Jailhouse Conversions

Should you ever become a convicted felon, you will find out quickly that a visit from God in prison will benefit you not only in your next life, but also while doing your time in this one. You might lose more friends from getting religion than you had without it, but on balance, you will still be better off. Your new friends will be a considerable improvement on your old ones, particularly if you have to make peace with your surroundings for a long time. And if you ever do get out, telling people about your cell-block conversion can give you a huge leg up on re-entering the society of the law-abiding.

Does this opening paragraph seem a little cynical to you? If you think so, you are not alone, especially now that Terry Nichol's second jury failed to sentence him to death for his participation in the Oklahoma City bombing. One thing that seems to have carried weight in the assessment of Mr. Nichols was the belief of some of his peers that he had become "religious" since the bombing, and that as a result, he could make a positive contribution to others in prison were his life spared.

In other cases, other juries have seemed ill-disposed to such religious sentiments. And the outrage over the Nichols jury's ambivalence suggests that a very large number of people in our society have great difficulty seeing how a violator's claim to conversion after his or her heinous act can ever mitigate against punishing the act itself according to the full measure of the law. Apparently, one or more on the second Nichols jury took the accused's profession of new-found religion at face value; others did not. Would it make any difference to our own reactions if we could know for sure whether the profession was genuine?

I think it just might. For along with the suspiciousness that most people have --- the most conscientiously religious included --- of the genuineness of jailhouse conversions, the possibility of sudden and wholly transforming experiences of God's presence and power in another person's life is a possibility that has always been close to the vital center of American thought and life, whether that possibility is framed in religious terminology or not. "In the criminal justice system," as Law and Order buffs refer to it, merely bringing offenders to justice is never enough; rehabilitating them is even more important. (Although in the passion of the moment, it is easy to forget this.)

Our revivalist traditions put the point a little differently, e.g.: "There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains…(William Cowper) But the point is still the same, as Cowper went on to say: even those who are as "vile" as the thief on the cross can become as clean as that thief became that day, washed in the blood flowing from Jesus' own. Even Timothy McVeigh? Apparently not; Tim seems to have cast his lot early on with that other thief on Golgotha, who remained content only to mock his Redeemer. But Terry Nichols? Well, most of us simply do not know whether the reports we have heard of his new-found faith are reliable or not. However, if they are reliable…

Therein lies the problem: only God knows the truth that is in each human heart, no matter how true or how false anyone's most heart-felt professions may seem to anyone else. Professing faith falsely mitigates nothing. Professing faith truly might mitigate even the most horrendous acts --- all sins are forgivable, if the Apostles' Creed is any guide --- if we could only know that the professing is genuine. But we cannot, at least not as God knows. However, God has not left us utterly in the dark about the things of the heart. We are richly blessed by our Creator with the capacity to discern the spirit within each of us by looking at what we do. It is by our fruits that we are to be known.

By this measure, Terry Nichols still has a lot of proving up to do, and most people have seen no good reason to give him any more time in which to do it. They may be right. Certainly, we can understand why the families of the Oklahoma City bombing victims would want to run out the clock on Mr. Nichols, if in fact all of them do. But I cannot help wondering if the blood that is still on his hands may have come from two fountains, and not just one.