trolley problem

The Insidious ‘Good Men Must Do Bad Things’ Myth

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A Few Good Men has memorable lines. The courtroom drama is about a pair of Marines charged in the hazing death of an unpopular recruit. One of the accused refuses to take a plea deal, standing on principle, believing they did nothing wrong—claiming they were just following orders. It all culminates with a verbal battle between the defense lawyer, Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and sneering Col. Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson) the superior officer who was behind a deadly hazing incident. Col Jessup, when finally pressed for the truth, exclaims “You can’t handle the truth!” and then he goes on a diatribe:

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know; that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said “thank you” and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

What is brilliant about this rant is it comes off as what it is: A justification from an arrogant man who sincerely believes that he is standing for good even when he’s clearly in the wrong.

Jessup is not a mustache twirling caricature of a villain.  He is someone with moral reasoning that many can relate to or even may side with. He’s arguing that those who put him on the stand are insulated from the truly life and death decisions he must make and should simply accept his role of protector—not question his judgment.

This fictional statement is a variation on the idea “…people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” 

The quote above, often misattributed to George Orwell who actually said this: “Men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to stand guard and feed them.”

Orwell himself paraphrasing Rudyard Kipling who wrote of the “thin red line” and rebuked the people making a mockery of “uniforms that guard you while you sleep” in his 1890 poem “Tommy” written from the perspective of a British infantryman.

This rejection of pacifism is common. It’s a part of the jingoistic fervor and cult thinking of those who demand we fall into line when our political establishment beats those war drums.

Don’t you know they are protecting you?

We should be grateful, they say, or we would be speaking German, be Communist, or forced to convert to Islam!

We’re now at a stage of preemptive war, which directly violates our U.S. Constitution, claiming it is necessary to “defend freedom and democracy” from the uncivilized.

There’s certainly no end to the violence that these self-assured ‘defenders’ will do on behalf of us—and would do to us to save us from ourselves.

Good Men Must Do Bad Things

This blog is a response to a request:

After reading that piece on dogma, I’m curious. Should you be willing to create a similar criticism of the “sometimes, good men must do bad things” mantra, I’d be very interested in your take.

That quote might be a paraphrase of Suits—a television legal drama—where a character uses this reasoning as their excuse to bend or break rules. The full quote from the series: “Sometimes good guys gotta do bad things to make the bad guys pay.” And the show popular Yellowstone also has a line similar, “Sometimes good men have to do real bad things.”

I don’t know enough about those shows to know if this is intended as ironic. But it has a strong resemblance to the evil is competence and thus good statement by Peter Thiel, the co-founder and board chairman of Palantir. 

This idea of exemption to do evil for sake of good is something both the far right and left agree on—whether “punch a Nazi” memes by Antifa or it is Trumpanyau saying we may need to nuke Iran to prevent Iran from having nukes. Basically, it is an idea we can be good while we do bad things and yet the other side can never be forgiven.

“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it”

What this looks like is fundamental attribution error crossbred with moral relativism. I declare someone evil and list off the evil things they’ve done. And then justify things often many times worse in response and it’s all good because I’ve designated them as being evil. Unfortunately, as convenient as this circular thinking is for the dogmatic partisan, it is about as reliable as our ability to accurately assess our own driving skills—where 73% to 93% of people believe that they are an above average driver. We classify our bad as being a result of circumstances and then assess the failure of others as being something inborn or a character flaw.

The moral relativism accompanying this is how we judge an action by who is doing the action rather than apply the same standard to all. From the perspective of the Imperial Japanese, being economically and militarily strangled by the U.S. oil embargo, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a necessary evil. They had a better reason to surprise attack when and where they did than the U.S. has had in wars since then and yet our infamy must be always forgotten. During the Vietnam War the CIA “neutralized” (kidnapped, tortured or killed) tens of thousands who were accused of collaborating with the North—no trials or proof needed. Did you know that?

In 1988, Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 souls, by a U.S. Navy destroyer. The crew and commanding officer of that ship got medals. In the 1991 Gulf War the U.S. killed 408 Iraqi civilians in a single strike against the Amiriyah shelter—which we knew was being used by civilians during the Iran-Iraq War. And even after the bombs stopped dropping the brutal economic sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The Vietnamese people, even to this day, suffer unusually high rates of rare birth defects due to the widespread use of Agent Orange and other chemical defoliant decades ago—to just dismiss this all as ‘collateral damage’ is not very pro-life.

