Forgiveness And Righteousness Must Be In Balance.

One of the problems we see in The Church today is a belief that somehow, forgiveness outweighs righteousness in its importance.

Forgiveness is an essential part of being a Christian and it is wholly right that Mrs Greaves should offer forgiveness to those who slaughtered her husband, here in Sheffield on Christmas Eve. Christ, in fact, gives us little option. The individual must always be prepared to forgive.
(Forgiveness for ourselves is conditional, however. Check out The Lord's Prayer; check out Mark 11:20.)
But ours is a God of justice and righteousness and He expects our society to embrace those principles in seeking retribution in all such cases.
Those who do not grasp the distinction between God's teaching to the individual as one thing - and to society as another, are doomed to miss out on the meaning of significant portions of the Bible.
Pardon me for thinking that so many of those Christians who accept the one part of God and not the other, are displaying moral cowardice.
I have argued the above points on a number of occasions and frankly, I have been horrified that so many people who rely heavily on the Scriptures suddenly turn all wishy-washy when strong decisions need to be made.