mercy, compassion, justice, and leniency

It was interesting to be able to watch the news of the compassionate release of the floridly-named Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, while I was visiting the US this week. I managed to avoid my morbid fascination with Fox, and watch the coverage on CBS instead. They seemed to be labouring under the misapprehension that the decision was being taken by a judge, whereas in fact Mr Kenny MacAskill is a politician, a member of the Scottish Executive, the Justice Secretary.

I was struck more, though, by the on-screen caption CBS used: it spoke of "leniency", whereas the British news outlets took the official line, that this was an issue of compassion and mercy. Do the two amount to the same thing? For al Megrahi, they seem to; for the people celebrating on the streets of Tripoli, they seem to; for the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, ...

Al Megrahi is guilty before the law. That's not the same thing as saying that he did it: a subsequent appeal might have concluded that he did not. But the due process of the law, to date, finds him guilty. The Scottish Executive would argue that they have followed their own due process - a separate process of compassion - and decided that on the grounds of his imminent demise due to cancer, he should be released.

This creates two tensions: firstly, the British conception of justice may be divergent from the American one: had he been tried under an American jurisdiction, he might well have faced the death penalty. Our conceptions of what constitutes just punishment may differ, and the grounds for early release are certainly different: so it is unsurprising that this release comes as an unpleasant shock to grieving relatives. Secondly, there is a tendency among a significant proportion of the British people to take a more "American" view (in that sense) of justice, which can be at odds with that of our political leaders (though I don't know of any explicit test of public opinion in this particular case).

So where does the path of justice, accompanied by mercy, lie? There is much speculation about political (or trade) expediency surrounding the decision to release this man - but the politicians have denied it, so let us take that at face value for now. The notion of a justice system whose judgement is tempered with mercy seems a good one to retain: after all, whether you follow the God and Father of Jesus Christ, or a set of humanist values, unless you have an excessively relativist outlook, you will tend to believe that a just society is better than the ideal of those who would seem to win through violence. Mercy is lacking in those who would send 270 people to an unexpected death: all the more reason for it to be demonstrated towards those who perpetrate the terror.

But that's easy for me to say: it was not my mother, my daughter, my sister who was murdered. In some Islamic states those who represent the wronged party are able to influence the sentencing and the processes of clemency. That is a tempting notion - but I'm pretty certain al Megrahi would still be in prison if the decision had been in the hands of the victims' relatives. Though sentencing should take account of the victims' distress, it is eventually a function of the community, of the state: if it is a legitimized lynch mob, then we have a problem. [I need to look for a biblical principle here, I think.]

All in all, this is a long-winded way of saying I'm ambivalent about this decision: but the notion of justice tinged with mercy is undoubtedly one to hang on to - for it is divine.

how much money is a life worth?

Some mischief-makers wanting to de-rail Mr Obama's healthcare plan have made much of the fact that there is a tariff placed on healthcare by the UK's National Institute for Clinical Excellence - the ironically-named NICE. It's true that in deciding if a particular intervention is going to be cost-effective they value a year's reasonably healthy life at around £30,000.

[It's more nuanced than that. And their role is to set minimum standards, not to deny treatments to any particular patient. But I digress. Oh, I am still laughing about the epic fail of "Investor's Business Daily" suggesting that Prof. Stephen Hawking wouldn't be alive if he were in the tender care of the NHS - except that he is, and he is. :-) But I digress.]

That seems a particular disingenuous argument, because plainly American Insurance companies must make a similar calculation. They may have different numbers, and come out with a higher value, but given finite resources, they are bound to have a calculation. But I don't imagine that they announce the figure...

And every industry that deals with life-or-death issues must have a similar calculation. Whether they deal with dangerous industrial processes, or road safety, or railways, or aviation, every risk assessment needs a number. The curious thing is the wide difference in the numbers used in different sectors: the railways spent tens of millions retrofitting locks to prevent doors opening on high speed trains (when travelling at high speed) - an incident which consistently cost about eight lives per year. Investing a proportionately similar amount in road safety would have saved many more lives (or so I've been told).

Oxford is in the process of replacing an urban speed limit of 30mph with one of 20mph, on the grounds that doing so will save lives. Plainly, a speed limit of 10mph (or 5mph) would save more. But the latter is regarded as an absurd notion, citing perhaps a law of diminishing returns. But who is to decide how to balance cost and convenience with life-saving?

I struggle to find a spiritual principle to hang onto in this. But I'm pretty confident that one thing we must do is to avoid acting in such a way as to make the lives of the poor worth less than the lives of the rich. Universal health care is a part of that. Are there other examples?

idolatry

Dissing other people's blogs isn't polite, so I'll just quote Mark Driscoll without comment. It did make me laugh, though.

I sat down for about 30 minutes with Terry Moran and we talked about how idolatry underlies all sin, how it is rooted on the false promise of happiness, how it ultimately destroys, how it is often the result of turning a good thing into an ultimate thing, and how it shows itself in our culture in how we idolize celebrities, athletes, food, family, sex, money, relationships, and achievement – or rather, what we call American culture.

We also took a drive in my Jeep with the top off [...]

wedding

I went to my niece's wedding at the weekend: a very happy occasion.

What struck me afresh was the primitive and fundamental nature of marriage: people have been marrying and giving in marriage for millennia without count. Christians are wont to call it a "creation ordinance" thanks to Genesis 2:24:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

No doubt anthropologists would have something to say about the place of marriage in most or all human societies, from the most primitive times, too.

However we look at it, I want to argue, marriage primarily "belongs" to the community. It isn't tied to a church or a liturgy, and it certainly isn't the property or prerogative of the state. It's about getting your family - even the distant parts, whenever possible - together, and bringing your friends along, and some of those miscellaneous people who have played a part in your growing up, and indeed representatives of every sphere of your life. And having all those people witness that you want to be committed to another person. Marriage belongs to the community: to your community.

Now, faith overlays a set of norms on this. And the state has an interest - both because the stability of families is undoubtedly a social good, and, of course, because of the impact of marriage upon taxation. All of these come later, though: they are overlays upon something much more primitive, much more basic, much more important.

I suppose that the multiple layers of meaning and importance overlaid onto marriage are the reason why changes to it have caused so much angst - in the US in particular. As I blogged before, the British experience of civil partnerships has certainly proven that they do not cause the sky to fall - but are able to make a few people very happy indeed, and are regarded by most as marriage no matter what the legal name for them may be. Not that the churches have worked out what to do about them.

Some will say that the approach taken in many northern european countries is the right path to follow: if you want to be married in the sight of the state, you go to the town hall (or wherever) and contract a civil marriage. If you want to be married in the sight of your (faith) community, you go to the church/temple/synagogue/ash grove/stone circle/old chateau and make whatever vows you like, there. Most people doing the latter will do the former, in quick succession.

That has a certain elegant simplicity to it. But it would strike me as an unwanted retreat: churches have been marrying people for longer than the state has. Why should they want to give up that prerogative? After all, although we may have many spheres of life, they are not disconnected: we would regard things as disordered if you were married to one person in the eyes of the state, and another in the eyes of your church/community. [ok; I guess the understanding that catholics (and others) have of divorce can lead you into that situation, but I think they'd still view it as disordered].

So, insofar as it's possible without anarchy setting in, I'm wondering if we should say that we should allow many norms. Marriage should mean ... whatever your community wishes. Does that extend to polygamy? polyandry? I'm still wondering.