Our church writes an Amnesty Urgent Action letter once a month, following the example of Jesus: 8:4 they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 8:5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?" 8:6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 8:7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8:4-7 RSV The word Amnesty comes from Greek roots meaning “no memory.” To me, that suggests an ultra-generous form of forgiveness that forgets, or chooses to act as if we had forgotten, that any offense ever took place. A government may occasionally choose to declare amnesty so it can move on from a place of conflict. As a small example, my local library is having an amnesty this week. They are hoping that by choosing to excuse missing books and late fees, they will bring people – especially children – back in to the library. I think it’s interesting that Amnesty International has taken the name that it has, since often we write letters on behalf of people who have NOT (in our view) committed any crime. We still need to ask for “amnesty,” because we know that someone has taken offense. One letter was literally about an adultery case. There are places in the world where women can still be put to death for adultery. I wrote to the government of this country and asked for them to have mercy on the women. That one was pretty straightforward. Others are a lot more complicated and murky. For example, there are often cases where people have received death threats from unknown sources. We are asked to write to the President, or the chief of police in the local area, or some other responsible party. It is hard to know what to say in these cases, because there are not many proven facts. Sometimes we suspect the government is somehow involved, other times evil may have found itself a separate avenue and the police may feel as powerless as we do. Other times it could be that actions of my own country may have contributed a lot to the situation. Is it still OK to write a letter? Yes, it is, but carefully, very carefully. Throw no stones. The more you think, the more carefully you write. Amnesty bases a lot of its actions on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a treasure of a document written in 1948. It’s up to us to uphold this wisdom born from great suffering, to interpret it rightly (including through our faith) and maybe even to extend it in certain areas. |
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