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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>Compassion and civility in a context of violence and bloodshed</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY BISHOP HOWARD GREGORY
Sunday, January 14, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>In October 2006, one Charles Carl Roberts IV, of Georgetown, Pennsylvania, entered the West Nickel Mines Amish School in that community and shot 10 girls ages 6-13, leading to the death of five of them in a very gruesome scene.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=100 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>BISHOP HOWARD GREGORY </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>He subsequently committed suicide as the police stormed the building. It was revealed that this truck driver had brought with him lubricating gel and plastic restraints which, according to police, suggest that the perpetrator may have been planning to sexually assault the girls.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As expected, the American nation and the wider world received the news with a sense of outrage at the fact of the crime, and also at the fact that the perpetrator took his own life and did not allow "justice" to take its course. For many persons, justice would have meant the satisfaction of seeing the perpetrator facing the death sentence and the consequent satisfaction that his blood was shed, even as he had shed that of those young lives.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Leaders of the Amish community and family members of those murdered, in a move that stunned the nation, took the decision that forgiveness of the perpetrator and the embrace of his family with love and friendship was the path they would pursue in facing this very challenging and devastating situation.<P class=StoryText align=justify>More than that, not only would they be offering comfort to the wife and three children of the perpetrator, but they would be inviting them to share in the funeral services for the girls and also share in the communal resources available to the community in their time of distress, shame, and potential isolation and ostracism.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Not surprisingly, the crime and the incomprehensible response of the Amish community to the tragedy became the subject of much discussion and debate in the media as people questioned the wisdom and the genuineness of the community's decision. This should not surprise us, as much of the US society is currently locked in the support of a policy which is pursuing terrorists in a blood-letting exercise that seeks to rationalise its actions by pointing to the number of lives lost in 9/11.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=140 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Young Khalil Campbell who was killed on January 3. </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Sadly, the US is learning that the 'eye for an eye' policy never really brings the end it seeks to realise, and so the blood-letting goes on under the banner "War on Terrorism", and the satisfaction of a sense of "justice" which it is supposed to bring remains elusive. The reality is that this Amish community, which sits on the fringes of American religious life and is treated as a kind of anachronism, is teaching the mainline religious community and the nation some religious truths which seem to have been lost - forgiveness is costly, but it is an imperative of those who would take the gospel of Jesus Christ seriously.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Stripped of the reli
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY BISHOP HOWARD GREGORY
Sunday, January 14, 2007
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>In October 2006, one Charles Carl Roberts IV, of Georgetown, Pennsylvania, entered the West Nickel Mines Amish School in that community and shot 10 girls ages 6-13, leading to the death of five of them in a very gruesome scene.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=100 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>BISHOP HOWARD GREGORY </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>He subsequently committed suicide as the police stormed the building. It was revealed that this truck driver had brought with him lubricating gel and plastic restraints which, according to police, suggest that the perpetrator may have been planning to sexually assault the girls.<P class=StoryText align=justify>As expected, the American nation and the wider world received the news with a sense of outrage at the fact of the crime, and also at the fact that the perpetrator took his own life and did not allow "justice" to take its course. For many persons, justice would have meant the satisfaction of seeing the perpetrator facing the death sentence and the consequent satisfaction that his blood was shed, even as he had shed that of those young lives.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Leaders of the Amish community and family members of those murdered, in a move that stunned the nation, took the decision that forgiveness of the perpetrator and the embrace of his family with love and friendship was the path they would pursue in facing this very challenging and devastating situation.<P class=StoryText align=justify>More than that, not only would they be offering comfort to the wife and three children of the perpetrator, but they would be inviting them to share in the funeral services for the girls and also share in the communal resources available to the community in their time of distress, shame, and potential isolation and ostracism.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Not surprisingly, the crime and the incomprehensible response of the Amish community to the tragedy became the subject of much discussion and debate in the media as people questioned the wisdom and the genuineness of the community's decision. This should not surprise us, as much of the US society is currently locked in the support of a policy which is pursuing terrorists in a blood-letting exercise that seeks to rationalise its actions by pointing to the number of lives lost in 9/11.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=140 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>Young Khalil Campbell who was killed on January 3. </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Sadly, the US is learning that the 'eye for an eye' policy never really brings the end it seeks to realise, and so the blood-letting goes on under the banner "War on Terrorism", and the satisfaction of a sense of "justice" which it is supposed to bring remains elusive. The reality is that this Amish community, which sits on the fringes of American religious life and is treated as a kind of anachronism, is teaching the mainline religious community and the nation some religious truths which seem to have been lost - forgiveness is costly, but it is an imperative of those who would take the gospel of Jesus Christ seriously.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Stripped of the reli