Word: pardons
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...major body of Christian teaching favors forgiveness without some concern for justice. For churchmen, as for other Americans, one of the most galling aspects of Ford's decision is that it suggests unequal justice. Ethicist Roger L. Shinn, acting president of Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary, feels that the pardon reinforces American cynicism about equality before the law. "What bothers so many is that the demand for justice and punishment applies to the poor and the weak, and mercy applies to the powerful." Jesus, however,stressed that the more powerful a person is, the more accountable he is for wrongdoing...
...Ford's pardon of Nixon has now kindled the Standard and Times, as it has other religious commentators, to call unconditional amnesty for selective conscientious objectors "a necessity." There is, of course, a subtle difference between pardon and amnesty. A pardon usually presumes some guilt; amnesty, derived from the same Greek word as amnesia, "forgets" the alleged offense without necessarily imputing guilt. Yet because Nixon hedges on his guilt, pardoning him is more an act of amnesty than of genuine pardon. If Ford so desired, it could be a prelude to full amnesty for the Viet Nam War resisters...
Perhaps one of the deepest difficulties of Ford's pardon is a confusion of two roles: his obligations as a Christian and his responsibilities as a just President. On the personal level, the quest for Christian perfection obliges one human being to forgive another not only without regard to contrition but in spite of continuing hatred. Jesus' injunction in the Sermon on the Mount to "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you" carries no conditions. But an official charged with the administration of justice cannot casually apply personal obligations to a public...
Many religious thinkers believe that the pardon has done serious harm. They argue that, because it has halted the due process of law in regard to Nixon's actions in Watergate, the pardon constitutes a grave miscarriage of justice. Americans now will never know the full truth about Watergate, or be assured, as they had a right to be, that there were not other, more fearful skeletons in the White House closets. Richard Nixon may well be suffering, but the American people have also suffered?and at Nixon's hands. Deceived, anguished, still too much in the dark about...
Most churchmen agree that a pardon would have been far more acceptable after a full airing of Watergate in any trials that Nixon would have faced. But that option has been lost. What now? A number of theologians doubt that a categorical pardon for all other Watergate offenders would solve anything. An additional blanket pardon, contends Evangelical Theologian Carl F.H. Henry, would only compound a wrong by moving from "a preferred Individual to a preferred class of individuals...