Vigilantes

            Last week, it seemed that all the media wanted to talk about was the tragic situation of child abuse regarding Penn State. Certainly this story needed to be discussed in our public dialogue. However, any time the press becomes focused so much on one story, I concern myself with the thought they might take an extreme position that was before unthinkable.

            Recently, I heard talk that sounded an awful lot like vigilantism. A vigilante is an individual who takes the law into his own hands, specifically through enforcing the law without any legal authority.

            This occurred often in the old west. Sometimes, a group of citizens would seek to bring a criminal to justice in a logical and organized way. Occasionally, though, the group would turn into a mob and apply force in unjust way.

            A publication* once told of a grave located in Boot Hill Cemetery in the state of Arizona. The gravestone contains these words, “Lynched by mistake.”

            Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it fully, (Prov. 28:5.)

            May we always, without prejudice or favoritism, truly seek justice in a proper way.

·     * Today in the Word, November 19, 1995, p. 26.

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