As I write this, the General Election campaign is hotting up!  The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, (I wonder if he is still the Prime Minister when this article is published?) has just made the so-called ‘gaffe of the election’ in the back of his official car referring to the pensioner and Labour supporter, Gillian Duffy, as ‘bigoted’. 

I’m sure the election is over now and we’ve all moved on to criticise whoever is now in power!  But I want to think on this ‘gaffe’.  It clearly wasn’t the wisest thing to say – but which of us hasn’t vented off about something someone else has said when out of their sight and hearing?  And why is it that the media felt they had no qualms about broadcasting the private conversation of the then Prime Minister when his interview was clearly over?  I don’t want to suggest a political stance on this – but I do want to question any sense of righteous indignation we may have about this.  What is it about us as human beings that makes us quickly point the finger when others make mistakes?

When the news broke that the child murderer, Jon Venables, had been recalled to prison in March – it stirred up a host of emotions in the newspaper headlines.  The killing of James Bulger in 1993 was a horrible, brutal and evil act.  The media and, if they are to be believed, many in our country have concluded that Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, his accomplice, were born evil.  Both Thompson and Venables will bear the responsibility for their actions for the rest of their lives.  But, as a Christian, I question whether they should be demonised in the process.  Again I ask myself what is it about us as human beings that makes us quickly point the finger at others?

Christian theology is committed to the notion that since Adam and Eve fell we are all born with a serious defect which causes us to have a sinful nature.  But because I am a Christian, I believe there is a world of difference between
this and the suggestion that we are somehow beyond repair – somehow condemned forever.

I wonder whether the finger pointing, many of us seem to have joined in with, is more to do with a panic within our hearts that the same potential for saying something behind someone’s back and even the same potential for the evil committed by Venables and Thompson, lies at the heart of the human condition and perhaps even within our own hearts?  And it scares us so much that we quickly need to deflect attention away from us and onto whatever scapegoat happens to be in the news at the time.

Friends – I am no saint and I get things wrong – but just as the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said in April after his ‘gaffe’, ‘I am a penitent sinner’ - I constantly ask the Lord to forgive me.  And praise be to God – I know I am forgiven thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.  And when we know that – there really is no need to load our own genuine sense of guilt onto someone else.  For when we turn to Him, Christ takes it away.  He’s paid the price.  And we needn’t point our fingers in any other direction than His. 

With my love and best wishes.

Your friend and vicar,