Too nice to be a spy

The federal government’s efforts to stop China from stealing sensitive U.S. defense technology secrets led to last week’s indictment of the head of Temple University’s physics department, Xiaoxing Xi, who was demoted but will remain on the faculty.

Many who know Xi, a naturalized citizen and an expert in superconductive materials that improve speed in computers, have expressed perplexity. “He’s a person of very high integrity,” said the Temple provost. “He was nice to me,” said a former postdoctoral student.

Xi is, of course, innocent until—if—proven guilty, but let’s hope that findings of innocence or guilt do not hinge on his face, or his “niceness,” or the impression he exudes as a “person of very high integrity.” Jesus solemnly warned about being swayed by these:

“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24, ESV).

No less a man than the judge and prophet Samuel veered close to this homely seduction by a pleasing face and build. When sent by God to anoint one of Jesse’s sons to be next king of Israel, he thought he needed to look no further than the first son in the queue:

“… he looked on Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD’s anointed is before him.’ But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:6-7, ESV).

A book published the year after the 1962 execution of Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, noted how ordinary the Nazi lieutenant colonel looked sitting there in his suit on the witness stand in an Israeli courtroom. Evil should don more garish attire, we think, and are surprised to see it showing up looking like old Fred next door.

A Bible proverb leads to the same conclusion:

“The wicked accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the ways of justice” (Proverbs 17:23, ESV).

As a child, when I thought as a child, the word “wicked” depicted the witch with the warty face residing in a cottage of gingerbread and marzipan. As adults we need to revise our expectations of the face of evil: God calls the bribe-taker “wicked,” though they grace the front page of many a newspaper with beaming smiles and middle-class suits. God sees not as a man sees. His judgment is untainted by the vapid comment, “He was nice to me.”