The sin of vigilantism

Ahmad Arbery was jogging through a neighbourhood in coastal Georgia (about an hour North of Jacksonville) when a group of men thought they recognized him from a video of a robbery a few nights earlier. They piled in trucks, chased him down, ambushed him, and in the ensuing fight shot and killed him.

Those facts aren’t really in dispute, as the killers themselves provided them to the police. Although they didn’t use the word “ambush,” they did capture his killing on video, and the video certainly shows an ambush. Arbery’s death has stoked all kinds of obvious reactions. It hits upon our nation’s racial issues, and it rightly has drawn comparisons to a modern-day lynching.

There are understandable questions about racism in this kind of shooting. A group of three white men in pick-up trucks chased a black man in a white shirt through the streets while pointing guns at him, all because a black man in a white shirt was possibly seen cutting through a nearby construction site. Clearly, this is going to provoke a discussion on racism, and racism is of course wrong, sinful, and an affront to biblical ethics, the nature of the church, and the image of God in man. We have blogged on that many times (here, here, and here for a few examples).

But there is another category of biblical ethics that his killing touches on which I haven’t seen discussed much in relationship to Arbery’s death: vigilantism.

A vigilante is someone who takes the law into his own hands. A typical vigilante works in groups, and the word has a connotation of disrespect towards law enforcement. A neighbourhood watch group keeps an eye out for suspicious activity and calls the police. But a vigilante keeps his eye out for crime, and then acts as the law, executing justice on the spot.

Vigilantism is wrong, dangerous, and sinful. It is wrong because it operates outside of the law. It is dangerous because it often leads to violence. It is sinful because at its core it is contrary to how God designed the government to work.

In God’s design of justice, there are certain rights given to an accused person. A person can only be convicted of a crime by a judge. Deuteronomy 1:16-17 explains that God was establishing a system of justice in Israel that was to be carried out by judges. A judge was called by God to carry out justice, and not show partiality. Much of the rest of the Mosaic Law hinges on that basic premise. Judges were detached from the case at hand, so they could be impartial.

This is essential to justice—so much so that if a person killed someone and didn’t think they could get a fair hearing where they were, they could flee to a city of refuge (Numbers 35:6). In other words, a person had a right to a trial.

Moreover, in God’s system of justice, every accusation had to be born out by testimony, and the testimony of witnesses had to essentially agree. People are not omniscient, so we generally don’t have immediate knowledge. Our knowledge is general mediated knowledge—knowledge that comes to us through other sources. This is essential to justice. For a judge to make a determination about who did what when the judge needs witnesses:

A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offence that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.

Deuteronomy 19:15   
This is critical precisely because vigilantism doesn’t afford it. In vigilantism, a group of people set aside things like trials, evidence, and cross-examination, and generally act out of fear, with limited, flawed, and often partial knowledge. Sometimes vigilantes get it right, sometimes they don’t, but never are they operating within the law.

This is why vigilantism is sinful. God designed the government to bear the sword. Government is a form of common grace that checks sin, establishes justice, and makes this sinful world livable.

The Oxford definition of vigilante describes someone who operates “typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate.” At its very core, vigilantism is an affront to the legally established law enforcement. Law enforcement operates within the law—and when it doesn’t, that is sinful—and vigilantism operates outside the law. Which is why it can so often lead to over punishment—such as executing a guy for the crime of trespassing.

Vigilantism is different than love of neighbour. God has of course given us the means and mandate to defend ourselves. A person is supposed to protect their family. A person is supposed to protect their neighbour. If you see your neighbour being attacked, you have the right (and biblical mandate) to intervene to protect them while the police are summoned. This protection can sometimes reasonably involve lethal force.

But don’t confuse that kind of love for a neighbor with a group of men arming themselves and chasing down a possible suspect in a non-violent crime through the streets. That is not a neighborhood watch, and it is not the love of neighbour.

Romans 13:4 says that Christians should honour God by honouring the government, and particularly the government’s role in bearing the sword to punish wrongdoers. The vigilante disrespects God by disrespecting the government God has established, and Arbery’s death demonstrates the consequences of that kind of sin. All murder involves the disdain of human life. Killing someone (or cornering a non-violent criminal with guns, making their killing likely) add another level of wrong. It shows not only a disdain for human life but a disdain for justice itself.

Sin is so perverted that it often ironically destroys what it alleges to pursue. The glutton destroys the love of food, the drunkard destroys joy from alcohol. Lust destroys love.

And vigilantism destroys justice. 
Author: Cripplegate