Blind and barbaric

I have to write something, however brief, about the killing of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.  These two men were part of the Bali Nine arrested over ten years ago for drug offences, put on trial in Indonesian courts and eventually sentenced to death.

Over the decade, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran had welcomed help and had reformed themselves.  Andrew Chan had become a Christian, a leader and a peacemaker in the prison.  Myuran Sukumaran had become an artist and a man of good counsel, teaching and producing meaningful art works.  They were Australian citizens.

By the end of the decade there was no sensible reason left to execute them, if there ever was.  They had become good citizens.  They had deeply regretted their crimes and had amended their lives.  Much media coverage of them showed clearly that they had taken leave of criminality. 

There never was any sensible reason to judicially execute them, or anyone – except that the president and the government of Indonesia needed above all to demonstrate a hard line on drugs.  You deal in drugs, you get caught, we will kill you.  So these two, along with six others, were this morning taken out and put to death by firing squads.  (The ninth, a woman, got a reprieve at the last minute because her evidence may be needed against someone else.  How appalling is that.)  This was all done in the face of widespread international protest including pleas from several governments, and intense media coverage, right up to the sound of the gunshots. 

Capital punishment is unsupportable and has been wiped off the statute books of many countries for years.  There are better ways to deal with gross criminal guilt.  But for many the need for vengeance prevails.  What Indonesia did was unnecessary, blind, barbaric. 

Mortlock

Intelligent, sensitive, Christlike Christianity took yet another hit in a video I chanced upon the other day.  Tuning in as usual soon after 5 am to Al Jazeera for some informative and accurate world news, my attention was caught on another channel by a smiling, fresh-faced couple being interviewed about their recent escape from somewhere.  Over about five minutes it turned out to be Mexico.  This peripatetic missionary couple and their kids were in some town or city that had been ransacked – drug wars? earthquake?  I had missed the beginning and was never quite sure.  But the terminal building at the local airport was destroyed.  Queues of hundreds were becoming desperate to get out.  The only aircraft movements were military. 

This couple had four young children with them.  It emerged that they were all from Auckland’s City Impact Church, a sort of fundamentalist cultic excrescence which has excited a lot of gullible people since the early 1980s.  The CIC is “pastored” by Peter and Bev Mortlock, complete with perfect whitened teeth.  Peter and Bev began in some small church hall, and now run a large operation which seems to be everywhere from Tonga to Canada.  (I have read too much 19^th century gothic ever to be comfortable with the name Mortlock.)

But to the story…  Trapped in this place, needing to find a way out fast, these parents were starting to assume they would just have to join the interminable and not-moving airport queues.  It was hopeless.  But God intervened for them.  At this point I find myself switching to Jaundiced View.  God is conjuring up miracles so that these lovely Christian people, Mum, Dad, two boys and two girls, can reach safety. 

Never mind about the hundreds, maybe thousands of others stranded at the airport.  God reaches out for our City Impact family because they are righteous, I presume, and they have been engaged on the Lord’s Business – I couldn’t see any other reason for their election to favour above others. 


First miracle:  Someone from Alaska Air hands them a voucher for the local Sheraton, lido, swimming pool, family room and all.  Alaska Air...?  It seems only God knows why this happened -- let alone why it happened to these folk but not to the others thronging the airport.

Then after some serious righteous enjoyment of the facilities of the Sheraton, Dad manages to make contact with a local airforce crew, one of whom speaks English.  He says get your family immediately and come round the back.  They sprint, packing as they go, and find themselves on an airforce plane.

The Mum does show momentary concern for the many others around the front of the airport, waiting.  She hands over all the cash she has on her to a woman.  In the interview this Mum stresses, several times, not only that she did that, but that it was all OK because there is a spiritual rule that God gives back to you what you have given away.  One or two things grated here, where I am, somewhat further down the spiritual pecking order.  One was her determination to let her right hand know what her left was doing.  I think Jesus said you shouldn't do that.  The other was that charity and compassion tend to get diluted if you are expecting to get back what you gave away… it seems to me.

“Where is this plane headed?” asks the Dad of a crewman, once they are all on board.  “San Diego…”  Well! God has just arranged another miracle.  San Diego, USA, is precisely where they would like to go.  It’s all working out just as it should for the righteous.

Pastor Peter Mortlock touts this video as shining evidence of God’s Love and Provision.  Miracles prevail for the Upright.  Never mind the rest of us, still waiting hopelessly at the airport.

Well sorry, Pete brother, but it’s unbiblical, unChristlike, unchristian, unlikely, untrue.