A couple of weeks ago, 5 year old Samantha Runnion was snatched off the street in front of her mother's house by a beast dressed in human skin. The news reports that he had her alive for several hours before he strangled her (one cannot imagine her experience). Then he placed her by the side of a remote road less than an hour's drive from where I live - placed in such a way that it reduced the man who found her to hysterics (I heard the 911 recording). A couple of days ago they held her funeral where a picture was taken of her mother over her coffin with an expression on her face not to be borne (but still published on the front page of the LA Times - such are our times).

Now, the question must be asked, Where was God? By this, I mean the Judeo-Christian God we find in the Bible - the God who numbers each hair on our heads and sees the fall of a sparrow. The God we find in Jesus who called the little children to come to him, and of whom I sang as a child that he "loves the little children of the world." Where was He when this unutterable act occurred? I've given it some thought and come up with a few answers:

1. He was on vacation.

2. He does love us and wishes he could intervene, but for some reason cannot. Maybe he's too weak, or he's constructed reality in such a way that, say, causing Alejandro Avila's car to have a blow-out or run out of gas there on the condo road would be cheating.

3. He's really indifferent to our suffering.

4. He's evil.

5. It's a mystery.

This all brings to mind Ivan Karamosov in Dostoyevsky's novel, "The Brothers Karamosov." He, too, confronted the terrible mystery of children who have been victimized by adults. He says, in part, that after the day of judgment when all is revealed and set right...

"You see, it's quite possible, if I'm still alive or am resurrected on the day the mother embraces her child's murderer, that I may join them all in their praises and shout with them, 'You were right'; but as of now, I do not want to join them. And while there is still time, I want to dissociate myself from it all; I have no wish to be a part of their eternal harmony. It's not worth one single tear of the martyred little girl who beat her breast with her tiny fist, shedding her innocent tears and praying to 'sweet Jesus' to rescue her in the stinking outhouse. It's not worth it, because that tear will have remained unatoned for. And those tears must be atoned for; otherwise there can be no harmony. But what could atone for those tears? How is it possible to atone for them?"

He has more to say and I recommend it (especially the chapter, "The Grand Inquistor"). However, I don't have the stamina to type it all.

But the question hasn't been answered: Where was God? Religions have been constructed to answer this question, of course, and have various answers, none of them particularly useful, I think. I don't believe there is an answer, really, unless you count the Cross of Christ. Maybe when we accuse God, and point the finger in accusation at Him, He will point, in turn, to the undeserved agony of the innocent on the Cross. It's an existential matter, I think, and not fully capable of being verbalized or formulated or dogmatized. Of course, it doesn't really answer the question for Samantha: it didn't provide her any succor when that demon jammed himself into her or put his hands around her throat. Can those acts and her suffering be wiped out in Eternity? Can they be atoned for through the sufferings of God on the Cross?

How is it that we can bear it, day after day, going about our business: eating, dressing, working, making love, having fun. T.S. Eliot said "mankind cannot bear very much reality," so we go into denial mode. It didn't happen to me or mine; it's just so much TV, more of the daily round of tragedy and evil to which we've become accustomed (alas for us). And yet that child lay on the hard ground in that manner, dead for who knows how many hours with only God for company (if He exists or cares). (This also brings to mind Matthew Sheppard, hung on the crossbars of the fence, dying and alone.)

Oddly, I'm not depressed about it. Perhaps, after so many Samantha's I, like you, have become innured to it. But I'm still puzzled. The mystery of evil is black and inpenetrable, and we see as in a glass, darkly. But I'm put together in such a way that I must grapple with the mystery. I believe in the loving God, and yet He has seen fit to construct me with a sense of empathy which I'd rather do without. So I wrestle with Him like Jacob in the tent, and seek an answer.

