This Month's Editorial
what use credit cards?
Upon return from being overseas during May, two things stood out in the NZ political scene: the parliamentarians’ credit card misuse and the passing into law of the three strikes legislation. The parade of politicians coming before the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to confess their sins of the misuse of State funds, and then do public penance in the media and on TV before receiving forgiveness, remind me of the oldest form of church penitential practice. Then sinners were banished from the community, only to be readmitted and pardoned after a long period of public penance, perhaps life-long. We are mercifully used to a sacramental practice of reconciliation far different from that. The three strikes legislation, on the other hand, will end hope for some offenders, and is not worthy of a society that bases itself on a claim to dignity and reverence for humanity, however sinful.
There is a serious mismatch between the way parliamentarians are treated by their leaders and the way in which the government is handling the justice questions of the day. Why one gentler standard for parliamentarians and another harsher one for those who deserve to receive a justice based on compassion and humanity as much as any politician? We are all human.
Kim Workman’s comments are an eye-opener, too, on the way in which the government processes are being used. And this is only one example of many similar situations that need to be studied with care.
In this light, it is refreshing to read Janet Sim Elder and Claire Brown’s interview. Here are two women quietly inculcating the highest standards of biblical reconciliation within our own society. It is good to applaud their work and those of others who seek a less vindictive, more positive and hopeful way of turning around the difficult justice questions which intersect with the seemingly imponderable questions facing our society – poverty, depression, a binge-drinking and drug culture, and violence in all forms – to name a few. We can take heart from the setting up of the rethinking crime and punishment trust. Read More »