Tethered

 "Just as sin came into the world through one man, and then death through sin, so death passed on to all men, because all men sin". Romans 5:12.

"He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives - to release those who have been oppressed". Luke 4:18.

How shaped we are by the past.

There's the obvious ways that this is true - family, upbringing, education, experience - but that barely touches the surface of this truth.

Recently, I found myself watching a video of the last living (from a year ago) man who served as a prosecutor at the trials at Nuremberg in 1946-47. The candid interview raised several key issues, which I'll touch on in a moment, but what also struck me hard was just how much of my life had been moulded by the events that occurred at this time... decades before I was born.

This struggle brought about a shift in the world that was simply huge in respect to the entire culture that I have known for the length of my days.

Virtually all the privileges and luxuries that I have around me all of the time found their first real renditions in the years following that war. The ambitions to bring some level of social security and healthcare to every citizen grew out of this moment, and the atrocities of 'the final solution' framed a manner of law and order that sought to secure the freedom and safety of everyone.

Which brings me to the excellence of what happened at Nuremberg.

The first and vital thing to notice is that this was a trial of those who had committed "crimes against humanity". By their attempt to denigrate and then extinguish particular elements of society, they were, in truth, denying the basic humanity of those that they relentlessly preyed upon which they had deemed to be less than themselves due to some particular, vile form of classification.

The trial found such acts were deemed wholly evil and thereby entirely contrary to the ideals of civilisation - the abuse and extermination of millions of people whose only crime against this state was that they failed to fit the profile of what had been defined as purposefully and morally 'good'.

The judgement of the court was crucial, affirming the right of people everywhere to live in peace and with dignity - to live without the imposition of the state upon such a liberty. The vital nature of this code to our society has been key, especially in respect to realms such as those of medical ethics.

In the midst of our present crisis, the Prime Minister of Japan has so far been the only world leader who has had the courage to once again align with this essential judgement. He stated this in respect to the present global program: "Vaccines will never be administered without the recipient’s consent. We urge the public never to coerce vaccinations at the workplace or upon others around them, and never to treat those who have not received the vaccine in a discriminatory manner".

Nuremberg was the essential reversal of the atrocities which had preceded that point, and this is where there is a parallel to Christianity.

Good theology allows us to view the depth and scope of the wickedness of humanity and understand that a higher court - a higher standard than our own - must prevail in the addressing and evaluating the consequence of such matters.

We stand in the dock, clearly found wanting, but there is another time and place which answers our evil - the cross of Christ. There, amidst an offering for a full redemption, we find full resolve of our guilt and condemnation and are made free by the ransom of another.

Humanity must always be called to a 'greatness' - a truth and goodness - outside of itself, because within us there is only the poverty of sin, and, when this prevails, we encourage only what is wicked, often guised as virtue, especially upon those more vulnerable than ourselves. Genuine dignity and autonomy and worth can only be present when this is so, for we then become dependant upon a principle far richer and enduring than our own selfish ends - a genuine good for our neighbour.

That so needs to be not only the outcome, but the direction of travel we take in this present crisis if we are to truly respect the actual, heaven-sent value of each other and ascribe the genuine value God gives to each, thereby avoiding the folly of those who made some less than they actually are.