Model Citizens

Today I came across one of the best pieces of news I’ve read all year. In the wake of the horrible shooting at an Amish grade school in Pennsylvania, the Amish community quickly and publicly forgave the shooter, even going as far as to set up a fund for his now fatherless children and invite his widow to the funerals for the Amish children he killed. I’m instilled with a great sense of respect for this community - I can’t imagine a nobler response. And this from a community that just lost five little girls to senseless tragedy.

Of course, I’m probably in the minority in this country in how I view their instant forgiveness. There’s almost nothing we Americans love more than revenge. In the name of ratings and votes, tragedies such as this one are so often spotlighted in the national media, with appropriately tough-looking politicians and leaders commenting on how they won’t stand for it, and we as Americans won’t let them get away with this.

In fact, after September 11th, we were so hell-bent on revenge that we let ourselves be effortlessly talked into supporting a war that was blatantly ill-timed and unnecessary (just ask the rest of the world). Not only that, but it was war against an enemy who had nothing to do with the attacks! The fact that most Americans believed at the time (and perhaps still do) that Saddam Hussein was associated with the 9/11 attacks speaks not only to the advertising genius of the political machine, but also to our thirst for revenge and its mentally distorting effects.

Think of the typical antihero in the typical action film who’s dead set on getting revenge against all those who wronged him. He gets so caught up in his bloodthirst that his pursuit isn’t really about revenge anymore - it’s about killing someone, anyone, to let out his aggression and grief. On a much larger scale, that’s exactly what happened in the aftermath of 9/11. Americans were so shocked and outraged by the attacks (and rightly so, of course) that they didn’t bother to look past the front page when Bush offered them a juicy target for their anger, the very marketable villain named Saddam. Of course those in power who decided to make such an offering were not operating on blind rage - there was a LOT of money to be made in attacking oil-rich Iraq, and the situation just made the prospect of winning public support look a lot easier.

“But all that doesn’t mean that revenge is wrong, it just means it should be more calculated, right Jake?”

I’m glad you asked, because therein lies the real point of this rant. See, the most touching part of the story of the Amish forgiveness is that it expresses a real human compassion that is incredibly hard to come by, especially in the media; as Steven Gimbel of the Philadelphia Inquirer called it, “a glimmer of the best part of humanity.” And the interesting part, to me, is that their forgiveness is motivated by the words of Jesus. He said, “bless them that curse you and pray for them which despitefully use you.” You know, “turn the other cheek.” Given that this doctrine is so straightforward in the Bible, you’d think that a nation with a large Christian majority would have little trouble accepting it. But quite the opposite is true. Jesus himself would be very disappointed to see how most of his “followers” are acting these days. But he would be very proud of the Amish community in question, and we all should be, too.