But aren’t you glad we tried to save you from the Commies?!?

It is just so strange to see the same people who justify total obliteration of two cities in Japan being so upset when U.S. economic and military interests are targeted by those who have been subjected to far worse.

The point being, people always come up with justifications for their own evil.  Even the total psychopath can often defend heinous acts with a moral reasoning: “He looked at me wrong so—acting 100% in self-defense—I bashed his face in with a hammer.”  If we name a date, and ignore the context of all that happened prior, we can claim we’re fighting for justice—when, in reality, the other side has as much justification as we do or more.

It’s a world where all violent people believe they are the good guy forced to do bad things.

Tired Analogies and Immoral Math

On a religious forum, mostly pacifists, there was always a ‘sheepdog’ guy or that one person who self-designated themselves as a protector of the herd.

You see, he was not an unsuspecting sheep like everyone else.

No, not at all!

He was an exception, the ever protective guard of  decency and goodness—who only every so often took an accidental bite out of a sheep.

What’s interesting is you’ll never find a sheepdog metaphor anywhere in Biblical texts, it is simply something invented, a cover story.  What you do find is a division between sheep and goats.  The goats are those unruly, stubborn or independent animals—used in Scripture as a metaphor for the cruel and exploitative leaders or those who bully the sheep. They will be sorted out of the faithful flock at the final judgment.

And the other animal mentioned? 

The wolf in sheep’s skin.

These are actual predators who wrap themselves up in an innocent appearance—to divide and devour the sheep. It sounds a bit like those sheepdogs, right?

In my own experience this sheepdog schtick was often just an excuse for their aggression against voices defying their self-asserted authority in all things. Nobody had elected them to the role. It was all their own personal judgement.

Unfortunately, few seem able to see through the phony knights in shining armor—who turn rivals into a dragon to slay rather than an equal to treat with the respect they demand for themselves.

The real issue is when we make exceptions for ourselves that we don’t accept if turned on us. For example, collateral damage. We say that the death of innocents is simply a part of war and unavoidable. But if it were our own child burned alive would we be okay with it—as just a part of war?

True morality values all people and their rights like our own. It never justifies killing of innocents or the treatment of some lives as expendable.

Good people do good to all people and not only a chosen few.

All lives matter or none do.

If you make exceptions for yourself to violate the rule eventually it boomerangs back—those who live by the sword die by the sword.

Using the ends to justify the means, playing God with Trolley problem math, choosing which lives matter—rather than treat all people with dignity and respect—is a moral logic 100% anti-Christ.

The ‘miracle’ is escaping the false dichotomy of those who aren’t good problem solvers.

Jesus, in his response to the condemning attitude of the Pharisees against sinners, told the Parable of the Lost Sheep.  In the story he reasoned that a good shepherd leaves their ninety-nine sheep to find the one lost.  In his morality saving 99% was not good enough.  And, like Abraham, he was not okay with close enough or even one person being harmed when it could be avoided.

If one sinner isn’t expendable in the eyes of God—then what is the worth of an innocent child’s life?

When you’re okay with killing one person for the sake of some imaginary “greater good” you’ll justify a million. That is the genocidal math, the cold calculation behind nearly all industrial scale mass murder campaigns—trying to kill their way to peace. They claim it is a binary choice, either us or them, save more lives by switching the track and killing one instead.

This is the kind of justification or rationalization that allowed men like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Truman and Netanyahu today. One might be completely fine with the slaughter of innocents when they’re ideologically aligned with those who are doing the killing, yet agreement doesn’t make it any less evil—and silence is to be complicit in the murder.

You’re Not Exceptional…

So maybe one suffers from main character syndrome, their own grandiosity delusions and narcissism—they understand good and evil only in terms of what serves them as an individual or a tribal identity group? Or they just think they have a special clarity of mind to make “hard decisions” on who should be sacrificed or saved? But this arrogance will only lead to hell. Those who claim to do evil for goodness sake are almost always just doing evil—dressing it up in the language of necessity so they never have to look in the mirror and be honest with themselves.

