The End of Chapter Seven

A Side Note Regarding Salvation:

It is easy for us to accept that the fallen woman in Luke’s account received salvation through her remorse and her acceptance of Jesus Christ as God. The wake from her immoral life may have affected dozens and maybe hundreds of people. For sure there were families hurt by her actions and it is very likely that a lot of the damage was done to her own family in regards to honor and reputation. In fact, there were probably a number of these people who could never forgive her for her transgressions.

Salvation through Jesus Christ is available to all of us, even those who may, in our human opinion have gone too far. A case in point is a fellow by the name of Kaing Guek Eav, AKA “Duch”. Duch was the overseer of the Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia.

According to newspaper accounts the 65-year-old former math teacher, who was seized by Cambodian authorities in 1999 and held at a military prison until his transfer to the tribunal on July 31, is charged with crimes against humanity over his role at Tuol Sleng. The reconstruction of his actions before tribunal judges was a normal part of the genocide tribunal's ongoing investigation, officials said.

"An on-site investigation or 'reconstruction' is a normal investigative action, the aim of which is to clarify the declarations by each of the participants by gathering photos, audio-visual recordings and creating material for use in 3D reconstructions," the tribunal said in a statement.

Tuol Sleng was the Khmer Rouge's main torture center, where some 16,000 men, women and children were brutalized under Duch's alleged supervision before being murdered during the regime's repeated purges of its ranks. Most of those killed at the prison were dumped into mass graves at Choeung Ek, which is now one of Cambodia's most macabre tourist attractions.

Duch, who has not denied his role at Tuol Sleng, walked court officials through the site, "explaining what happened when he was in power," said tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath.

At one point Duch knelt to pray before a tree whose trunk was reportedly used to bash out the brains of infants. At the end of the session, Duch -- a born-again Christian -- also prayed before a towering glass-walled stupa containing thousands of skulls dug out of Choeung Ek's burial pits, many of which are still littered with human remains. "He asked to pray for those victims who had died and you could see from his eyes that he was very emotional ... we could see the tears coming down," Reach Sambath said.

Tuesday's re-enactment and a similar reconstruction of Duch's actions Wednesday at Tuol Sleng are not open to the public but are being recorded and could eventually be released, the officials said. The tribunal, which convened in July 2006, is investigating the atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 rule over Cambodia. Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia. Cities were emptied and their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.

Now, here is a current and modern face of a sinner who is so severe that there are few that have been on this earth that could match his evil actions. He is certainly worse than you and me, don’t you think? How and why would God offer salvation to this man?

Let’s take a look at a serial killer here in the United States and read an article outlining his redemption.

The Milwaukee Sentinel, front page with color photo, 12 May 94]
by Steven Walters, Sentinel Madison Burear

Madison -- A Madison minister said Wednesday he baptized convicted serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer in a state prison whirlpool Tuesday afternoon.

Roy Ratcliff, 47, said he, Dahmer, the prison chaplain and two guards walked from Dahmer's cell area down a long hall about 2p.m. Tuesday to the prison infirmary, where Dahmer was baptized by immersion.

The whirlpool at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, where Dahmer is serving 15 life terms, was filled for Tuesday's ceremony, Ratcliff said.

Baptism by immersion requires that the celebrant be dunked under water, signifying that person's cleansing of sins and new relationship with God.

An assistant to the prison warden confirmed the baptism took place, but said no further details would be released.

"It's a personal matter," the official said.

Ratcliff, minister of the 100-member Church of Christ, said he began making plans to baptize Dahmer after a one-hour meeting April 20.

Ratcliff said he believes Dahmer made a true spiritual decision to be baptized.

Dahmer "was able to convince me this was not just a gag. It was something he felt and believed in," Ratcliff said.

"I was convinced that he wanted God in his life," Ratcliff said of their April meeting.

They met "in a little room with just a table and a couple of chairs," and Dahmer said he wanted his "sins washed away" by renewing his personal relationship with Jesus Christ, Ratcliff said.

Convinced of Dahmer's sincerity, Ratcliff said, he will begin meeting with Dahmer at 1:30p.m. Wednesdays, starting next week, to read and study the Bible together.

Ratcliff said both he and Dahmer were nervous during their first meeting.

"You're a little bit anxious about it," Ratcliff said. "I had no idea what his thinking was."

Ratcliff said he was asked to baptize Dahmer by Mary H. Mott, an Arlington, Va., woman who called him after she sent Dahmer 12 Bible correspondence lessons in mid-March.

After seeing a televised interview with Dahmer and his father, Mott, 69, said she concluded "that young man dowsn't know anything except evil." Dahmer has confessed to killing 17 young men and boys.

Mott said she then called the prison, was told by a guard how to send materials to Dahmer and sent him a Bible and the 12 "World Bible School" correspondence school lessons.

On April 1, Mott said, Dahmer typed her a note, thanked her for the Bible and the study lessons, and added:

"I want to accept the Lord. Would you please try to find someone to bring a baptistry tank to the prison?"

In that letter, Dahmer also signed a statement acknowledging that he wanted to accept Christ, Mott said.

When she got that letter, Mott said, "I got on the phone again."

"God forgives all sins," said Mott, who retired in 1975 after a 32-year career with the Defense Department. "God does not consider one sin greater than the other."

Mott said she first called a Baraboo-area minister, who explained that he was moving from the area and gave her Ratcliff's name.

Mott said Dahmer also sent her the completed Bible study lessons, which she "graded."

"He did very well," she said of the lessons. "He had to miss two or three (questions), out of 12 lessons."

After returning from the April 20 meeting with Dahmer, Ratcliff said, he began working with prison officials on whether a baptistry tank could be shipped into the maximum-security prison.

When prison officials offered the whirlpool, Ratcliff said, he and Dahmer agreed.

Mott said Ratcliff phoned her after Tuesday's ceremony.

"It was just real exciting," she said. "It's all to glorify God."

In his career as a minister and evangelist, Ratcliff said, he has baptized people "in rivers and creeks," but never anyone "so well-known."

Dahmer "seemed to understand very clearly what needed to be done," Ratcliff added.

I don’t know about you, but both of these extreme examples of redemption really challenge my perception of Godly justice. At first blush we can’t see any way that the lives of these two people justify redemption. To take this thought exercise a step further, it is possible that these two could spend eternity in the presence of God while some of their victims, who had not accepted salvation in their life, would not.

It is discourse such as this that can cause people who believe or not believe to stumble when it comes to having a relationship with God. He uses His word to be a teaching tool for us to understand how to live our life in accordance with His will. The example of the sinful woman who is genuinely sorry for her past sins, promises to change her life, attempt to sin no more, accepts Jesus as her Lord and Savior and lives her remaining days as an ambassador of that Savior will be saved. Despite how things look through our human view of justice, if these and other’s who have participated in murder and mayhem in their human lives (think Paul the Apostle or King David) have truly repented and accepted salvation, the word of God says that they will be in heaven.

In the case of Duch, the court that he is currently being tried by, will undoubtably sentence him to death or prison for his transgressions and Dahmer was sentenced to prison for his crimes and was brutally murdered in a bathroom by a man who felt that he heard the voice of God telling him to kill Dahmer. The point is that salvation does not subvert proper or improper justice for our sins on this earth and false exclamations of faith and salvation will not serve us at all when we face judgement.