by Kim Riddlebarger @http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com 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 crass a ploy to sell some books.
But the cynic in me says that Dahmer sure would have an interesting testimony!
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