Every parent with a child understands that one evil doesn’t justify another.

Col. Jessep, while violating military ethics and the law, positioned himself as being a protector of civilization. Likewise many in the world make excuses for their own lack of civility—the “they started it” or “ist” labeling exemptions. The whole “violence is the only language they understand” rationale by those whom themselves only seem to be restrained from by force. 

Every accusation is a confession?

The difference is semantics—not substance. The worst offenders believe the sanitized descriptions of their own brutality and atrocities they commit makes them less a “terrorist” than those whom they hate—yet this righteous veneer is stripped away under cross-examination. It is only in their own mind they’re special.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.

Isaiah 5:20-21 NIV

You can’t be good while you are doing evil—good is what it continually does. Certainly we all fall short. We all have bad days and make mistakes. A good person is one who is able to admit wrong doing rather than try to whitewash evil. Giving exemptions for some and harsh penalties for others is just favoritism and a sin. There is one standard for all people and that is to love others (our neighbors) as ourselves. When you start to defend “your people” rather than humanity it leads to a breakdown of morality and ethics that only creates more conflict. The double standard is to make exceptions for evil and a good person does not.

Good morality starts with an idea that we all stand in front of a neutral judge. It applies a consistent standard for all people.

Good morality doesn’t ask who is pulling the trigger—it asks whether a trigger should be pulled at all.

True integrity means abandoning self-serving or tribal math which values our rights more than theirs.  It means accepting that we are not the exception to the rule—and abiding by universal moral principle. Until we drop the self-righteous rationalizations of our own violations and submit ourselves to a single, impartial standard of love and justice, we will remain trapped in an endless cycle of violence of our own making—and prove to the rest of the world that we are precisely what we have accused our enemies of being: Lawless, agents of chaos, and just plain evil no matter how we dressed it.

Nobody thinks they’re evil. No they’re just a good person forced to do bad things. They are victims of circumstances, compelled by the evil of others to neglect common moral decency and do bad things. They may even claim to be on the wall guarding civilization from itself, but the truth is they represent an erosion of morality more than the foreigner beyond they say we should fear: They’re the barbarians and savages! But those who do evil for goodness sake are worse than the uncivilized who do bad in ignorance.

A person who knows what is right and exempts themselves is evil. If you’re good, then you will do good for goodness sake—without exception.

Abraham’s Righteousness vs. Caiaphas’s Calculus: Divergent Ethics in Modern Conflicts

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Relating to a coworker about how hard it is for me to transmit certain values absent a cultural context, with how deeply ingrained they are as part of my religious upbringing, in pondering this reality it becomes easy to understand why so many people—myself included, at times—assume their own moral framework is universal, something everyone else must naturally share.

This moment of realization tied to a broader observation about value systems and how wildly different various religious traditions really are despite sharing some of the same foundational texts—they are fundamentally and irrevocably different. And yet because the texts overlap, some people mistakenly treat those systems as essentially similar—or even interchangeable—overlooking the profound divergences in interpretation, emphasis, or lived practice that centuries of distinct cultural evolution in these systems of thought have produced.

I plan to make three stops: one in the frame of contemporary Western thought, the next from the time of Jesus, and lastly with the patriarch Abraham. And with each of these stops explore how shared origin can mask strikingly divergent ethical worlds, and why recognizing those differences matters more than ever in our interconnected age.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty and the Blackstone Ratio

Wrongful convictions happen. We often assume, since someone was charged, that they must be guilty of something. I mean, why else would they be wearing that orange jumpsuit? But this impulse goes contrary to reality where cops plant evidence, people lie, and prejudice plays a role in judgment. 

This was the case with Brian Banks—who had been accused of rape by a classmate who later, after his years in prison, confessed to fabricating the whole account. What a horrible predicament: your whole future blown up, a jury that only sees your guilt.

A jurist, Sir William Blackstone, understanding the imperfection of the justice system and that the ultimate goal of justice is to protect the innocent, proposed:

It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer

This, the Blackstone ratio, is foundational to how things are at least supposed to work in the United States. Founding father Ben Franklin actually took the concept further by stating, “it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.”  John Adams, while he defended the British soldiers charged with murder for their role in the Boston Massacre, argued the following:

We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English Judges, who have been the brightest of mankind; We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself is no security. And if such a sentiment as this should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security whatsoever.