The only answer I can come to is no answer at all. The only thing I can think of is to suffer in solidarity with Samantha and her mother as Christ did with all of us. The next step is God's.

louis

The simplest and most consistent answer is that God was where he always is, in the imagination. This simple answer allows you to come to terms with evil quite easily, it is just one of those things. There is no force for evil any more than there is a force for speed, or green or Tuesday afternoons. Evil is just a way of looking at reality. Bad things happen, some people cause many bad things to happen but hardly ever because they simply want to be bad.

Evil cannot be prevented by mumbling to an empty patch of sky, it requires action. It requires us to understand why people do these things, not so that we can forgive them or excuse them but so we can prevent them. Nothing good will ever come from believing that bad things happen simply because some people are bad, that offers no solution, not even the beginning of one. We need to understand why men act in these ways, to understand the rational reasons why they take those actions. Nothing will ever be understood if it is labelled as irrational, inhuman or beyond our capacity to understand. Evil actions are rational to some people, if we understand their mentality we have a chance of preventing them acting that way. Calling them evil and praying that they don't do what they want to do are very poor preventative strategies: strategies that have been proven useless for thousands of years. People have been praying that earthquakes, floods, murders, rapes, plagues and the timely or untimely deaths of monarchs do not happen for thousands of years, normality continues unabated. The rate of spontaneous cures at Lourdes is average for any tourist attraction, you would do as well going to Blackpool. Prayer fails to outperform a placebo for the very simple reason that there is no God.

Martin

I see, so you believe that, in some sense, Avila's rape and murder of Samantha Runnion was "rational" and that, if we can only "understand" him and his motivations we could have prevented his depredations.

I suggest you go see "Minority Report": the only way we'll ever be able to prevent the likes of Avila is to foretell the future. Otherwise, your quaint belief that human evil is "rational" and "understandable" hearkens back to a 19th century optimism which has been shattered by 20th c. events (at least). If you want to believe that Samantha's horrific end was somehow "understandable" and not, in fact, inhuman & irrational, you go right ahead. I won't try to dislodge such discredited Englightenment notions if they make you happy.

l

Don't ever tell anybody to watch fiction to learn about reality.

Paedophilia is not the work of the devil, it is a warping of sexual desire. It is thoroughly repellent and should not be condoned but it *must* be understood. We owe it to our children. Only by detecting potential paedophile abusers before they commit a serious offence can we do anything to prevent the problem. This requires understanding. Thinking that evil thoughts are put into minds by the devil is no help to anybody. Every action a person takes is rational to that person, at least it is rationalized after the fact. By understanding these thoughts and rationalizations we stand a chance of doing something about them. Without this understanding we can do nothing but wring our hands and wail at the impotence of man and God. Understanding is not condoning, we need to understand paedophilia for exactly the same reason we have studied and understood smallpox and cholera. Or would you still have us merely praying to God to cure such diseases?

I cannot see a time coming when paedophile killers are not operating, but I can foresee a time when many are detected and treated before they commit a serious offence. Pre-punishment is nonsensical, but preventive action is a moral imperative.

Martin

The sexual offender literature does not answer the question of "why" in any rational sense. it doesn't even try. Understanding of the offender won't help to prevent offences. There are 'theories' of why, but they are not practical in terms of prevention of offences. The theories were not created by those who do the work with offenders.

What can be done is to provide a continuum of superivision and treatment: lock up those who are most at risk to offend and leave them there, supervise those who have access to the community (this may be electronic monitoring or accompanying the offender when they go anywhere), and others with less than that if they are responsibly consulting and monitoring regarding risk. One of the biggest problems with sexual offenders is that people assume that once out of jail or through a course of therapy or a treatment program, the problem is taken care of. We need more lifetime supervision orders, where the offender can be yanked back into custody when the risk rises. We need to identify those at ongoing risk and intervene before they reoffend. I am not familiar with the the Runnion case, but I will bet that the offender had a record of other offences and then showed signs of increased risk, which should have been acted upon by the authorities. If the authorities didn't have the power to monitor and supervise (e.g. previous supervision order ran out), then the system is busted. This ain't theory, this is common sense, and having the ability to respond to the risks.

