Yes, I See That Hand . . .
Monday, January 29, 2007 at 07:34PM 
Jeffrey Dahmer was a brutal killer and deserved life in prison, if not the death penalty.
Supposedly, Jeffrey Dahmer become a Christian while in prison, and his pastor actually felt that he had the gifts to become an effective evangelist before his death at the hands of another inmate. Click here: Would serial killer Dahmer have been an evangelist? | US News | Reuters.com
This raises a number of interesting and troubling questions. No doubt the grace of God can reach even Jeffrey Dahmer. But Jeffrey Dahmer as an evangelist? That's a tough one. The pastor who baptized Dahmer is writing a book about Dahmer's 1994 conversion. How objective is the author? And if Dahmer actually became a Christian (and it would be wonderful if he did) what would repentance look like in the case of a man who killed 17 boys, raped many more, and cannibalistically consumed many of them? What would the families of his victims think?
And then there's the added problem of Christopher Scarver, who killed Dahmer in prison because he claimed "God told him to." Makes you wonder about providence . . .
This whole thing raises a lot of interesting questions. There's certainly no question that even a Jeffrey Dahmer is not beyond the reach of God's grace--the merits of Christ are no doubt sufficient to justify the vilest sinner. Let's hope this was not just another jail house conversion with the goal of more prison privileges, or a crass ploy to sell some books.
But the cynic in me says that Dahmer sure would have an interesting testimony!
Your thoughts?
Reader Comments (50)
fair enough! i will stick with mine as well.
sibert,
intriguing question. i do honestly wonder what prompts it.
i doubt KR wants his blog plugged with gory details of self-display. i would be happy to email privately if you provide it (i have a rule not to hand out mine, sorry). also, my confessional ethic naturally resists your question, so understand that the following makes me uneasy to say:
suffice it to say here that i was reared in broad secularism (mainline by proxy, i suppose; you know, christmas and easter morning), my parents are descendants of classic liberalism, converted in college, married into REF (revivalism-evangelicalism-fundamentalism), became utterly exhausted, picked up a book by horton, got some CURE tapes (now WHI), was spellbound, never looked back, 12 years in reformed confessionalism, eternally grateful to guys like horton and KR. i like to say that after about 4-5 years calling myself a christian i finally heard the gospel, when i picked up horton.
zrim
i can't help myself...you assume i make a categorical distinction between perfect/imperfect. but, simply put, i do not. that is a false dichotomy, but once you assume it you are left with your conclusions. but since i do not share that dichotomy i must say that we are beginning from very different places.
zrim
O.k. maybe perfect/imperfect was assumptive.
What is your basis for your common sense "no" to Dahmer? Mine says "yes". It makes much more "common sense" for someone who has been forgiven much to evangelize.
-Chris
here is my e-mail address: sibert@uab.edu. the reason i asked, honestly, was because i've actually checked out some other sites on which you post and it seems that the ratio of mentioning reformed confessionalism to mentioning Jesus Christ is about 60:1! i am not armenian, i hold to calvinism (therefore i usually agree with 90% of what you say), yet it seems that you emphasize the structure over the relationship quite a lot. i'd like to know about your Jesus. to make it short and to borrow from WOTM, what would you tell me to do if i ran up to you with a knife sticking out of my back and asked what i would have to do to be saved? would you tell me about Jesus or would you root out one of the confessions and get to maybe article II by the time i expired? feel free to answer in my box, or even better, answer here (I Peter 3:15).
How can you see into God's secret counsels and know that someone is a reprobate - we just can't knwo that about Dahmer on this side of the grave. That assumption leaves me nothing left to say but that some of us appear to not be too sinful to be good candidates for the Gospel, while others are just too wicked.
I say that because he grew up in a culture where he knew right from wrong. In our culture, anyone can obtain a Bible or find a church if he truly wants to. He knew how sick his crimes were. This man was as nasty as they come. I can't see into God's secret counsels but I can judge the fruit of a persons life.
Culture, right and wrong? Is there a culture where man has an excuse?
I'm sure he did know just how heinous his crimes were, then how much greater the good news for him. If he is one of the elect, then what can separate him from the love of God?
It seems to me that any infraction of God's law would separate any of us from Him forever, if not for Christ. Am I mistaken?
one thing i don't like to do is repeat myself, although i find that happens a lot! my basis is his past/what we know of jailhouse confessions, etc. yours says yes and mine says no. again, i just think your last statement is much too simplistic. you may concede that the perfect/imperfect dichotomy is not so good, but you still seem slavish to it by that last statement, i think. everyone who evangelizes is forgiven, but within that class i think we have to concede that there are further stipulations. i have more regard for these figures who recognize this reality and submit to it, quietly joinin gour ranks than in thinking they have some sort of free pass to "take the stump" because of their heinousness/celebrity. i think we do more harm thann good to let them get up in front. if they recognized this and showed more humility, while i'd never allow them to evangelize, they'd have much more credibility with me if they showed a sensitivity to what they are asking us to accept.
zrim
maybe you don't want the gory details, so i will humor your questions since they seem innocent enough. (someone please speak up if this gets too OT, perosnal or whatever and i will take it to sibert's email.)