This commitment to the innocent reflects a strong emphasis on individual rights. It also seems rooted in the story most defining of Western religion, and that is the story of Jesus—falsely accused and put to death for the sake of political expediency. This has become the defining narrative and a reason to reflect on our judgment rather than react. It is why many principled conservatives are always uncomfortable with those trials in the court of public opinion where the state parades a prosecuted person and people assume this is proof of an airtight case.

You look guilty just for being in a courtroom defending from an accusation.

Tyler Robinson currently stands accused of murdering Charlie Kirk. Some have decided his guilt to the extent of forgiving him prior to his even standing trial or being given the chance to defend himself—as if there’s just no way that anyone other than him could be involved. That’s not justice; that’s denying him a presumption of innocence and might be enabling others to escape accountability for their involvement. It is better that he go free than chance a wrongful conviction—that is just Christian.

Caiaphas’s Expediency Math: Killing One to Save All

At the completely opposite end of the spectrum from the Christian West is the example of the high priest who claimed the murder of an innocent man was necessary to save Israel from destruction:

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

 (John 11:49-50 NIV)

This may very well be the origin point of trolley problem moral reasoning, where a hypothetical situation is proposed in which an intervention will cost fewer lives. If we just switch the track, this fictional trolley only kills one rather than multiple people. And it seems very reasonable. Isn’t it better when more people survive?

Caiaphas reasoned it was better to kill one Jesus to save Israel.  But it didn’t work out that way. The entire nation—along with their temple and sacrificial system—was forever destroyed in 70 AD. The high priest’s moral reasoning was compromised and wrong. It did not save Israel to kill one man and may well have been part of what eventually led to the destruction of Jerusalem. Those who did not accept the way of Jesus continued, after his ministry ended, to kill his followers and resist their civil authorities. Had they taken one moment to reflect and reconsider their plan to kill their way to peace, they may have survived intact rather than be spread to the corners of the empire.

The problem with killing one—without a just cause, to secure the future—is that it usually doesn’t end there. Kill one and you’ll kill ten; if you kill ten, you’ll kill 100, until soon it is millions upon millions. We see this in the campaign against Gaza. Tens of thousands of children are slaughtered and this is being justified as a war against terror. The reality is that it may very well create the backlash that will make the Zionist project untenable as people see this notion of blood guilt and collective punishment as repulsive. This is not compatible with the Christian values of the West and will lead to our destruction if the escalation of war is not rejected.

The world is better when we don’t play God and use the expediency math. If you’re okay killing one innocent person, you’re now an enemy of all humanity. And if you are willing to kill one, then the second and third come much easier. Innocent life should always be protected—whether it is the life of Jesus, be it the “enemies'” children, or the  unborn. Pro-life means no excuses for the IDF that don’t equally apply to Hamas. If it is okay for the Zionist regime to kill scores of civilians as “collateral damage” for every militant killed—where even the Israelis admit the victims of their onslaught are 83% civilians—why mourn when it is just a handful in Bondi?

Schlanger, brandishing a rifle, was 100% affiliated with those killing civilians in Gaza.  By the IDF standard, he is equally guilty because of his proximity and sympathies.

The best protection of innocent people, like your own, is to oppose all killing of innocent people no matter the color of their skin or the clothes they wear. If the IDF can kill a journalist claiming they are “Hamas with a camera” or “Hamas-affiliated,” then why is it wrong for Eli Schlanger, who has materially aided a genocide, to be targeted along with his associates? We need to reject this math of expediency no matter who is using it, or we can’t be upset when what goes around finally comes around.

Abraham’s Plea for Mercy: Sparing the Many for the Few Righteous

Now we can go way back, to the book of Genesis, where the world’s most powerful monotheistic religions find their foundation, and this man of faith named Abraham. We join him prior to the destruction of Sodom and have this interesting exchange:

Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?  Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.  For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”  Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”  The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 

(Genesis 18:17-23 NIV)

Abraham’s opening question, in the passage above, tells you a whole lot about his moral reasoning. But before that you basically have the old covenant explained in brief: The blessing that was being bestowed on Abraham had to do with “doing what is right and just” or not simply being a blood relative of him, which is something that Jesus and the Apostles explained over and over to those who saw their genetic tie to the patriarch as a sort of entitlement and did not act justly or mercifully as he did.

