People Without Sin Wouldn’t Have Wanted to Cast the First Stone Anyway

We can’t ever be forced into making the concession that some concepts are flawless

“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her”--John 8:7

I’ve always thought there was something wrong with this comment by Jesus. Even as a child, I remember reading it and thinking that it could be misread as permission to punish people if you were “perfect.” But the more I’ve matured, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more problems I see.

People like to say that “God is love.” Well, what part of love involves any endorsement of throwing stones at people? Obviously, the statement can be read as an admonishment that you shouldn’t throw stones. Unfortunately the words are in there, “let him cast a stone.”

One of the other fundamental axioms of the Catholic church is that “everybody is a sinner.” I think that John 8:7 is sometimes taken as one of the “proofs” of that concept. After all, nobody threw a stone after Jesus spoke. But in my experience, that’s not how bad people operate. There are opportunists in our society who would have thrown a stone which they could offer as evidence that they were not sinful.

But my biggest problem with this statement is something that I’ve only recently recognized. It’s the simple truth that if there had been a man or woman without sin in the crowd, their nature would have compelled them not to throw stones in the first place.

Good people treat each other with love and compassion. They do not view punishment as a means to an end.

That realization led me to understand that John 8:7 cannot be seen as a proof that everyone is sinful. The reason is that it’s built on a false concept. You can’t look at the experiment and say, “nobody threw a stone, therefore everyone is sinful.” It’s just as reasonable to conclude, “nobody threw a stone, therefore people without sin don’t throw stones.”

Truthfully, have you ever heard anyone say that?

But here’s the part where my argument becomes significantly more complex because we have to speculate about what Christ intended to achieve with that statement.

It seems to me that if we assume Christ understood the nature of sin, and he made this statement anyway, it represents a deliberate attempt to deceive. It’s the equivalent of saying, “Prove yourself by doing something you’re incapable of doing.”

It’s manipulation. Assuming that Christ understood the nature of sin, I don’t think there’s any other way to read this comment.

The only other possibility is to assume that Christ did not understand the nature of sin in the first place. In both cases, this represents the starting point for casting doubt upon all of Christ’s teachings.

That’s very important.

Throughout most of human history, Christ has been treated the same way the media currently treats Donald Trump. Nobody pushes back on his statements. Nobody subjects them to scientific inquiry. Nobody asks to see the evidence.

Even when people are critical of Christianity, they often stop short of offering any criticism of Christ. They say things like, “The church needs to go back to embracing the teachings of Christ, we have to make Christianity great again.”

Decent people are usually coerced into the concession of leaving Christ untouchable. The predetermined rules are always, “We can talk about religion, but you cannot under any circumstances question the teachings of Christ.”

Why? Why can’t we pick apart those words and call out any problems that might be found? Show us the tax returns. What are they hiding?

Furthermore, we do a disservice to humanity if we concede something is true without subjecting it to peer review. Christians often denounce the sins of others, but they rarely denounce the sins of the church. Throughout history, there have been many. Even when the sins of the church are recognized, the teachings of Christ are exempted from criticism.

“The human church can descend into corruption, but Jesus Christ was the one perfect person who ever walked this Earth.” I’ve seen more than one politician use this argument to divert attention away from personal crimes that should prevent them from holding office. It’s a disarming and effective statement.

“I’m an imperfect person, only Christ was perfect.”

But if he’s perfect, why did he leave us with the contradiction of John 8:7?

The reality is that the crimes that have been committed by the church are the result of an ideology that grew out of Christ’s teachings. 

This is not to say that all the teachings of Christ are wrong. Truth is always mixed in with deceit. The oversimplification of binary thinking that separates concepts into universally “bad” or universally “good” does not equip us to manage the complexities of our multifaceted world.

So, we should not assume that the teachings of Christ are “perfect.”

My biggest concern when it comes to religion is the fixation on punishment as a means to correct human behavior. Threatening people that they will burn for all eternity is not an effective means of motivation. Neither is threatening to hit them with stones.

I have two children whom I have sheltered from the teachings of Christ. My parenting style is to shower them with love, encouragement, and compassion. I read to them. I write stories for them. We create art together.

I don’t hit them. I don’t ground them. I don’t insult them. I don’t even raise my voice.

My children are wonderful. They are polite. They make every effort to do what’s expected of them. They’ve been raised completely free from the threat of punishment because I believe that to simply invoke the concept of punishment is an unforgivable encroachment upon a person’s basic humanity.

Any suggestion that there might be some scenario where throwing stones is acceptable is false.

I’ve come to believe that the concept of punishment is the part of religious ideology that has inflicted the greatest amount of harm on humanity. Race based human slavery was “justified” by the idea that people of a different race were “sinful,” and therefore could be “punished” perpetually.

This concept is false.

We need to reject the idea that punishment is acceptable in some cases. This should be our ideal. We should treat all human beings with love and compassion. We should never even mention the concept of sin.

To mention sin is to be a bully. To mention sin is to become an oppressor. All we have to do is look back upon human history for a lamentable collection of examples.

Deceit is almost always hidden within the concepts we don’t question. I believe it’s detrimental to humanity to defer to the purity of Christ’s teachings. You cannot tarnish something that’s good by examining it for flaws.

The only group that demands that we must accept their statements without proof, evidence, or further inquiry are those that seek to deceive.

So, let’s not allow ourselves to be forced into the false assumption that there are some teachings that have no flaws.

Spread the word. Christ isn’t perfect. He should have known that anybody without sin wouldn’t have even considered throwing a stone.

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