Flourishing

C S Lewis has an interesting article by the title, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” in his volume God in the Dock (1979). The central argument of the piece is:

“…[W]hen we cease to consider what the criminal deserves and consider only what will cure him or deter others, we have tacitly removed him from the sphere of justice altogether; instead of a person, a subject of rights, we have an object, a patient, a case.” (p. 497)

He goes on to argue that by removing the connection between crime and desert (consequence) we make the sentencing of criminals something other than a moral question. Sentencing becomes an experiment for technical experts (who decide on its effectiveness as a cure and/or a deterrent). The maxim Cuiquam in sua arte credendum, rules the day (”we must believe the expert in his own field”). There no longer is room for the public conscience to make value judgments. The public, Lewis points out, is not viewed as having sufficient technical knowledge to make such judgments. What is more, such judgments as are made by these experts rarely (if ever) employ the categories of moral theology.

This is interesting to ponder in the case of someone like Radovan Karadzic. Finally, after some twelve fugitive years, Karadzic awaits trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Karadzic’s indictment concludes that there is reasonable evidence to conclude that he committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Bosnian War (1992-1995) when he was the political leader of Republika Srpska.

What to do with Karadzic?

Allow me to state this as affirmatively and succinctly as possible. When the ITCY tries and (presumably) finds Karadzic guilty of one or more of the counts specified in the prosecution’s case, the sentence should be retributive. That is to say, its first goal should be to make this man pay for the grave moral evil over which he presided.

Certainly, we may hope that over the years of his imprisonment (there is no death sentence in the ITCY) he may come to some degree of genuine repentance (in both the non-theological and theological senses of the word) and an alteration of character. We may also hope that somehow his punishment may serve as a warning to other wicked men.

But, in the end, we must hope that he will be made to pay for his wrongdoing. He may, one day, find mercy. But as Lewis rightly points out, mercy only has any real meaning when found in the context of (retributive) justice.

What would a just sentence look like? This is a difficult question. I do, however, have a difficult time finding anything particularly just about allowing such a man to idle away his remaining years (he is 63) in the (relative) comfort of prison. Of course, I also find a spectacle such as the hanging of Saddam Hussein to wholly without justification. Hussein was a wicked man, but even wicked men ought not be mocked in the hour of their death.

I’m open to suggestions, but I wonder if there isn’t something redemptive about hard labor. It is, after all, in the midst of hard labor that Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov finds the beginnings of renewal and regeneration:

“…[T]he beginning of a new story - the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life…”

We’re among friends here, so we can share a laugh about life as grad students…can’t we? Thanks to the folks in computer science over at the University of Maryland - Baltimore for this list. They had a longer list, but I redacted it down to my favorite ten (so you could get back to that chapter!).

See the complete list here.

Here goes…

I thought I’d clue you in on what’s coming up here on the Following Christ blog. I’m working on a number of posts that should prove to be pretty darn interesting and maybe even a bit provocative.

Our goal here is to provide content that intersects with the theme of Following Christ 08: human flourishing. We want to keep you up to date on new developments with the conference. We also want to get your input about what you’d like to see in the program. So…stay tuned!

Coming up…

I’m lining up interviews with key folks who are leading Following Christ 08 and other thought leaders. So…stay tuned…there’s much more to come!

No. Not really. CNN is carrying the story of an Oklahoma church that planned to give away a semi-automatic assault rifle to one of the registrants for its youth camp. See the story here.

We are giving away gifts to folks who register for Following Christ. You can rest assured, however, that they won’t be the sort of things that you can use to kill you’re your neighbor. Unless you’ve been trained by the CIA or Mossad, in which case (I suspect) your hands will be enough, absent our freebies.

More information on the freebies go to: www.blog.followingchrist.org/fc08-short-videos

Rod Dreher at Crunchy Con links to a fascinating article by William Deresiewicz in The American Scholar. Read the article here.

Sometimes I wonder whether (and to what extent) the university aids or inhibits human flourishing. Deresiewicz wonders too. His article, “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education,” raises at least five ways that elite universities inhibit their students:

1. They make their students unable to talk with people different from themselves.
2. They inculcate their students with a false sense of self-worth.
3. They tempt their students to mediocrity (the Gentleman’s B).
4. They rob their students of the chance to not be rich.
5. They are profoundly anti-intellectual in that they value achievement over ideas.

Here’s a quote:

When elite universities boast that they teach their students how to think, they mean that they teach them the analytic and rhetorical skills necessary for success in law or medicine or science or business. But a humanistic education is supposed to mean something more than that, as universities still dimly feel. So when students get to college, they hear a couple of speeches telling them to ask the big questions, and when they graduate, they hear a couple more speeches telling them to ask the big questions. And in between, they spend four years taking courses that train them to ask the little questions—specialized courses, taught by specialized professors, aimed at specialized students. Although the notion of breadth is implicit in the very idea of a liberal arts education, the admissions process increasingly selects for kids who have already begun to think of themselves in specialized terms—the junior journalist, the budding astronomer, the language prodigy. We are slouching, even at elite schools, toward a glorified form of vocational training.

If the unexamined life is not worth living, perhaps we ought to question the ways we are forming students (both undergraduate, graduate, and post docs) to live their lives?

Steve Hayner, Peachtree Associate Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth at Columbia Theological Seminary will be joining the roster of presenters at Following Christ 2008! Steve will be leading our inter-disciplinary track called, “Doubting Jesus.” The track is designed to be a place for those who are skeptical about Jesus or who are wrestling with faith to engage in honest dialogue.

Steve served has been at Columbia since 2003 he is also Scholar in Residence at Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA. Prior to that he pastored a church in Madison, Wisconsin and served as President of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA.

Here’s Steve speaking about the mission of the church at a 2006 conference.