Human Faces

The BBC is reporting that the Bali bombers were executed today in Indonesia. To be honest, I had mostly forgotten that act of terrorism and hadn't really given its perpetrators any thought for quite some time. I suppose I'm actually a bit surprised that they were still alive until now, though it sounds like others in Indonesia also expected this to have happened more quickly.

The part of this article that made the biggest impression on me, however, was the picture of the three men at the top.



I don't know if this is a difference between the BBC and the American news sources with which I am more familiar, but I am not accustomed to seeing the photos of condemned criminals represent them in such a natural - and even happy! - state. I hadn't realized it, but I'm used to seeing mugshots of unshaven, unkempt men (and usually they are men) who are presented more as criminals than as human beings. There is nothing in these pictures that helps to distance me from their humanity, and that is somewhat arresting (no pun intended).

To be clear, I am not trying to minimize their horrible act of terrorism in any way or to pretend that they are not vicious criminals. What they did was an act of pure evil. In fact, that's what stirs me about this. To see these young men looking so normal, so engaging, so much like people I would otherwise relate to reminds me of the great capacity for good and evil that resides in the human soul.

On one hand the fullness of their humanity exacerbates the depravity of their crime against other fully human beings. On the other hand, it also makes it much harder for me to be comfortable with repaying their lethal terrorism with lethal force. Regardless of one's political position on capital punishment, the whole cycle is clearly sub-human.

It makes me long for the restoration of all humanity in the image of the Son. God speed that work, and God speed that day.