Continuing in the text, take time to contrast the expediency math of Caiaphas with the following:

What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?  Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?” “If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.” Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?” He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.” Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?” He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”  Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?” He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”  When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

(Genesis 18:24-33 NIV)

Abraham, after expressing his concern for the innocent, offers an opening bid at fifty righteous. Will God spare the entire wicked city for just fifty? And the first thing that is obvious is his humility, pleading with “I am nothing but dust and ashes” and showing his attitude before God. Second is that his orientation is toward the sparing of innocent life even if it means the evil people of the city of Sodom escape deserved judgment. This is in line with Blackstone’s ratio and in total opposition to Caiaphas, who argued to sacrifice rather than to protect the righteous one. Eventually Abraham concedes, and it makes more sense just to evacuate those righteous—nevertheless the righteous are not destroyed with the wicked.

So why is this account in Genesis?

Why is God engaged in a negotiation with a mere man?

The answer is that this anecdote is here for a reason, and that is to be instructive. The author of Genesis isn’t just telling us that Abraham was righteous—they’re giving us instruction on how to be righteous. To have the same disposition as Abraham, that’s the way to be a child of Abraham, and the path of righteousness that leads to the blessings through God’s promise. Chosen means you believe and obey the Lord. You can’t claim to be children of God, or of Abraham, if you truly share nothing in common with them in terms of your behavior or spirit. Genesis is telling us what that looks like in practice.

Christian Orientation Towards Mercy and Humanity is Truly Abrahamic.

In traversing these three moments—from courtrooms shaped by Christian reflection on an innocent’s crucifixion, to the high priest’s fateful expediency that failed to save his nation, and back to Abraham’s humble plea for mercy amid judgment—we uncover a profound reality: The orientation of the Christian perspective, underpinning American rights, is directly the opposite of the ideological lineage of Caiaphas.

The commitment, in faith, to protecting that one innocent life in a crowd of evil is to be a son or daughter of Abraham.  Those who do the opposite, who are willing to sacrifice the innocent for sake of expediency, carry none of the character of Abraham and cannot be the heirs of anything promised to him.  They must first repent of their sin—then they can be blessed, with all nations, through the one singular seed of Abraham (Gal 3:16) which is Christ Jesus.

Going back to the start and those ethics ingrained in us through a religiously derived culture and our assumptions, those who have rejected Christ and are completely willing to kill innocent people to accomplish ends are also going to manifest the other evil traits of Proverbs 6:16-19:

There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

Those of us raised in an Anabaptist church got a strong dose of the Gospel according to Matthew and were taught that speech should be simple and truthful.  Let your yea be yes, and nay be nay is about truly honest conversation and credibility without relying on oaths.  We were told to have a peaceable spirit and merciful approach with all people—to be humble.  

This is an orientation that many of Christian faith may believe is universal.  Except it is not.  Ethno-supremacist pride is okay with those of certain ideologies, deception for sake of gaining an upper hand is looked at like a virtue, they look at their ability to trick you as proof they are superior, and sow the seeds of division covertly not to be caught—like this example:

In a covert operation during 2007–2008, Israeli Mossad agents impersonated CIA officers—using forged U.S. passports, American currency, and CIA credentials—to recruit members of the Pakistan-based Sunni militant group Jundallah for attacks inside Iran, including bombings and assassinations targeting Iranian officials and civilians, as part of a broader effort to destabilize Tehran’s regime amid nuclear tensions. The deception, conducted openly in places like London, aimed to frame the United States as the sponsor, exploiting Jundallah’s sectarian and separatist motives while providing plausible deniability for Israel; U.S. officials uncovered the ruse through internal investigations debunking earlier media reports of CIA involvement, leading to outrage in the Bush White House (with President Bush reportedly “going ballistic”), strained intelligence cooperation under Obama, and the eventual U.S. terrorist designation of Jundallah in 2010, though no public repercussions were imposed on Israel.

