Law & Order examines law and grace

Law & Order offers stories "ripped from the headlines" and certainly unafraid of controversy. The episode that aired Wednesday, May 11, on NBC certainly deserved to provoke conversation. In it, the detectives reopened a nine-year-old cold murder case, and tracked down a promising suspect. And the accused admits to the crime and is prepared to literally throw himself on the mercy of the court. But, at the last minute, an outside group hires an attorney who tries to get the charges dropped.

He is a changed man, the lawyer argues; confronted with the horror of what he had done, he had a moral awakening and became a born again Christian. "O great," someone said, "another 'bash the Christians' show…"

That's how Jonah Goldberg at National Review Online took it. Kathy Shaidle linked to his article in a Friday, May 13, post at her "Relapsed Catholic" blog. She quotes Goldberg's description of the accused as someone

who, in shame and remorse, subsequently found Jesus and was born again. In the nine years since he dedicated himself to Christ, he has led an exemplary life. But his guilt is discovered, and he decides to confess and show true contrition.

Some of the leading characters in the show found this defense convenient at best. And it was an occasion for several cynical comments about "what's happening in this country right now." It did have its share of anti-Christian prejudice. But it also had lots more.

The character turned almost overnight from a self-absorbed upwardly-mobile urban professional to a simple-lifestyle model of community service. He left a high paying job to work at a community service agency. He became a faithful member of an inner city black church. From every measurable view, the man's repentance and reformation was genuine.

We call them correctional instutitions, one character says, and this man's life has been corrected; he's done more good for society in the last nine years on the outside than he could ever have done locked in prison. Perhaps, another character answers, but there are other reasons for prison than rehabilitation.
That's just the first and simplest issue the story raised.

Far more interesting to me was the complex interplay between finding forgiveness and facing consequences. Often Christians rather sloppily speak of being justified as meaning something like "just as if I'd never sinned." But we can never truly find that place. The sin happened, and there are consequences that abide. The accused never denied his guilt, nor tried to avoid facing the consequences. He never argued along the lines of "since Christ washed my guilt away and declared me innocent in his sight, the state of New York should do so as well."

Other people made the appeal to dismiss the charges on his behalf. People who had been touched by the love and compassion the accused had learned to show. People like the african american pastor who testified the gospel taught him to forgive those who repent -- even those who repent of a terrible hate crime.

And there is the father whose son was killed, who knows he should forgive, but just doesn't have it in him.

Any one of these themes opens up lots of avenues for serious faith discussions. No, this was far from just another "bash the Christians" show. The trial part, anyway, was actually was one of the better examinations of the questions of redemption, atonement, punishments, and justice that TV has done.