The Jailing of John Reyes

[The following press release/speech by Pastor Knodel was made with Rev. Flip Benham and student John Reyes on the steps of the Lynchburg City Courthouse on Monday, August 30, 1999.]

Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church
The Rev. R. E. Knodel, Jr.
1021 Federal Street
Lynchburg, VA 24504
Phone: (804) 845-8572
E-mail: KnodelJr@aol.com

Press Conference
For Immediate Release
Attention Assignment Editor
30 August 1999

I attended the trial of student John Reyes as a neutral observer. Curiosity seasoned with a mild sense of responsibility had drawn me. Through the trial, suspicions regarding the Christians’ behavior at E. C. Glass High School dissolved. If any offense at all existed, it appeared minor and completely without malice.

These tentative conclusions were shocked when Judge Miller handed down six-month jail sentences for what amounted to zealous religious witnessing. My mind was jarred by the inequity of what I observed during the trial, compared to its harsh penalty. The sentences’ severity provided the initial propellant for my further concern for John.

I have spent my whole life evaluating “truth claims,” both of a philosophical nature, and in cases involving ecclesiastical–judicial issues. The scope of the latter have been local, regional and national. I am fifty-one years old. I am no novice. I am certainly no adolescent inflamed with more passion than sense.

In all this time, and in all these arenas, I have never seen such a miscarriage of justice; nor apparently a case where a judge took more license with basic equity and fairness, as I have in the sentencing of this model-citizen to six months in jail.

Even if all the prosecutor’s contentions are granted (with which I fervently disagree), and guilt is assigned (which I deny), this sentence appears inexplicably vengeful and vicious. As a Christian citizen, I can do nothing other than to raise this small protest, and beg the court and my city to come to their senses! We cannot allow our passions to deter us from sound judgment. We cannot ruin the lives of innocent people in this way without paying an awful societal price!

(In the speech on the courthouse steps I continued with this addendum, which was not part of the news release.)

In the aftermath of this trial, my mind is drawn back to the teachings of Christ. I am simply left with many unanswered questions.

1) With the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, does Judge Miller not recognize mankind’s capacity for the most outlandish use of courts of law? Here was the best man who ever lived. And a bonifide Imperial court of Rome found our Lord Jesus Christ guilty of a capital crime!

2) Do we consider the court of Pontius Pilate some unique, bizarre aberration of justice? Was there an inexplicable time-warp which led to the dementia of the court? Or did this rather sophisticated court allow itself to become involved in the tawdry push and pull between rebellious man and his God?

3) As with the condemnation of Jesus, we ask, “Where was the mercy of the court?” Was there no room for further consideration? Did man’s prejudice make no allowance for sympathy? Or is law simply reduced to tribalism, where the issue involves not equity and justice, but merely whose ox was gored?

4) Similar to John Reyes, Jesus was a first-time offender. And similar to the Reyes case, the court refused any consideration which would dull its appetite for vengeance. The crowds cried, “Crucify him, Crucify him!” And the court played to the mob. But is this the historical model for justice; or rather infamy’s model for iniquity, injustice and abomination?

5) Do we learn nothing from the trial of Jesus regarding man’s imbalance, or his basic ungodly predisposition? In cases involving issues of faith, church, and religion, ought we not take special care to avoid such tendencies, and protect ourselves from ourselves and these aberrant “natural” tendencies?

6) Do we not acknowledge that our law, and our courts, are not the highest courts? The Imperial Roman court was the most sophisticated of its day. Yet it decreed a death penalty that has lived for two millennia in infamy! God showed his utter disdain for the court’s findings by resurrecting the executed body of Jesus Christ. Paul’s letter to the Roman capital, teaches that Jesus was “Declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” (Romans 1:4) The Roman court decreed him a capital criminal. God declared him to be the righteous Son of God! Does this not call us to humility before the face of God? Does it not challenge our pride and history’s hubris, as we note the latter’s awful miscarriages of justice?

I urge Judge Miller to take heed of the Scriptures, and the Life of Christ, and to reconsider his sentence of John Reyes. Ultimately I would warn Judge Miller with Scripture’s warning: “Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.” (Psalm 2: 10–12)