Some prediction can be done, and this reduces reoffence rates markedly among certain groups of paedophiles. There is a tracking sample of nearly 30,000 offenders in Canada, which shows that stranger-rapists are essentially untreatable and almost nothing will change reoffence rate, that incest offenders are the most treatable in terms of prevention of reoffence, and other offender groups are intermediate. I'm wondering if this Avila person is a stranger-rapist? To prevent incest offenders, you gotta make sure they don't develop a new relationship with a woman with young children post-jail (this ain't rocket science). And you have to monitor who their friends and acquaintances are, and make sure these people know the history of the offender. This is the job of the community supervisor of the offender. The stranger-rapists, you just lock up and leave there (untreatable people who are locked up don't reoffend, again not rocket science). This sort of management has been partially installed in Canada and New Zealand, and a few places in the USA, like Washington state, with dramatically reduced reoffence rates. The key to management is to properly identify risk and handle the offender accordingly. I am not an apologist for correctional services, but I have assessed about 2500 offenders over the past 15 years or so (I stopped doing this regularly about 5 years ago). We have to unemotionally stack up the risk factors and then statistically and clinically make a conservative assessment, keeping in mind that the primary interest is protection of other people.

Actually, paedophilia is not just sexuality. It is also about power and control. It differs from disease b/c it is a volitional behavior. The comparison to disease reminds me of the idea that alcoholism is a disease. Interesting disease: it makes you take the top off the bottle, bend your elbow, pour it down your throat, and swallow.

We are not likely to prevent first offences, but most of these first offences are likely to be less extreme than sexual killings. These "less intrusive" offences and the dynamnics of the offences do predict subsequent behavior to some degree. Because of the risks to children and others, we have to be conservative and protect potential future victims.

-J. Arnold

Great post. Sexual offences against children need to be understood. We can't think with gut instinct. The extreme liberal view and the extreme hang 'em and flog 'em view are both simplistic. If we know why these people commit such offences we may be able to prevent some of the offences. If we just say they are evil men and the devil makes them do it we cannot predict who he will make do it next time.

For the sake of my eleven year old daughter I hope a lot more people listen to the even-handed and open minded attitudes of men like James Arnold rather than to lynch-mobs, hand-wringing bed-wetters or Jesus freaks. We need to understand the problems, not forgive the sinners, the victims of society or just string up the "beasts". We need to understand the complex motivations of these people and come up with workable strategies to go as far as possible to eliminate this problem while remaining as a society tolerant and liberal. We need to be at once harder and smarter. Not locking them away and throwing away the key, not just asking them politely to desist nor praying for their souls. Firm and effective strategies are required. Psychology and sociology are far more effective tools for developing a solution than theology.

I couldn't do the work I do without the theology. It is the raison d'etre, and the only motivation. Theology, or as I would say it - faith - keeps me grounded, sane in insane situations, and provides the value base in which to develop the tools and to work. Of course, many social scientists deny the religious basis for what they do and how they think, but this is simply denial. (Just try writing the date without acknowledging the years since Christ's birth [even if the calculation is slightly off]). You can't study or work with people without acknowledging one of their core attributes, their religiosity.

-J. Arnold

Weird. The date is the date as accepted by the majority of people you speak to. None of the characters of your bible would recognize the dates we use now, they used the calendar of their era. As soon as there was a church around to call the date the idea that new stuff could be added to the bible became dangerous. The church declared a new calendar and declared divine inspiration in the written word over and done with.

I use the Global Era dating system http://www.go2zero.com/ which does not mark the anniversary of the birth of a mythical figure. (Mythical in the sense of Robin Hood, King Arthur, etc., probably based on a real person, but nobody can be sure where history finishes and myth begins). It is simply based on a commonly accepted reference point, after all, we all know where we were on the "turn of the millennium".

