Valuing Life in Proportion to Deeds

Candace Owens has a viral video circulating right now whereby she publicizes the criminal record of George Floyd.

To summarize the video, Candace affirms that George Floyd should not have been killed that day, but then proceeds to smear him in order to call into question his worthiness to be remembered as some kind of icon or hero. She criticizes people who walk around with George Floyd tee shirts or who use the #GeorgeFloyd hashtag, saying his actions rendered him someone who shouldn't be honored or celebrated.

The video made my skin crawl.

In response to this video, let me just say this--

1.) None of the backstory matters. He was fully apprehended and posed no threat to anybody when he was killed at the hands of police brutality. She affirms that, but her tone suggests his death was less of a tragedy because of his record.

2.) His name and his face have become an icon in the revolution against injustice not because of his deeds in life, but because of the tragic way that his life was taken from him.

3.) There was only one person in the history of the world who lived a life truly worthy to be remembered as a "good" man, and his name was Jesus.

4.) Suggesting that lost lives should be honored in proportion to their deeds is a devastating proposal that rejects the intrinsic value of human life and the tragedy of sin and death for all people. My wish is that all lives lost would be mourned with the heart of God, and remembered as symbols for our need for Jesus.

5.) It is a beautiful portrait of the gospel that a sinner saved by grace (as testified by many), who died at the hands of injustice, is remembered in death not by his countless failures, but as a symbol for a revolution that calls for pain, death, and injustice to be no more.

6.) However, George Floyd and every other man on Earth are insufficient symbols for that revolution. Where George and I fail, Christ succeeds. His revolution is one that cannot be stopped. Jesus, come.

7.) George Floyd, by all accounts, is with Christ now. And God is now increasing the world's cry for justice and mercy with his death. I pray that one day I will die in such a way that my death drives people to see the need for Christ with yet more power than even my life accomplished. Not all who cry for mercy and justice realize their cry is for Jesus. But it is, and I am praying that he meets them in their cries.

8.) Death comes for all of us. All that will matter on that day is whether we stand before God condemned by the record of our deeds, or rescued by the record of Christ's deeds. I praise God that in his mercy, he rescued George Floyd from the record of his deeds by giving him faith in Jesus.

Amen.