Religion: Justice and Mercy

The ice of Nazi domination in Norway was snapping and crackling last week. One snap took the form of a document, The Church and the Transition Period, telling Norwegian Christians how to behave toward quislingites when the Nazis are driven out. The document is sponsored in the U.S. by the Norwegian Information Service. It is anonymous, but the Norwegian authors state that they have “questioned certain churchmen regarding their views.”*

Says The Church and the Transition Period: “”It must be clear that the Church can never desire that evil be overlooked. … It is very essential for the Church that evil be punished. Not because the Church would wreak vengeance, but because God’s righteousness demands it…. . . . Respect for the law’s inviolability, for the national Constitution and for the community’s authority will be shattered for generations unless the guilty are brought to justice. . . . But . . . only the proper authority has the right to punish crimes; all private revenge or any personal desire for vengeance is banned by God’s word. If our people were to give way to their passions we would be starting the new day in Norway by violating God’s righteousness. Then the spirit of Naziism would have triumphed over us despite everything, because we would have become what they were. The settlement must and shall be made in accordance with Norwegian law and justice. . . .

“But the Church has yet a word, and that is a word regarding love and forgiveness. Not that this should weaken the demand for justice. The most characteristic feature of Christian love is precisely that it exists full and entire without receding in the slightest from righteousness. It is a fundamental Biblical concept that God is all justice and all love. In this case love would seek atonement and forgiveness for our enemies, both within and without the land. If peace cannot lead to atonement and forgiveness, the world will be frigid with hate and a trustworthy relationship between nations will be an impossibility. If we cannot forgive those of our own countrymen . . . even though they repent and are paying their penalties, then we will enter the future with an open sore in the national life.

“The Church . . . will not have vengeance, but justice. It will not have hate, but atonement.”

*”Certain churchmen” may well be Norway’s six Lutheran Bishops still at liberty but not officiating, since they refuse to recognize the quisling church setup. Out of reach of questioners is Bishop Eivind Berggrav, whom the Nazis guard in solitary confinement in a cottage near Oslo. Bishop Berggrav observed his 59th birthday last month. As a birthday present, the Nazis took him, under heavy guard, to the dentist.