Church Voices

From here:

A Spanish mother has taken revenge on the man who raped her 13-year-old daughter at knifepoint by dousing him in petrol and setting him alight. He died of his injuries in hospital on Friday.

Antonio Cosme Velasco Soriano, 69, had been sent to jail for nine years in 1998, but was let out on a three-day pass and returned to his home town of Benejúzar, 30 miles south of Alicante, on the Costa Blanca.

While there, he passed his victim’s mother in the street and allegedly taunted her about the attack. He is said to have called out “How’s your daughter?”, before heading into a crowded bar.

Shortly after, the woman walked into the bar, poured a bottle of petrol over Soriano and lit a match. She watched as the flames engulfed him, before walking out.

I guarantee you that there are many people (perhaps even most people) who will applaud this woman.

In fact, here’s a few comments on that article:

Serves him right.

Way to go lady!

Congrats to her on doing a righteous thing

I feel terrible for this woman. I would have done the same thing without being taunted if somebody did anything to harm my children. She’s suffered ever since her daughter’s rape. Let her go with time served.

The forum I took these comments from is one that is hostile to religion in general and Christianity in particular. I only make that point to demonstrate that our culture, in many ways, is highly attuned to morality. Even those who would be the furthest from Christian theology are outraged by the immorality that is before them. Jesus spoke of this very situation:

“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.
Matthew 7.9-11

Of course Paul speaks directly to this issue:

Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.
Romans 2.14-15

There’s nothing particularly Christian about recognizing sin and condemning the sinner. Anyone from any background can do that. The scriptures tell us this, and the story I posted above illustrates this. Even the people who condemned the woman for torching her daughter’s rapist do the same thing, just in a slightly different way.

What is uniquely and specifically Christian is recognizing that the grace of God, through Jesus Christ can extend to both the rapist, and victim’s mother, just as the grace of God, through Christ extended to us.

We all know King David committed adultery and murder, and eventually repented of it. Reflect for a bit on how his sin was brought to his attention. A prophet named Nathan told him a story of a man with a pet sheep. This man’s sheep is stolen by a rich man who has many sheep, who aren’t pets, they’re just sheep. David is outraged by this man’s loss and demands to know who this man is so he can demand his life.

And then Nathan delivers the devastating line: “you are that man”.

The Christian thing to do isn’t to be outraged by someone else’s sin. It is to recognize the outrage we feel against someone’s sin applies to our sin as well, and the grace we’ve been given, extends to that other as well.