Jesus Christ was the non-accomplice of history

At Christmas, we are celebrating the birth of the non-accomplice of history: Jesus Christ. Born without human power and unwilling to use the limitless divine power that He had, He refused to compromise with evil. God makes no concessions to evil.  Like Father, like Son.

Silence in the face of evil, keeping one’s head down is a temptation for us all. We prefer not to think ill of others and particularly not evil of those in authority over us, who have titles and letters after their names.  

The famous Milgram Experiment explored the psychology of genocide, testing whether the defence “But they told me to do it…” is valid. It resulted in shocking and disturbing results. People were told to electrocute others (actually actors) by ‘doctors’ in white coats and researchers found that 65% of people will do what authority tells them to do, even if their actions result in agonising pain or even death, for others.  It had been presumed that carrying out this experiment on American men would prove that they would not do it - but they did. Later, other nationalities and women did it, too. It made no difference who the participants were. For a fuller description of the experiment see here

Most people, whatever nationality, cannot be counted on to realise that a seemingly benevolent authority may be malevolent, even when they are faced with overwhelming evidence which suggests that the authority is indeed malevolent. Hence, the underlying cause for the subjects' striking conduct could well be 'conceptual'. On the other hand, this may be because becoming the ‘accomplice of authority’ cancels out feelings of personal guilt and responsibility.  The trouble is that it does not, according to the Nuremberg principle.  We are all responsible for what we do, whether we are ordered to do it, or not.

So how can otherwise decent people become accomplices?  There are now advanced forms of military-grade brainwashing which play on the susceptibility of individuals not to question authority (although even this is not an excuse in a court of law). There are all sorts of ways of justifying being an accomplice, such as: consciously ignoring and covering-up evidence, not ‘observing’ what is going on, not reporting malfeasance, breaking the law in official reports, lying/misrepresenting facts.  Less passive ways are threatening whistleblowers and the censorship of open debate. 

How easy is it to justify such actions? People think “Who am I?  Poor me - how inconvenient for me. What difference can I make? They would 'shoot me down';  I might lose my job; I must pay our mortgage; I have to pay the bills...and go on holiday...” 

Jesus never entertained temptation.  He refused to be silent in the face of intimidation and threats.  “You white-washed tombs” He called those with real power of life and death over Him. Then He turned their revenge, the Cross, into victory.

The light and power of truth still shines in the darkness (of evil) and the (evil) darkness has not overcome it (John 1.5)