A murderer faces justice

On Wednesday, a jury sentenced Robert Bowers to death for killing eleven people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. Testimony revealed that he did so while hurling antisemitic slurs, and a subsequent investigation revealed an online history of pervasive expression of hatred toward the Jewish people, among others. The atrocious and premeditated massacre has been called the deadliest act of antisemitic violence in American history.

How should we think, as both Americans and as Christians, as we ponder Bowers’ sentencing? We should reflect and remember. Communities are united not just by principles, beliefs, or geography. They are bound by memory. By memory, we learn and relearn truths about our world. We gain the united will to preserve the good and reform the ill.

To that end, we must remember the place of such evil in the Jewish memory. Yes, violence against the Jewish people extends back to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. But they also include the pogroms in 19th and 20th century Russia. They go back to the persecutions of medieval Europe. They stretch even to ancient times, in the murderous decrees of King Herod and of Pharaoh recorded in Scripture.

We must remember, too, the cause of religious liberty. Three Jewish congregations met that day in that facility on their Sabbath to worship back in 2018. Bowers’ murderous rampage did not just take place against a religious people. He attacked them as they actively engaged in religious worship. The act then connects with our national memory of other killings targeting religious gatherings, from Charleston, S.C., in 2015 or Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017.

There is something particularly heinous in such a deed. In worship, people engage, however imperfectly in mode or in object, in the ultimate act for which they were created. At that moment, a fallen human pretends to be God, violently taking away human lives. As we contemplate Bowers’ verdict, we would be wise to rededicate ourselves to the cause of religious liberty, that all may worship God as they think right and good.

Together, let us also remember government as a gift from God. The apostles Paul and Peter both taught the early Church about the godly origins of the state as well as His good intentions for it. We can see the good purposes of that God-ordained institution here. Paul wrote to the church in Rome that the magistrate “is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4). Peter said in his first epistle that all political rules exist “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Peter 2:14).

In a world beset with sin, humans harm each other in myriad ways, intentional and accidental. An essential, godly function of government is to protect the innocent from injury, honor those who love their neighbor, and to punish those who harm others. This political vengeance, this legal punishment of evil includes the use of violence, for Paul speaks of the ruler wielding “the sword” in execution of his right function. As we think on Bowers’ verdict, we would be wise to thank God for the provision of the state and pray for it to do its work in just and effective ways.

Finally, may we remember mercy and grace in this terrible tragedy. On May 2, 1800, John Fries appeared before Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase in the Pennsylvania Federal circuit court. A jury had convicted Fries several days earlier of treason for his role in Fries’ Rebellion, an armed tax revolt comprised of Pennsylvania farmers. He was sentenced to death by hanging. Justice Chase addressed him in the courtroom. Chase made clear he could do nothing about Fries’ earthly sentence. But he did offer the man another, deeper kind of mercy and grace. He said, from the judicial bench:

“Be assured … that without serious repentance of all your sins, you cannot expect happiness in the world to come; and to your repentance you must add faith and hope in the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ. … By repentance and faith, you are the object of God’s mercy; but if you will not repent, and have faith and dependence upon the merits of the death of Christ, but die a hardened and impenitent sinner, you will be the object of God’s justice and vengeance. If you will sincerely repent and believe, God has pronounced his forgiveness; and there is no crime too great for his mercy and pardon.”

As we contemplate his sentence, we should pray for Robert Bowers, even as we pray for the grieving families in Pittsburgh. Let us pray that God would bring repentance in his heart. Let us pray that he would run to Christ as his only Redeemer and Lord. That is our only comfort in life and in death. Let us, remembering that comfort, hope it for Bowers.