Justice William Horkins has set March 24 to announce his verdict in the Jian Ghomeshi trial. Ghomeshi, in case you’ve been emulating a groundhog all winter, pled not guilty to five charges of sexual assault and choking. A friend of a friend asked a judge, off the record, if he thought Ghomeshi would get off. The judge gave a four-word reply: "It's a slam dunk." Acquittal seems like denial of justice. The allegations by Ghomeshi’s victims, plus his own video of “rough sex,” portray him as a creep. Or, in psychological lingo, as a sadist, narcissist, or psychopath. There is, of course, a rational logic for acquittal. In an earlier case, Justice Horkins wrote, “When one considers the grave consequences of being wrongfully convicted… nothing less than proof beyond reasonable doubt can be accepted as the foundation of a criminal conviction.” But reason doesn’t always match our assumptions. Our society holds a deep conviction that crime deserves punishment. In cop shows on TV, the murderers, swindlers, and traitors always get what they deserve.
No punishment at all Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado sang: “My object all sublime, I shall achieve in time, to make the punishment fit the crime…” Yet in real life, punishment rarely fits the crime. The bankers who screwed up the system by selling valueless derivatives should have been left penniless. Instead, they got huge bonuses, and their banks got bailed out by the taxpayers -- who lost their homes and jobs. The CEOs of mining companies who dug lasting scars into the landscape, of logging companies who destroyed old-growth forests, should spend the rest of their lives disfigured and despised. They don’t. They live in manicured estates, the exact opposite of what they did to the earth. Politicians who fabricated deliberate lies about non-existent weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for going to war should have been turfed from office and sent to the front lines. Instead, they got re-elected. While 4000 American sons and daughters came home in caskets. Perhaps this disparity between our natural sense of justice and the realities of life led us to invent hell. Even if those sinners don’t get what they deserve in this life, we could tell ourselves, they’ll get it in the next. Thus justice is served, after all. Or is it?
Outdated understandings Jian Ghomeshi’s trial, it seems to me, was based on an outdated understanding of sex. It is not a sacred act between lovers anymore. Recent research into the sexual habits of university students -- and I hasten to say that I do 
not speak from personal experience -- suggests that sex today has no more significance than having a drink with a friend. Ghomeshi clearly was not forcing his accusers to have sex with him. They expected to have sex. They expected to enjoy it. They didn’t expect to have their hair pulled, their heads punched, their throats throttled. If Ghomeshi is guilty of anything, it’s breach of trust. He led them to expect one thing; he delivered something else. He falls into the same class as promoters of ponzi schemes and fraudulent investments. If the punishment fits the crime, as the Mikado sang, Ghomeshi should be -- no, I honestly cannot think of a suitably poetic punishment.
The innocent suffer But the idea of appropriate vengeance will not go away. Believers in retribution quote the Bible: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Or, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” Vengeance, explains the Oxford Companion to the Bible, “was God’s way of redressing wrongs.” Yet Jesus, also according to the Bible, specifically rejected the argument that the people crushed by a collapsing wall had done anything to deserve their fate. The believers are right that suffering is connected to sin. They’re wrong in assuming that the sufferer sinned. Maybe the builder of the wall did, cutting corners on construction. A straying husband may not be suffering on a beach in the Bahamas with his new lover. But the wife and children left behind are. The inhabitants of the low San Blas islands in the Caribbean, and of the island nation of Kiribati in the Pacific, have to abandon their ancestral homes. They must move to higher ground in Panama and Fiji as ocean levels rise. Their suffering is silent evidence that a sin was committed, somewhere, sometime. But it was not theirs. Suffering is a sure sign that a sin has happened; but it’s not necessarily anyone’s punishment. ******************************************************** Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved. To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca ********************************************************
YOUR TURN
Tom Watson did some serious thinking about the pros and cons of banning books: “You are right that efforts throughout history to ban books recognized that those doing the banning knew full well that reading something will influence what the readers think. Thus, the Church, and governmental legislatures, and local school boards, have attempted to censor what is read and taught in churches and school classrooms. “The idea is centuries old. Plato argued that only what was good and wholesome about a particular historical figure’s life should be taught, as there was no value in learning about that figure’s foibles and failings. In Plato’s views, learning about what is good enables people to enhance their own virtues and thus benefits society as a whole, whereas learning about what is bad only diminishes both the individual and society. “I find it interesting that the four provinces you cite—Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia— place their ‘censorship’ under the guise of preventing criminals from profiting from writing about their crimes. In contrast, however, it seems perfectly appropriate for other people to write about the same crime and profit from it. Not to mention the endless hours of discussion of the subject on TV, radio, in the newspapers, and online, where no crime is too horrific or too lurid not to be examined ad nauseam from all angles. “If we were going to be consistent, would we not seek to ban all writing and discussion of matters such as that perpetrated by Robert Pickton? Applying Plato’s thinking, of what value is it to us even to know about it, let 
alone read about it and discuss it? “To go Plato’s route would, though, be wrong. Mainly because it places the decision about what I watch, listen to, and read in the hands of those who allegedly know far better than I what I should be exposed to.”
Donna Campbell wrote, “I too do not appreciate others telling me what I can or cannot read. Picton’s book will no doubt make many uncomfortable but it may also contain some enlightening details, or at the very least a glimpse into a very disturbed mind. Whatever the case, banning it raises more concerns for me than allowing it.”
Steve Roney objected, “It is perfectly reasonable that the writings of Marx or Hitler were not on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The Index existed to warn Catholics of books that might mislead them as to faith or morals. Nobody is going to mistake Marx or Hitler for correct Catholic doctrine. Darwin has, on the other hand, never been considered to be counter to Catholic doctrine. You are confusing Catholics with fundamentalist Protestants.”
Laurna Tallman reminded me “that editors are censors, of a kind. We have the privilege and responsibility of refining for easier assimilation the truths authors choose to express to the general public or to a target market. “The revolting documents you describe belong in a literary/medical museum of aberrance, appropriately labelled for the artifacts they are, printed without editorial input. In my view, all features of the manuscripts should be reproduced in very limited editions precisely as produced, the better to understand the mental incapacities of their authors. They have no other valid social purpose I can imagine.” Laurna has done a lot of work on hearing. She pointed out (taking a different position from Isabel Gibson  last week) that we shouldn’t confuse sound with human hearing. “The hearing of sound requires an ear of some type… Some sounds are produced in frequencies too high or too low for the human ear to transmit them, but other creatures hear them. The disturbances of air molecules do not cease to be sounds if you or I cannot perceive them. The lowest frequencies of sound in the human range of hearing can be seen by the human eye. The eye and ear overlap in their perceptions of some of those lower frequencies.” And of course, some animals can hear sounds that are far out of range of the human ear, which doesn’t make them not-sounds. 
Isabel Gibson took a break from the Brier: “Prevent criminals from profiting by writing about their crimes? Well, that opens a can of worms, but OK. Prevent people from publishing or prevent access for adults? Nope.”
Hanny Kooyman had a short, crisp comment: “How precious is the right to think. With or without interpreter.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
This column comes to you using the electronic facilities of Woodlakebooks.com.        If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the “Reply” button.        To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the address above. Or subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to sharpedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at sharpedgesunsubscribe@quixotic.ca.        You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.        I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly, at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedgessubscribe@quixotic.ca
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PROMOTION STUFF…
 Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah – the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.com Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up,  http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>  Alan Reynold’s weekly musings, punningly titled “Reynolds Rap” -- reynoldsrap@shaw.ca  Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com  Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town – not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” – ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net
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