Clifford Olson, Honour Killing and Christian forgiveness

The September 22 National Post has a front page story on Canada’s most notorious serial killer and among other things, his efforts to get out of jail early. ( Google “The Shadow of Clifford Olson”) Another story in the same edition, “Understanding Honour Killings,” might also be illuminated with reference to the Christian virtue of charity as expressed in forgiveness.
As a 12 Stepper (as in Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and so on) I’ve been subjected to a particular take on forgiveness which is thoroughly Christian, though the 12 Steps are a-religious. Step Four calls for a “searching moral inventory” which at a practical level—I’m talking workbooks and exercises–involves looking at resentments. It seems paradoxical, but this examination of one’s own faults, by looking at our resentments of others, requires us to look at the faults of others (the provocations for our resentments).
But Step Four requires us to acknowledge these only enough to intentionally and consciously surrender them to our Higher Power.
In one powerful exercise I participated in, I was invited to imagine the main object of my resentment chained inside my soul. Liberating the object of my resentment also liberated me.
I think this is good psychology and good spirituality too.
I also think this is entirely compatible with keeping Olson locked up as long as he lives, not only because he may be unhabilitated ( I hesitate to use the term rehabilitated for this assumes Olson was at some point morally acceptable) and a constant threat to public safety.
But also, his crimes were so heinous, they deserve the most serious punishment.
Forgiveness for Christians mean that we should as much as possible wish Olson well, as we should wish everyone well, and not seek emotional satisfaction in inflicting pain on him. We should pray for his soul, his repentance, but not his release.
Now the Honour Killing issue is related. Barbara Kay makes the point in her article that I have myself made in several letters to the Post: Honour Killing is not Islamic in nature, but a characteristic of primitive societies where public institutions cannot be relied upon to deliver impersonal justice. Killing daughters or wives for sexual behaviour that appears to dishonour their families is the salient expression of honour killing today.
In the past, upper class males fought duels with each other in defence of their honour, and lower class males poisoned each others’ wells and dogs and, with malicious gossip, their reputations. This: in Christian as much as Muslim countries. Kay cites a mass honour killing by the sons of Jacob to provide a Jewish example.
Nonetheless, Islamic countries are today the main hotbeds of honour killings. Interestingly, communist regimes also as a matter of policy punish other family members for the crimes of one of their members.
I believe that Jesus’s own injunctions to forgiveness were aimed precisely at the honour culture and not at the crimes against society such as Olson’s. He says “Turn the other cheek” to those slapped on the cheek. He doesn’t say, “When the conqueror comes to tear down your holy temple, show him where you have hidden the sacred vessels.” Or, When bandits come and rape your wife, give them your daughter to rape.”
A slap on the cheek is an insult to your honour. Don’t just ignore it, he says, welcome it: turn your other cheek to him so he can slap that too. It is an attack on the sin of pride which is at the root of the honour culture.
Jesus is also not sending us a message of pacifism. Jesus ‘s lesson on the Roman coin (Rendering to God and Caesar) shows his comfort with the Roman occupation, despite the fact that Rome was a militarist state, a state in which the Army was the largest employer of free men.
Christian teaching as exemplified by Paul endorses the state’s right to wield “the sword” in the cause of public peace, and later theologians widened this teaching to inspire the Just War doctrine.
Punishment of Olson or of Nazi Germany are not acts of vengeance but of justice. Olson, since his conviction, has lived off the public treasury. In effect, he has been forgiven. Germany was allowed and even encouraged to recover from the devastation it brought upon itself in the Second World War, once the Nazis were cleaned out. And the Nazis guilty of less serious crimes were imprisoned and then released: i.e., forgiven. Western civilization continues in its public policies towards both misbehaving individuals and nations to demonstrate the Christian virtue of forgiveness. Islamic teaching may well encourage forgiveness ( I have heard that it does) but this teaching has obviously not permeated that culture the way forgiveness has done so in our own culture. And with good effect, I’d say.
It can go overboard, of course, when it is blended with pseudo science and deems every kind of criminal reformable. But even criminals who aren’t reformed are released after they’ve served their time and that’s how it should be. That’s forgiveness. The decent, professional treatment of people who have committed terrible crimes is one of Western Civilization’s shining expressions of the virtue of forgiveness. Decency need not mean stupidity, gullibility, or folly.