Dennis Rader: One of Us

For our enemies and those who wish us harm, and for all whom we have injured or offended, we pray to you, O Lord.

Lord, have mercy. -- Noonday Prayer

We Lutherans talk a good game about grace and forgiveness. We often see ourselves as a necessary counterpoint, in the religious agora, to the unforgiving, penally oriented, graceless legalism rampant in other corners of Christianity. When we encounter seeking others who tell us that they are attracted to Christianity but feel "too bad to be forgiven," we assure them in the strongest possible terms that there is nothing -- not a thing -- that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Dennis Rader is where our theology meets the reality of the darkness and dysfunction possible in a human soul.

It's easier for us to forgive persons who kill in the heat of passion, or even those who kill while in the grip of some ideological delusion, whether willingly embraced or imposed. But someone who terrorizes, tortures and then kills others purely for sadistic self-gratification, then adding insult to injury by taunting the police and the community for their inability to solve his crimes -- that crosses a line, in most of our minds, where forgiveness is damned hard to find.

Hearing about Dennis Rader's actions, and pondering the pain and terror of his victims, made me ill. And, truth be told, it made me cringe in shame, because his church affiliation and leadership role in his church became part of the news story, and part of the national buzz. In researching this post, I came upon more than one armchair commentator who opined that Rader's pastor did not appear sufficiently angry at him or sufficiently remorseful over what Rader had done; and -- perhaps not surprisingly -- Operation Rescue/Operation Save America noted on their website , "Just a cursory look at the ELCA will show that they are pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, and absolutely apostate – a breeding ground and a great cover for murderers." (A note to some of my more sheltered coreligionists who aren't used to being talked about in this manner -- yeah, it's a gut check. But The Boss said that comes with the job. And it seems to hurt less when we're standing together.)

What do we do, as people of God, with a Dennis Rader? How does a person this damaged, for whatever reason, fit into our picture of God's salvific power?

People don't wake up one morning and decide, "I think I'll be a sociopath. Yeah -- that sounds like fun." The ability to differentiate between self and others, to feel empathy for others and to interact with others in healthy ways, is learned during a specific developmental period in our babyhood. Once that window of opportunity passes, it doesn't come back; our brains are "set" in terms of our moral development and ability to relate to other sentient beings. Abandoned babies in developing-world orphanages, lying alone all day without being touched or spoken to or having their most basic needs met on a consistent basis, frequently turn into sociopathic young people and adults -- narcissistic, amoral, compulsive and violent. We don't know and may never know what nuturance Dennis Rader did or didn't get as an infant, or what organic insult may have affected the hardwiring of his brain, but the nature of his crimes suggests that, at some point in his young life, something went terribly wrong.

Yet Michael Welner, a professor of psychiatry at New York University and a student of the criminal psyche, wrote an op-ed piece in the Wichita Eagle where he suggested that it was Rader's involvement in a faith community that eventually led him to stop the killing. (Hat tip to bls at The Topmost Apple for the link.) Noted Welner:

Religion can reach morally empty psychopaths where psychiatry and incarceration cannot. To someone who believes himself to be clever enough to fool all of the people all of the time -- including his psychiatrist -- a higher authority may be the only entity to whom he is capable of feeling accountable.

So in the final analysis Dennis Rader winds up with the rest of us: beggars at the foot of the cross, each bearing our own variety and degree of brokenness, yet all of us cosmically down and out and unable to help ourselves, crying to God as we can for wholeness and reconciliation. People of faith living simultaneously in the now and the not-yet, we struggle every day with all the practical as well as spiritual implications of living in a broken world with broken others; but we hold to the hope that, some day, in Christ, "All will be well and all manner of thing will be well." Including Dennis Rader. And you. And me.