Wednesday, December 07, 2005

They're Just Sinners

States are struggling with how to treat sex offenders. This is a worthy topic of discussion both in the state and in the church given the reoccurrence rate among sex offenders. I'm not seeking to be a simpleton nor to set public policy but this is easier than it looks while impossible at the same time.

While it may be the sincere opinion of many mental health professionals that sex offenders are not psychotic what this means is that treatment is not needed for them. This yields no solution though since if a prisoner has done his time and there is not a compelling state interest in holding him in a mental facility, he must go free. People don't want sex offenders to go free though since most likely they'll commit a crime again. Thus the conundrum with no spiritual view of things.

Without a Christian view of this topic it's impossible to solve. Religions come in only two forms: those which conform people's behavior by external constraint and those which conform people's behavior by internal change. The first is everything but Christianity (including godless, secular humanism which lies at the root of our modern American penal system) and the second is orthodox Christianity. A penal and mental health system whose worldview cannot encompass the spiritual needs of those it serves can only be frustrated. Thus the impossibility of a Spirit-less system solving the "what do we do with sex offenders" question.

But a Spirit-ual system (i.e. one which mandates the renewing, renovating, heart overturning work of the Spirit of God in granting new life to dead sinners) makes it look easy. A sex offender is one who views others as the tool of his pleasure rather than a fellow image-bearer to be respected and cherished while sexual fulfillment is found in marriage. What is wrong with a sex offender's thinking and actions is easy to determine but impossible to change for fellow humans.

However, what is impossible for man is possible with God. Not just in a virgin having a baby but in inveterate sex offenders becoming new people in Christ by the powerful operation of the Spirit granting new life to dead sinners. Sex offenders may or may not be psychotic. I'll leave the psychiatrists to figure that out. But this sinner knows that apart from the Spirit of God I could be a sex offender and so could you. The difference is not inherently in the sinner but in the Savior's Spirit who mercifully changes heart.

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