Insight on the News
Modern and Ancient Laws
● Twelve years ago New Zealand introduced laws whereby victims of crimes are to be compensated. Since then other countries have taken similar steps. This kind of legislation calls to mind provisions found in God’s law given through Moses. In that law, sanctions for offenses were designed to give relief and compensation to the victim of a thief or of a damager of property. If the offender could not pay the amount of compensation assessed, he could be sold into bondage and then pay off his debt by work. (Ex. 22:1-6) A major difference, however, exists between such Biblical legislation and modern laws.
As sociologist Stephen Schafer points out in “Psychology Today” magazine, modern legislation puts the burden on the state to compensate victims; the criminal, though jailed, is not required to share in this. Schafer views this as a major weakness. He reasons that having the offender work to compensate the victim, and thus do something positive, would contribute greatly to his rehabilitation. It would help him to see his act as an injury to a fellow human and not just as an offense against ‘an abstraction such as “society” or “the law.’” These same principles are found within the Mosaic law—a law reaching back some three thousand years, but the product of eternal wisdom.
Holy Year Half Past
● About six months ago, on Christmas Eve of 1974 the pope opened and passed through a special doorway, the Holy Door” of St. Peter’s Basilica, and announced the “Holy Year’s” commencement. Since then hundreds of thousands of “pilgrims” have visited Rome. A recent report from Vatican City describes them as showing a “sense of sadness, grief and sorrow,” in contrast to the “enthusiasm and generosity” of pilgrims in the previous Holy Year, 1950.
The reference to the pilgrims’ diminished generosity recalls the prediction made last year by the Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera” that pilgrims would bring from 600 to 700 billion lire to Roman hotels, shops and the Church. It also calls to mind a report in “Newsweek” magazine that the Vatican had “drawn fire for selling ‘Pilgrim’s Packets’” consisting of a map of Rome, a “Holy Year” bumper sticker and a ‘pilgrim’s insurance policy,’ along with tickets for free admissions to public museums and galleries. Alleged “competition” on the part of the Church had, in fact, been protested by Roman shopkeepers and hotels even before the Holy Year got under way. On the other side, at the start of the Holy Year, the pope had found it necessary to urge Romans not to fleece the pilgrims flocking there. But a dispatch to the New York “Times” relates that thousands of fake bricks—falsely represented as having been used to block off the “Holy Door” before the Holy Year’s start—have been sold to pilgrims at prices from $40 to $80 each. So, whatever financial gain the celebration may bring, it does not seem to offer any genuine hope of spiritual uplift for troubled mankind.
Rock Music and Unwed Mothers
● Illegitimate births among teen-agers rose 50 percent during a ten-year period in the United States. At last count, out of every 1,000 teen-age mothers, 339 were unwed. This compares with only 76 unwed mothers out of every 1,000 women past the teen-age period. Why the great difference?
One organization, Population Institute, would place a considerable share of the blame on the lyrics of rock music, so popular among teen-agers. The Institute points out that these lyrics often glorify sex relations and childbearing out of wedlock. Popular rock songs with titles such as “I Don’t Like to Sleep Alone” and “Having My Baby” illustrate the point. Can anyone harmonize such musical material with the Bible’s urging at Philippians 4:8 to keep our minds fixed on things that are ‘true, of serious concern, righteous, chaste and praiseworthy’? For those who heed that counsel, the next verse promises, “the God of peace will be with you.”