Yep, you read that correctly. Mercy has been so butchered, betrayed, and deformed that people misconstrue its very nature. Misgendered Mercy and its cousin, Caustic Compassion, have become tunneling tools to undermine the foundations of Justice. When in reality, Mercy and Justice are partners, not opponents.

Here are the markers that will help us to see when Mercy and Compassion are being redefined and butchered. Mercy is an affirmation of the law, justice, and right and wrong. It is not a dismantling of the law or a questioning of its consequences. Mercy is the cry of the guilty, not a weapon for the defiant. Mercy can be relief from the demands of the law, but never an attack on the law itself. Mercy does not come with a posture of justification or defense. Mercy is a humble, contrite, and a resigned acceptance of guilt, accompanied by a request for leniency.  

When Mercy speaks in its Misgendered form, it self-justifies, deflects, and seeks to undermine the law and justice. It will look to redefine the law sometimes, even cloaking itself in the language of religion. After all, it still bears some of the Biblical markings of true Mercy, even if it’s just a disguise. This Misgendered Mercy will also call into question the legitimacy of the person tasked with bringing justice.

Look at Saul in 1 Samual 15. When he was confronted with his sin, he first tried to hide it. Then he lied about it. Next, Saul recast the commands of God in terms of some greater good, a more worthy, godlier calling. He could have acknowledged that he willfully sinned, knowing what God had commanded, but instead, he tried to create a narrative that he was actually acting on God’s better interests in partnership with the people of God. This should be ringing some cultural bells both outside, but more importantly, inside the “church”. 

My mission in writing this is to help us all have words for what we are seeing and to equip us to lead people into truth. In our Discipleship, there can be no more assumptions. We must spell out what we mean, as our common understanding has been lost to the culture wars. We must be in a relationship and see if there is a genuine understanding of the ways and teachings of Jesus. Jesus made Disciples face-to-face, and when He commissioned us to make Disciples, His intention was for us to do as He did. 

OK, back to Mercy. God knows I love Mercy in particular when it is directed towards me, but at this point, I must let you into a very deep place in my soul. It came in the form of forgiving the 19-year-old girl who killed my father when I was 17 years old.

As I stood over my father’s casket, looking at a form that was not him but was him, I was not struck down by grief. I was full of rage. I wanted justice, as I held my mother’s hand, I thought about all that she had lost. My 14-year-old sister asked me who would give her away at her wedding. Not in a selfish way; she was going through the painful math of recalculating a life without our father in it. All of us had just had our future stolen from us in a shocking and violent way. I was mad at the girl, mad at the world, and if there was a little piece of me that still believed in God, it would have been mad at Him too. I had rejected the idea of God when I was 12 years old and then followed the natural conclusion to appoint myself as the god of my life immediately thereafter.

I am going to jump forward in my story to get to the point of how Mercy comes into play. I got saved at 19 years old and began to follow Jesus with my whole heart. My life changed dramatically. I quit drugs that day, moved out of the party house I was living in, and befriended my fellow passionate believers in exchange for the enabling crew I had been hanging with. After about three months of being saved, I began contemplating heaven and hell, my dad’s fate, and if I would see him again. I prayed. I told God that He alone was just and that I dare not make demands of Him or make my service a condition of His answer, but I asked, “God was my dad saved”? I did not get an immediate answer from the Lord, but I was content to wait.

Honestly, I cannot tell you if it was the same day or the next, but I can tell you I got my answer. I was going through an old footlocker I had and came across a bible I had never seen before. It had my father’s name embossed across the cover in gold. I carefully folded back the brittle leather and was greeted by the title page, revealing my grandma Pearl’s handwriting. She had given the bible to my dad on Christmas Day of 1962. I had my answer. You can debate it if you want, but it was God’s answer to me.

As I read the bible, I came across the passage of the unforgiving servant. God pressed down on my chest with a clear and undeniable directive. I must forgive the girl who killed my father, and I must call her and communicate that forgiveness. I reached out to a friend who I knew was friends with the girl. I knew what I had to do. I knew that I was worthy of eternal death and judgment, justice demanded that I die for my sins, and I was in agreement with the law. When I understood that I had received this Mercy, I could not withhold Mercy from her.

I called her and told her who I was. I said that I had met Jesus, that He had forgiven me, and that I had forgiven her. I said Jesus will forgive you, too, if you cry out to him. She said she had been asking God for forgiveness and would continue to do so.

