The Coming Balancing of Mercy and Justice

       The Anatomically Correct Banana has recently been discussing what he terms pathological altruism--that is, an overweening altruism that, because it is meant to virtue signal, is done without care or concern of the results or negative outcome. He explains that for most people, the expression of the pathological altruism is to gain a dopomine hit or act as a status signal--something that should be familier to those that have read Anonymous Conservative's book and other writings on r/K theory as applied to politics.

       As I pondered the information, I was suddenly struck with the thought that we suffer, as a society, from an overabundance of what could be termed "mercy", but lacking respect for serving justice. In fact, the allegations of child rape and cabals of homosexual priests coming to light in the Catholic Church were probably not rooted in malevolence but in an attempt to be forgiving and merciful toward certain priests, forgetting both Christ's admonition to "go and sin no more," and the church's role to protect the flock from the ravenous wolves. Instead, the wolves were never required to change their behavior or suffer consequences,  but allowed to "guard" the hen house.

       It is interesting to observe that when Christ came to the earth, he was, in many ways, here to provide balance between justice and mercy. Except at that time, it was justice that had the upper hand: the law of Moses had become too strict in its interpretation and the underlying truths ignored in favor of dogma. And, of course, there was Christ's greater mission to atone for our sins and pay the price so that mercy could intervene and we be saved from eternal death.

      Today, as I noted, it is mercy that has the upper hand, such that one is despised and ridiculed and admonished if the needs of justice is raised. The new morality instead is aimed at relieving people of any consequence to their actions, even if that consequence is merely to repent and change one's ways.

     Yet, as we read the scriptures concerning the Second Coming, we see that Christ will yet again return to restore balance, but, this time, bringing justice. A lot of people are going to suffer and die as the consequences, both individual and societal, come home to roost and Christ returns to destroy the unrepentant.