wfn.org | Can restorative justice help Christians deal with terrorism?

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Sept. 27, 2001 News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.     10-21-71BP{431}

NOTE: A photograph of the Rev. Thomas Porter is available for use with this
story.

By United Methodist News Service

Shortly after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Ann Whiting,
editor of the Michigan Christian Advocate, conducted an interview with the
Rev. Thomas Porter, a United Methodist clergyman and attorney who is
director of JUSTPEACE, the United Methodist Center for Mediation and
Conflict Transformation. The agency was created in 2000 by the General
Council on Finance and Administration.  Its purpose is to "prepare and
assist United Methodists to engage conflict constructively in ways that
strive for justice, reconciliation, resource preservation and restoration of
community in the church and in the world." As part of his vocational shift
to mediation and conflict transformation, Porter spent a sabbatical in South
Africa studying the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Whiting: Please describe the concept of restorative justice.

Porter: Restorative justice is grounded in the biblical understanding of
justice. The focus is on the harm created, not simply on the breach of law.
This means that the first priority is understanding and responding to the
needs of victims and the healing of victims.  The direct victims are the
primary focus, but everyone else who has been touched by the crime is also
involved, including the community as a whole. 

This is different from retributive justice, which is offender-focused and
offender-driven, determining guilt or innocence and imposing punishment,
with the state being the victim. 
To address the harm to victims, restorative justice believes that we must
affirm moral responsibility and the need for accountability on the part of
those who have done the harm.  

The retributive justice system sees accountability as punishment or pain for
pain, looking only at the past and the crime as a moment in history. 

Restorative justice sees the past in the context of the present and the
future, looking at:
* what accountability is needed to address the harm to the victims;
* what accountability would provide the offender the opportunity to do
restitution or reparation or whatever needs to be done to address the harm
created; and
* what accountability is needed for the restoration of community, including
the restoration of the victim and the offender into community.

Such accountability assumes the need for safety.  This involves the whole
community taking responsibility for the victims as well as the offender,
including seeing everyone in a human context that is broader than just the
moment of the crime.

Finally, restorative justice is about the engagement of all parties,
including the larger community, in working towards healing the harm and the
creation of community, a community that includes both the victims and the
offenders. 

Whiting: How could the principles of restorative justice help inform our
national and personal response to the attacks?

Porter: I speak with a lot of humility here.  I have no pat answers.  We are
all trying to get handles on how to respond in a time of overwhelming
emotions.  I do believe that the lens of restorative justice is very helpful
in giving us some handles on what we should be doing. We know we need
justice.  After trying cases for 25 years as a trial lawyer, I came to see
that retributive justice was not the justice my clients really wanted or
needed. 

We must focus first on those who have been harmed and their needs: the
families of those who have died, those who were injured, and then on all of
us, as we were all victims.  Each victim is different as each human being is
unique, but there are some things that seem to be fairly universal.  With
victims and as victims, we must mourn and we must grieve.  This is a time
for lament. We need to be tender with each other.  We should recognize that
we and others will be inclined to take our anxiety out on others.  

One of the first needs that must be addressed is the need for safety;
everything being done that can be done so that victims are not
re-victimized, and so there are not new victims. This will lead us to the
question of what really gives us security: is it military might or is it
living in God's kingdom of love and justice? Our ultimate security is in
positive, collaborative relations.

We need to listen as Job's friends did before they started giving all their
solutions, and not judge people's feelings and emotions.  

 We do need to help people feel heard, so we need to provide opportunities
for people to tell their stories. 

Our government needs to keep us all informed, as we all need answers to what
happened. 
 We need to find ways to participate in addressing what accountability
should look like.  
Ultimately, we need to be healed.  What will help us with our healing? Our
biblical understanding is that hate, revenge, and violence do not heal, but
love, justice, and mercy do.  God heals.  God does this through compassion
and ultimately through forgiveness and reconciliation.

In regard to accountability, I do believe that this horrendous act is best
dealt with as a crime against humanity and not with the rhetoric of war.
These are criminal acts.  We should give the terrorists no more legitimacy
than that of being criminals.  We should affirm our commitment to the rule
of law and respond to this crime accordingly. This should be a police action
by the nations of the world together. These criminals need to be
apprehended, tried and incarcerated.  
  
Restorative justice is also about the accountability of the community to
everyone involved. The time will come when our grief and loss will ebb and
allow us to look at these criminals and their stories. This must be done in
order to create a community where all are safe, and where justice brings us
peace. We are called to work for shalom or right relations. Why did they do
this? Why is there so much hatred? Most criminals are victims who have
perpetuated the cycle of reactive violence.  What do we need to create a
world without such terrorists? 

The biggest problem we have in the world is the never-ending cycle of
violence, which was witnessed in these attacks on us.  How do we respond
without becoming what we hate?  How can we break these cycles of violence in
the world?  We know that God has told us that this is done by working for
shalom (a biblical image of peace and wholeness), or right relations in this
world. This is the way we will build community, which is the ultimate goal
of restorative justice.
  
Whiting: In the context of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, what are the
biblical models we should be using to understand how Christians should
respond?

Porter: We should affirm that we should be following Jesus and trying to
discern what God's love is calling us to do.  Jesus' way, as I understand
it, was not that of retribution.  His way is of compassion for victims and
also for sinners or people who rupture the relational communion.  Jesus does
not demonize people, no matter how evil they are.  This was evil. 

Restorative justice, I believe, is a way to begin to give practical steps to
what God is ultimately calling us to do and be, that is, ministers of
reconciliation.  This is hard for us to feel at this moment, even hard to
talk about.  But, if we claim to follow Jesus, we need to figure out how we
as Christians can begin to practice this in a world that worships violence
and believes that it is redemptive. In this context, we need to live with
Jesus' call to courageous and aggressive non-violence, forgiveness and love
of enemy, as the only way we can fight what we hate without becoming what we
hate, break the cycle of violence, and heal the brokenness that is in the
world today.  This is not doormat theology. It is not cheap grace.  I
personally have a long way to go both in my feelings and in my actions.  We
are called to be co-creators of shalom and this is going to require
creativity we have barely begun to touch.

Whiting: How would you suggest leaders in faith communities approach their
congregations to begin to understand the roots of terrorism related to, for
example, Palestinian victimization? Sanctions that impact the civilian
population of Iraq? Other history of U.S. oppression?

Porter: I believe that leaders in faith communities can first help us
develop a new attitude towards the conflict we are in.  Like any other
conflict, it is dangerous, but it is also an opportunity. We can continue
the destructive nature of what the terrorists began, or we can engage it
constructively.

This conflict has generated a huge amount of energy and focus for all of us.
The first reactions are understandably filled with grief and anger and
desires for retribution.

But what if we used this energy to do good, for all God's creation?  What if
we used the energy of this conflict for growth and learning?

This conflict has already evoked an outpouring of compassion for the victims
that is remarkable. This conflict has brought people together in community,
in our churches.  This conflict has brought many of us to a greater sense of
dependence on God.

I believe that this conflict can also help us see our connectedness and
interdependence with all God's creation, including the people of the
mountains of Afghanistan, for example. If this conflict is going to be
engaged constructively, we should listen to those with whom we are in
conflict, listen for understanding.  We need to let the world know that we
hear, for example, the needs of the Palestinians as well as the needs of the
Iraqi people. If there are injustices that are fueling this rage, even if
they are not of our own making, the most constructive thing we can do is to
deal with compassion towards those injustices. This is in our best interest.
It is also what God calls us to do.

The Web site address for JUSTPEACE is: www.JUSTPEACEumc.org.

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