Hard Cases Test God’s Laws
In the comments of my post on the Jaycee Dugard abduction (a post that my mom hated by the way), a wiseguy anonymous commenter said:
It’s God’s Will. After all, if it happened, God arranged the world just so for it to happen. It’s for the greater good.
Presumably the comment is referring to my Panglossian views as I’ve explained them on Free Advice, Sunday edition.
Yes, the commenter is right. I don’t know how God would be able to turn this guy’s sins around for good, but I know that He can and He is doing so. I know that when I die and finally understood the full scope of God’s plan, then it will make sense to me, and I will see why those poor girls had to endure that awful experience.
In fact, I’ll double-down and challenge the Christians who are reading, especially those (like me) who have young children: Can you bring yourself to admit that Jesus loves the guy who did this? (I’m not using his name because I think it’s a ridiculous incentive our culture sets up, whereby serial killers and assassins are household names.) OK, if you can do that, now the real test: Could you possibly bring yourself to feel love for him, knowing that he too is a child of God?
If you can do that–and I’m not saying I can, because I keep reminding myself of what he did and don’t want to forgive him for it–then you would have the ability to love anyone and everyone. Just like Jesus does, and just like He commanded His followers to do.
So the question is, why are you afraid to become more like Jesus? Is it to prove to us how much you care for kids, by publicly proclaiming how much you hate kidnappers?
Isn’t that odd? We want to prove how much we love one group of people, by expressing our feelings of hatred for another? Is that really what Jesus’ message is?