Faith is believing in something whatever the evidence, despite the evidence or despite the fact that you know it isn't true. In a sense you are right to say we all have some, but many of us regard it as the nearest thing you can get to a sin.

I am not at all surprised that you attribute everything good thing you ever do and every good aspect of your character to your faith. That is how it works, that is how it has its hold on you. Every sunrise, goosebump, moment of personal achievement, orgasm and birdsong is due to God and your faith in him. For believers pleasure without praising God is meaningless. Your road to happiness is a toll road with an imaginary tollgate keeper taking a cut of every pleasure you have. For the believer faith is more important than anything else in your life, than your life, than any life. How could you possibly doubt your faith? 70 generations have committed their lives to it, you have committed your life to it. It is your life, it is more than your life. How could you possibly turn your back on that? So you banish those doubts and praise yourself for doing it, and thank God for allowing you to have this wonderful gift of faith.

Thank you for pointing out my denial of my true Christian, religious and spiritual nature. Most Christian of you to be so understanding. I am sorry to disillusion you but deep down inside me I am not you. I'm sorry if this makes your worldview a little more complicated. I am no more a closet Christian than a woman or a goldfish is a man in denial. Deep down inside me I am an atheist, and have been all my life, notwithstanding a brief time during which I became a member of the Church of England. I have never seriously believed in God and I have never thought that believing something against the evidence was anything other than a form of lying to myself, and as such a sin.

I have plenty of values, I would guess I share the vast majority of them with you, except for faith, which I see as the greatest potential force for evil in the world today. People can be good without faith. People can be evil with or without faith, but only faith can enable a good hearted and morally upstanding person to knowingly behave in a thoroughly evil way.

On the subject of Robin Hood and Arthur being as historically probable as Christ: BULLSHIT. We have maybe ONE gueniune historical reference to Arthur, (And it's only a remark on another that "he was no arthur")

I don't remember the stats on Robin, but my guess is they're just as shakey. Whereas with Jesus we have several outside sources.... they may not be as good as you want them to be, but they're not as ambiguous as "he was no arthur".

Get your facts straight before you start making baseless accusations. Are you a historian, btw? What WOULD you know about Arthur or Robin Hood?

Pax,

Leslie.

If you mean by "historian" somebody who earns his living by studying and writing history then no, I am not. Although I did study history at university.

If you admonish me for making the claim that "Robin Hood and Arthur being as historically probable as Christ" I can only hope that you are not involved in history, as you have seriously twisted my words that were right there in front of you.

I said that Jesus Christ is a mythical person *in the same sense* as Robin Hood and King Arthur. By that I mean I am quite happy to accept that all three men probably existed but I am also very clear that the vast majority of stuff that has been written about them was made up, elaborated, spun and twisted in order to make a better story and that it is now quite impossible to disentangle this myth and get down to anything concrete that we can be sure of without making a call to faith, which allows a person to believe anything, including logical absurdities. By the way I have had Christians telling me that there is more evidence to support the historical Jesus than of any person before the twentieth century (sic), which only goes to show the power of faith to cloud the mind. They can seriously believe, hell, seriously have Faith, that we know more about Jesus than we do about Queen Victoria, Napoleon and Abraham Lincoln? Some people will believe anything.

There are no contemporaneous accounts of the life of Jesus, none whatsoever. All accounts are written later, at least a generation later. Doesn't it strike you as odd that not a single Roman account of a major threat to their power in Jerusalem was written down? It would be as fishy as finding that not a single written word existed about Elvis Presley and then a book be published this year detailing his assassination in Dallas by a lone gunman in Heartbreak Hotel because Castro didn't like his song "I have a Dream". Then another few years later we get the second gospel adding its account of the second gunman, Jack Harvey Ruby, the Duke of Earl, standing on the grassy knoll outside the Dakota building with his fourscore magnificat asking The King if he felt lucky.

Martin J Willett

www.mwillett.org