Once the Criminal trial was over, we had the opportunity to pursue a civil case against her and her father’s company, as she was driving a company truck when she struck and killed my father, doing 70 mph through our neighborhood. Mercy does not seek to balance the scales but instead bears the burden of injustice itself. If Mercy is a dismantling of justice, it cheats the one giving the Mercy of their own sacrifice and the burden they have chosen to bear! Sin always has a price to be paid. Mercy says, “I’ll pay it.” We could have been compensated as a family for all the lost earnings my dad would have provided over his lifetime, but we chose not to make that demand for justice and instead extended Mercy at a high cost. Because I had a proper understanding of Mercy, I was able to give it to her.

So, when I speak of Mercy, I have some authority. If she had justified her actions, excused her behavior, blamed others, or challenged the law itself, there would have been no place for my Mercy to find a home in her because Mercy is the affirmation of justice. Also, my understanding of Biblical Mercy led my soul to accurately calculate the Mercy I had received and therefore extend it to her. 

2 Corinthians 7:10 “godly sorrow leads to repentance”. This verse is predicated upon there being truth and justice, and a law that has consequences. The corruption of Mercy removes the law and repentance. So, if we Misgender Mercy as a means to undermine the law, we do violence not only to Mercy but to the law as a whole.

Here is how I have codified this concept. “A qualified apology equals a disqualified repentance”. To contrast David and Saul, when David is brought face-to-face with his sin, he owns every bit of it and even memorializes it in the psalms. It is only in David’s agreement with the law, his sin, and the acknowledgment of its consequences that Mercy can find its proper expression.

So how does true Mercy and Misgendered Mercy look the same?

1. They are both looking to alleviate the consequences.
2. They both can sound like worthy endeavors.
3. They can both have the appearance of being Christ-like. “Blessed are the Merciful”

But one is an imposter that will unravel the very nature of justice, and one is the affirmation of justice itself. If you do not understand the difference, you can unwittingly enable a version of Mercy that is profoundly harmful to individuals and society as a whole.

What are the markers of Misgendered Mercy?

1. Sorrow for being caught, not for doing wrong.
2. Defensive and justifying.
3. Challenging and Questioning not humiliated.
4. No repentance but temporary faux sorrow.

What are the markers of Biblical Mercy?

1. A genuine sorrow for their sin/missing the mark.
2. A full ownership of actions and the deserved consequences.
3. An acceptance of whatever judgment is handed down.
4. A change in behavior born out of gratitude for the Mercy received.

Here is the tricky part. Sometimes you will not know what Mercy has been received when you extend it. Some people operating in Misgendered Mercy have learned the ways and words of genuine Mercy. Just like the unforgiving servant in Jesus’s story. It will only be after the fact that you will know what you are dealing with. Also, no one is going to walk in perfection after they have sinned, and we can be too quick to say, “See, I knew it.” This is our defense mechanism kicking in, not wanting to be hurt again. Sometimes we will have to be long-suffering as Jesus has been with us. But other times, there is a need for punitive correction for those who only pretend to be remorseful. Jesus’s story ended with the man being thrown in jail for how he mishandled Mercy.

Mercy requires wisdom, testing, and insight. 

This article has been living in my chest for a while, but it was pressed out into print by the 73 arrests of a man in Chicago who has now forever altered the life of a young woman who had to pay the price for Misgendered Mercy. If this man had received Mercy as it was intended, he would not have seen it as an endorsement but rather a debt to be served. Instead, this Misgendered Mercy reinforced, on a conscious or subconscious level, the idea that his actions did not warrant repercussions. She is now the victim of Misgendering, Mercy. 

Less drastically, our misuse of Mercy can have consequences in the lives of our children, friends, our spouses, really anyone we are in a relationship with. Many times, people of the faith forgo difficult conversations and interactions because they are hard. But pick your hard because those deferrals of confrontation will grow and age like grapes turning to vinegar, not a fine wine. Mercy is not an excuse to defer.

Let’s all of us continue to grow in Jesus’s instruction to be both wise, gentle, and full of Mercy. Prayer should be your ever-present companion, in particularly when you are dealing with difficult and complex issues. Issues that are not solved with a pull quote, meme, or post. Mercy is not always the answer. Sometimes the Lord’s love is the hand of correction and consequence.

If you are reading this and you are a member of the RDN, you know how valuable it is to have your tribe, your council, your Band of Brothers walk things like this out. If you are not, I would invite you to join us. For our members, I have also attached a link to our newest Discipleship Resource called “The Intentional Leader”. It’s a field guide to intentional relational small groups.

For our non-member readers, we are a Missions Organization. Our Mission is to restore the Great Commission to the Church in America. Visit rdn.org to learn more about us or to join the movement!