The Vilest Offender Who Truly Believes?

Not so long ago a serial rapist in England was granted parole after serving eight years of his sentence. This rightly caused a public outcry and the decision was overturned. The one  aspect of this terrible case I want to focus on was that he claimed to have become a Christian in prison. This led to various responses. “He’s deceived if he thinks God has forgiven him” being one of them. I am obviously not in a position to know whether he has truly repented and turned to Christ. When it comes to prisoners it is easy for me to be sceptical because it could easily be a ploy to get early release (“I’m a reformed character, Guv”). But my scepticism is neither here nor there to the grace of God.

Let’s put this man to one side now and consider “sinners” in general. What is the grace of God for? Surely it shows favour to those who don’t deserve it. (Which, by the way, is all of us.) Do we have something in the back of our minds that the grace of God is only for people whose sins are no worse than mine? Or do we really believe that “the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives”? Why would we put a limit on who we are happy to accept as a brother or sister in Christ based on their past behaviour? “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.” “Forgive one another in Christ as God has forgiven you.” “Freely you have received, freely give.” OK, the sin may not have been against us but the concept of accepting one another in Christ stands, even if it is unpalatable to us.

When the Apostle Paul was converted there was scepticism and fear among the Christians because he had been persecuting Christians and dragging them into prison. If he could, however, be accepted by the church, then anyone can. I think a cautious welcome is fine if need be and some degree of monitoring of the behaviour of the person to see if they demonstrate fruit in keeping with repentance. Depending on the sins involved some safeguarding measures may need to be put in place. But an outright rejection of the person from the outset is not Christian.

Here’s a link to a poem I wrote about this, which expresses things in a different way…

Happy Feet

The Day I Met God

I had quite a lonely childhood. Partly this may have been due to me isolating myself at times and partly due to being one of those kids that always got left out of things or was the last to be picked for teams. I was quite introspective and unhappy. Teenage years magnified this and unhappiness turned into its evil cousin, misery.

I had always been interested in the supernatural and had a firm belief that some vague kind of God existed out there. I thought that the way to get into heaven was to be good, and, in my eyes, I was good. And I think I really was comparatively good. I didn’t get into trouble or seek to be disruptive. I went to church Sunday School as a child and I believe I liked it. But that ceased when one of the other kids who stopped going turned up after church just to bully me, so I stopped going too.

Losing this contact with God didn’t stop me being interested in the supernatural. I read all manner of books on the occult, ghosts, aliens, divination - and totally scared myself. I became very superstitious and fearful, carrying out rituals to stop vague, bad things from happening to me, afraid of the dark in case a ghost appeared or an alien came to abduct me.

Life went on, and I became more miserable, more lonely, more scared. I hated myself, I hated the world, and became obsessed with wanting it to end. And good riddance! Actually, wanting it to end wasn’t enough, I wanted to know when that would happen. So, aged 18, I set about on a quest to find out when the world would end.

I read parts of books from a few different religions, but they didn’t tell me when it would happen. Then it occurred to me to read the Bible. If the Bible was God’s book, God was sure to know when the world would end and it would be in the Bible. I started reading at the beginning - a task that would take 6 months. But no - no date in the Bible for the end of the world! Then I came across a book by Billy Graham called Approaching Hoofbeats, which was about the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Yes - Revelation! The end of the world! Maybe Billy Graham could tell me!

Well, no. Billy Graham didn’t tell me when the world was going to end. But he told me about Jesus. Why He died and what I could do to know Him and receive eternal life. I knew this was what I wanted and I did it. In my bedroom I prayed to become a Christian, telling God I was sorry for my sins, asking Him to forgive me, and asking Jesus into my life. I felt a tangible whoosh of peace flood my whole body. And that was the day I first met God.