 (Overview above by Grok, read: False Flag)

Imagine having a friend who deliberately set you up for a fight against another person by telling them that you said something about them.  My son had a bully do this to him on the bus and this is exactly what so-called ‘greatest ally’ tried to do to the US.  For the Zionist regime, and Mossad, conducting the terror operation via a Pakistani proxy simply was not enough.  They wanted Iran to think the attacks originated with the US in order to provoke a reaction.  And this is how the world becomes a cesspool, all because the Iranians won’t stand idle while Palestinians are deprived of land and human rights.

Deviousness is not exclusive to the children of Caiaphas.  But there’s no stops for those willing to kill innocent people for the sake of expediency.  And a partnership with them is only going to undermine the foundation of our civilization.  The US and ‘Christian’ West have already lost their moral reputation for this unholy alliance.  We need to repent and return to holding evil men accountable and protecting the innocent or all will be lost—we can’t exempt some from a standard of normal decency without also damaging all of Christendom.

Zero Tolerance and the Trolley Problem — The Law Demands Perfection

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This is the first part of a four part series on law, legalism, church authority and economia. Stay tuned!

When I was out on the road hauling commodities there was a mill receiver who always did an excellent job keeping trucks moving through the bulk unloading area. In fact, he was so dedicated to good service that he would voluntarily open the pit early to keep things running smoothly and help us truckers get on our way again. He was a fixture, a competent employee with a great attitude and good sense of humor.

One week I arrived at the mill and the place was a total disaster. There were trucks jammed everywhere waiting to be unloaded, there was an industrial vacuum truck at work near some of the storage bins, and, as I would discover upon entering the receiving office, a familiar face was gone. When I asked what had happened, the other mill workers told me he had put an ingredient in the wrong bin and the management fired him on the spot.

It was a costly mistake. The ingredients he accidentally mixed were expensive and now unusable as feed. Hiring a crew to suck out the contents of a bin is not cheap and the company policies were clear—it was his job to make sure the equipment was set up right. It was nothing personal. He has been warned about their zero-tolerance policy for this kind of mistake and had violated established procedure by starting to unload before checking the driver’s paperwork.

From the company’s standpoint, there was no other option. The rules were established for a reason. If they let everyone get away with doing things his or her own way it would most likely result in more mistakes like this and could not deliver the same quality of product at the same price. If their competition did better they would lose customers and eventually be unable to stay in business. The result would be everyone losing their jobs. So firing him was simply loss prevention and a move to ensure profitability in the long-term.

Furthermore, making an exception here would undermine the effectiveness of their corporate policies. Other employees, observing that these rules were not always strictly enforced, might decide to disregard the procedures and incur more losses in the future. Not only that, but selective enforcement is discrimination and could open them up to accusations of favoritism and lawsuits. In an organization of hundreds, one-size-fits-all solutions often prevail over true justice.

From my own perspective, knowing the quality of the individual and considering the replacements, this seemed wrong. I had to think what this might do for employee morale when you show no loyalty to someone who went above and beyond what was required on so many occasions. Surely his good contributions outweighed the bad. Besides, he was conscientious, it was the truck driver who had misinformed him, and would likely learn from the experience, right?

Doing what I would hope others would do for me in a similar circumstance, I contacted the corporate office and pled his case. But, their decision had been made, his employment was terminated, there would be no grace shown, rules are rules.

Old Testament Law and the Trolley Question

From a modern American perspective, the law of Moses is unusually excessive and unnecessarily harsh. Under that law, everything from adultery to uttering profanity and disrespect for parents was punishable by death. We even have an account of a man being executed for merely picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week:

While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp.” So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord commanded Moses. (Numbers 15:32‭-‬36 NIV)

In those days it really paid to pay close attention in Sunday school class.

By that standard, would any person living today *not* be condemned to death?

Why would they punish a man so severely for what seems like a very minor infraction?

The answer to that is two-fold.

First, having come out of slavery in Egypt, the Israelites were without a strong cultural identity or social structure, they were in an extremely harsh environment and thus would need to quickly become cohesive as a group to survive. Second, those who couldn’t follow instructions or fall under the authority of the leaders could easily cost the entire group and therefore had to be weeded out. The journey they were on required cooperation, order needed to be established, and thus a zero-tolerance policy was instituted.

Read the story of Achan’s disobedience in the book of Joshua:

Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction. “Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow; for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There are devoted things among you, Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them. (Joshua 7:11‭-‬13 NIV)

There is a connection being made in that story between lack of individual discipline leading to group failure.

