice happened in this life. A just world would need to be ruled by a perfect, all-knowing, and all-powerful being or set of beings, and only God meets that qualification. Therefore, those of us who long for a just world long for God's kingdom, even if we try to help this earth more closely resemble the perfect world above. Whether we admit this or not is one thing, but our world's demands for justice mean that we demand (whether consciously or not) for God to come to this earth and set up His kingdom, because none of us are capable of the perfect moral demands. It is for this reason that no just human government is unaccountable, because imperfect beings must be held accountable for their actions in order to avoid the creation of abusive systems of government (something of particular distaste for me).

Since this world is unjust, though, and since a perfectly just universe would not be particularly kind for any of us (because all of us fall woefully short of the perfect standard and are deserving of death for our sins), there must be some place for mercy and grace in our behavior as well. We must not abuse these to excuse the sins of others (who often twist grace and mercy to give themselves license to take advantage of others while demanding forgiveness for their own actions). However, mercy and grace are necessary because if we cannot forgive others and cast our burdens upon Jesus Christ then we ourselves carry a burden of bitterness and anger that no one can or should bear. And about that I have all too much experience myself. Since this world is unjust, though, sometimes we must wait for justice in the time to come, when no one will be able to escape censure for their deeds, naked in the harsh light of day to face accountability for their deeds. I think, though, that such a time would not be a time for gloating, but at least it will be fair. And that is enough.