"yet it seems that you emphasize the structure over the relationship quite a lot."
yes, i do. i am glad you notice. i make no apologies for that. i resist the "christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship" dogma of our day. i sense in your comments sympathies for REF'ism. i know them quite well, sibert. i tried faking it for about 4-5 years. then i heard the gospel and believed, as it were. REF can blather all it wants about an unmediated basis for faith (i.e. relationship), but go far enough in conversation with it and one finds a dogmatic system that just happens to be dressed up in assumptions that it is "real." despite a lot of "truth-speak" in REF it still is grounded in experientialism; christianity is *entirely* truth-based, not experientially based. while an "intellectual" expression of faith can be faked, so can the experiential one; thus we must choose which template is biblical. i choose the one rooted in truth, not experience. this doesn't mean we don't have experience or have templates for subjectivity, we do. but christianity is driven by truth. i have always said, for example, that if the resurrection isn't true i have better things to do. why my liberal family wastes their time going to church when they don't believe the truth claims of historic christianity, i do not know; it is a collosal waste of time. maybe it's because they have gutted the faith of its life-blood and are left with ethics. but i always found that the ethics with which they are left are pretty common sense, so why hoist your butt to a place called church every sunday to be told stuff you already know (contra going to hear that which is alien, namely the gospel, something we naturally don't know and need to hear repeatedly).
if you are looking for a story about how i was a drug addict, a social misfit, an unfulfilled "hole in my heart" you will not get one. i am not "here" because of any of that. i am a very functional person who is quite fulfilled with all the good things God affords believers and non- alike. i am "here" because the Gospel is true and the reformed system, while admittedly not perfect, is the best expression of the Gospel. it is not about being a better person or being subjectively fulfilled (read:spirituality); there are plenty of worldly systems that can shape people up or make them feel good inwardly. and since i need neither what i am after is truth: that God has reconciled Himself to sinners through His only Son Jesus Christ, to be succinct.
"what would you tell me to do if i ran up to you with a knife sticking out of my back and asked what i would have to do to be saved? would you tell me about Jesus or would you root out one of the confessions and get to maybe article II by the time i expired?"
funny scene, i have to admit. again, i am familiar with such questions from my REF past. short answer: i would tell you to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved, just like pual told the jailor, i guess.
i know what you are trying to do here, i think; i am pretty familair with it as my whole extended family does this like pros. you are trying to corner a perceived nasty intellectualism, etc. if i had a dime for every time...
i have very little patience for the latent animosity toward a thoughtful expression of the christian faith, sibert. fact is, most people are not running around with knives in their backs so the hypothetical seems not a little sophomoric.
i hope my words don't come off as too sharp for you, sibert. you seem like a good guy. but i do feel strongly about these things and welcome the exchange! i will try to keep your email in case we decide to take it into a corner somewhere. i hope we don't waste the time of good people here!
zrim
it was a turn of phrase, sibert. we are all pretending to solve the world's problems here. i am nobody. my words are meant to say, "if i were in charge." but i am not. easy, friend, nobody is trying to make more out of things than necessary.
i sense you getting out of your chair unnecessarily, sibert. easy. my assumptions are "formal speaking on behalf of God's church." i am not saying jeff couldn't share his faith with folks in informal ways, etc. that would be quite absurd.
by your definition of evangelizing (rather a low-church informed one, i think) everyone can do so. and to some extent i quite agree with you, of course. i am not ordained an evangelist (oops, my formalism is showing again), but i share it with my common contacts (family, co-workers, etc).
i think we are beginning with some essential differences, you/chris an dme...that's all. i have more formal understandings of evangelizing and you have more, shall we say, informal and not-so-churchly.
zrim
Sorry to have to make you repeat yourself.
I wholeheartedly agree that celebrity status- famous or infamous is no qualification for "taking the stump", but neither is it a disqualification.
There is an inherent danger in putting anyone on a pedestal, that we look at the person and what they have done rather than Christ and what He has done. Indeed the celeb would do well to quietly and humbly assume their position in the ranks. I believe that if their conversion was true then this would be the norm.
Unfortunately we won't know in the case of Mr. Dahmer what might have been or not.
to quote Paul in Philippians
"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-- that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."
Don't take people who hide behind aliases too seriously. :)
There are cultures where more light is given. I understand very well the suffering that Christ endured as the sacrifice for our sins. Regardless of the sins committed the sacrifice remains the same for all believers.
IF Dahmer is one of the elect nothing can separate him from the love of God.
The fact remains that Dahmer was not repentant until caught by humanity. It is not impossible that Dahmer was converted but how often do people "repent" when judged by man.
The are many death bed confessions. It is the idea that some have of enjoying sin until the moment before death and then asking for forgiveness. Again, this type of "salvation" is like a child not being sorry for his transgression but being sorry for being caught.
I suppose it is possible that Dahmer was converted. However, i think it was extremely unlikely. I can only judge by what I read of his "conversion" and the heinous crimes that he committed. Dahmer committed his crimes not because he thought he was doing right but because he enjoyed it. It is unlike any biblical examples that I can think of.
i sure do.
but for the record, i was asked a question so i answered. and i did apologize for taking up good people's time. sorry again.
zrim
Of course Dahmer enjoyed his sin, what unrepentant person doesn't? I have not read about his conversion, was he not repentant and utterly disgusted by his sin after conversion?
Sometimes it takes getting caught by man for one to repent. Read Chuck Colson's story. Even though he was a recent convert before going to jail, it was not until in jail that he repented.
Deathbed conversions, well I don't believe Christ was mistaken when He told the thief on the cross next to Him that he would be in paradise with Him. Maybe that was an exception to the rules?
In any case it is God's kindness that leads us to repentance.
He will have mercy on whom He wills.