The account continues that Joshua went through the camp to find the offending party. They find one man, Achan, who confesses to having brazenly violated clear commands. His actions reflected a disrespectful attitude towards the authority above him. It was representative of a general problem that was causing the Israelites to lose in battle. They had to make an example of Achan or there would be little chance of their survival as a group. They put him and his family to death for the good of the group.

This is a case where the Trolley problem applies:

If there is a Trolley going down a track that will end up killing multiple people and could switch it to a track that kills only one—what would be the moral thing to do?

That is the dilemma underlying every attempt at governance. Laws are written as a means to save the group from the sins of the individual. Sometimes it is very clear who is dangerous to the group. For example, when someone murders another member of the group they—through their established pattern of behavior—present an existential threat to the group and must somehow be removed. In lean times, when there is a lack of resources to be spent on unruly people, it is simply more practical to execute those who present a potential threat to the group. So, rather than kill the many through inaction, they kill the one.

The Old Testament law is similar to the hardline policies of the story I told about the fired mill employee. Chaos is costly in the corporate world and very dangerous to a group struggling to survive in a wilderness. In these cases, when there’s a very real chance of group extinction, the collective concerns take precedence over the rights of the individual. Poorer countries, or those that lack the resources to mete out justice the way more developed nations do, are often very harsh because they cannot afford to do otherwise and would rather sacrifice a few individuals than the entire group.

Does the New Testament change this?

Many modern-day Christians, especially in Protestant denominations, dismiss the importance of the law and play up the importance of grace. There is good reason for this bias given what Jesus taught about our right (as individuals) to judge others and God’s grace.

But this is not the dramatic departure from the Old Testament law that some people imagine it to be. Nearly everything Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount was a restatement of what was already written and, in some cases, Jesus made the standard even higher. There was never a time when it was okay to take personal vengeance. The words “vengeance is mine” (meaning only God has the right to judge) come directly from the Old Testament and do not do away with the institutions responsible for measuring out justice.

The apostle Paul, in the book of Romans, very clearly instructs Christians not to oppose punishment of the evildoer by civil authorities. He also commanded the Corinthian church to remove evil people from amongst them:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” (Corinthians 5:9-12 NIV)

If the Old Testament were entirely nullified by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, why is Paul quoting from Deuteronomy? Paul uses the expression “a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough” in his rebukes of the church—what this means is that individuals and their actions or attitudes affect the entire group. He makes the case that is better to remove those who are sinfully disruptive and unrepentant than to risk the entire group.

One might think that putting a badly behaved person with multiple good and conscientious people would influence them for the better. But it is more likely to work in reverse. When bad behavior is not adequately addressed in a group it causes others to lower their standards. I mean, why try so hard to live a disciplined and responsible life when you can join the riot and have a little fun? Troublemakers must be removed from a place where they could influence others negatively and dealt with or all chance of order will disappear.

So, yes, the law does still apply within the church and we should make every effort to obey it—because the penalty for breaking it is still death:

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him. About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she said, “that is the price.” Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events. (Acts 5:1‭-‬11 NIV)

That story of instant justice is from the New Testament. And I believe it is there to underscore the point that God’s opinion of sin has not changed because of the availability of grace. We, as Paul says, cannot continue in sin that “grace may abound” (Romans 6:1) and that’s because sin still has serious consequences—it hurts both individuals and the group. It was better that one couple, Ananias and Sapphira, make an early trip to the grave (may God have mercy on them in eternity) and the whole church be warned—from that day until to now—than it would be to allow a casual view of lawlessness to spread and infect the whole body of the church.

God’s Zero-tolerance Policy Towards Sin Has Not Disappeared Because of Grace.

Grace is not an excuse for sin. It is not an exemption from the law or a way of saying that breaking the law has no consequences. No, it was that sin that (quite literally and also metaphorically) put Jesus on the cross. There is always a price to be paid for bad behavior and disobedience. The message of the Gospel is not that sin doesn’t matter anymore. The message is that Jesus switched the track and sacrificed himself in order to save humanity from certain death. The message is that Jesus paid the price on our behalf and there is only one way to show our gratitude—we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him.

Jesus says: “Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

There is no excuse for sin.