John Gardner and the Value of Life

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and honestly, there’s no clean way of dealing with it. It’s going to be rambling, open-ended, and not particularly well-written or even in standard blog format. For lack of a nice introduction, I’ll just jump right in.

Three days ago, I watched The Hurt Locker.  The film centers around Sgt. William James, the leader of an EOD squad in Iraq whose sole job is to dismantle bombs.  As one would expect, every day is a near-death experience for him. This drives him to become addicted to adrenaline, as the film’s opening quote by Chris Hedges alludes to. “War is a drug.” Death is not dramatized or glorified in this movie. When a bomb explodes, its victims simply vanish. When a gun is fired in the distance and a soldier falls to the ground, the soundtrack remains silent.

As I tried to enjoy the film on its own merits, I couldn’t help but remember that I was watching a true story. Not necessarily that the characters existed, or that the film is realistic in its technical portrayal of the Iraq war; but that (as current military servicemen have pointed out) the mood it conveys is spot on. War is a desolate thing, and human lif on both sides is ended without stirring monologue or string accompaniment. It vanishes.

This past couple of weeks, everyone has been following the story of Chelsea King, the Poway High School teen who went missing. To avoid sensationalizing a family’s loss, I don’t think I need to elaborate on the story. Honestly, I can’t imagine losing a daughter only to have her face, and the grizzly details surrounding her last moments, plastered on every news site or blog in the country. My heart goes to the parents who are forced to go through the grieving process on Larry King Live instead of in the privacy and dignity of their own homes. My focus here is not on her, but on the perpetrator.

The man charged with this crime, John Gardner, has quickly earned the scorn of the nation. A repeat offender who was first charged with assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 2000, Gardner is also suspect in the death of Amber Dubois, a teen who went missing earlier last year.  Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, he denies the allegations and shows no remorse for his actions, just as he showed no remorse in his prior offense. He seems to us to be the embodiment of pure evil, and people are horrified.

Here are a few comments I’ve read, both on CNN and a Facebook group clamoring for the death penalty:

“I believe the death penalty is too good for him. He should be tortured just like he has done. An eye for an eye”

“I want him burned alive and the whole thing YouTubed so any other predators out there think thrice before harming another innocent. BURNED ALIVE.”

“I hope he dies slowly and rots fast.”

“A death penalty? seems more like a slap on the wrist. They should castrate him with rusty knives and add in a healthy dose of rubbing alcohol before adminstrating other forms of torture.”

“He should be publicly hung.”

“Throw him to the sodomites and then into general population! I believe that if you kill someone who didnt deserve it, ALL YOUR RIGHTS AS A HUMAN ARE FORFEIT.”

I don’t include these things  to condemn the people that said it. Clearly, there are a lot of emotions involved here, especially from empathetic parents and those who have themselves been the victim of assault. But as I read the general consensus of the public, I’m struck with a very basic, almost terrifying question. Is John Gardner’s life sacred?

We Christians often profess a belief in the sanctity of human life. The phrase is most common when discussing abortion, and for good reason. Barring a discussion of Original Sin, unborn children are completely innocent. And there’s nothing difficult about saying that an innocent life is of intrinsic worth. But what of a person who is not necessarily innocent? An adult who has made a few mistakes but generally tries to live morally? A U.S. soldier serving in Iraq? A terrorist fighting in Iraq? A sexual predator? Is there a point at which life stops being sacred and worth respecting? If so where is it, and are we justified in setting it?

The currency of war is human life, and the goal is always an ideal. Independence, autonomy, democracy, justice, cultural identity, patriotism, religion, etc. Sometimes saving lives is a goal, but rarely is that the sole focus of war. Even in our most “just” wars, more abstract things were at stake. For example, the Axis forces of WWI may have threatened to take over the world, but there’s no reason to think they intended to kill innocent, unresistant civilians in the process. They were after an idea (political power), European nations were defending an idea (autonomy), and the US joined to uphold an idea (justice). None of these ideas necessarily adds or removes a single human life from the equation, yet 16.5 million lives were spent fighting for them. Each, we claim, is sacred. So again, I need to ask: what is the value of a life?

Gardner has committed unspeakable evils, but the world is not in danger of him doing them in the future. Regardless, he’ll be locked away for life. However there are other things which the public and (more importantly) the victims’ families want assurance of: justice and vengeance. In other words, the death penalty. So again, we have a problem: can we justify ending a human life for one of those ideals? How much is the life of a murderer worth? How much is vengeance worth?

These are things I’ve been wrestling with, and I really have no answers to give. But I do have a thoughts:

• As a Christian, I believe that man is made in the image of God. With that in mind, every person has an intrinsic worth that is infinitely greater than material things. Naively, I’d be inclined to think that this infinite worth must outweigh anything else. That would mean the death penalty is never justified (which I am inclined to believe). But it would also mean that war, for any purpose other than saving lives which are threatened, is never justified — it requires trading the infinite worth of human life for a finite idea. Which would mean if Napoleon wanted to take over the world but didn’t threaten to kill a single civilian in the process, losing even one life in battle wouldn’t be worth it. That sort of conclusion is difficult for me to accept.
• A second thought is that I’m simplifying things too much.  Life is sacred and of infinite worth, but not just in the true/false notion of existence. It’s a spectrum. Living and dying aren’t all there is to life’s worth: quality of life, freedom from pain, emotional well-being, etc. all contribute. To a Christian especially, the spiritual well-being of a person is worth more than the physical. If the sanctity of life lies not only in being alive but in how you live, these ideals which touch human life (justice, freedom, democracy) can’t be dismissed just because some may die in the process.
• Even if the right decision is made, that doesn’t make it any less somber. In war, every casualty on either side is a sad thing. Regardless of what we’re fighting for or how those we are fighting have wronged us. Vilifying the enemy is the easy way out; Christian love doesn’t allow it. And even if the death penalty truly serves a just purpose, we shouldn’t be craving it, or be happy when/if it happens. A “monster” is still a person, and the fact that someone can reach that level of depravity should be seen as tragic.

So yeah. That’s what’s been on my mind. Feel free to contribute.

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