Did you hear about the student at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne? Josiah Junkin is his name. He’s a former vicar in the South Wisconsin District of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). He was arrested a few weeks ago. August 20, to be exact. He was charged with molesting a two-month-old girl. Reports say he did this while changing the child’s diaper. Once investigators got involved, it seems he admitted to molesting the child more than once. And if that wasn’t enough, investigators took pictures of pages in Junkin’s journal, which apparently was a recovery resource from the “7 Pillars of Freedom” sex-addiction program. In the journal, in his own words, he knew that what he was doing was wrong, and that it could get him arrested if anyone ever found out. Still, he continued. He also managed to continue scribbling into his journal disturbing fantasies about children, some involving sexual violence.

Of course, this is all still pretty fresh, so it remains only a criminal allegation. Still, he did confess to the crime. And it seems they have some pretty grotesque pages from his journal. They even have testimony from his wife.

Someone asked me on Wednesday afternoon what I think should happen to him. I answered that he’s entitled to due process. But that wasn’t the question, was it? Just know I say things like that on my wife’s advice. It helps me avoid saying what I’d really do to him if I were in charge. He hurt children. Anyone who hurts children should be very glad I’m not king of the world. I’d definitely build a millstone factory.

Maybe I should ask you. What do you think should happen to him? Although before you answer that question for yourself, I should mention that the first news report I read described Junkin as a “Lutheran church leader.” Interestingly, in the comments that followed, some LCMS folks insisted Junkin shouldn’t be called a leader in the LCMS because he wasn’t ordained. He was a vicar, being supervised by an ordained pastor.

I was intrigued by that weird clarification. In context, it felt a bit like they were trying to shave off an edge of the story. I mean, yes, Junkin was a vicar. But common sense says that a store manager is supervised by a district manager and so on, and yet both are leaders in the business. Vicars are supervised, and yet they’re placed into the life of congregations to preach, teach, visit shut-ins, lead activities, and do so much of what a pastor does. Relative to the Church, that’s leadership in any ordinary sense of the word. Add to this that the South Wisconsin District said Junkin was assigned a substantial role in church planting in Viroqua, even describing him as the person who would “captain” the process. That’s leadership language. On top of that, Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, my alma mater, described him as a church planter and evangelist.

So, yeah, insist on the distinction between a vicar and ordained pastor if you want. But let’s not pretend the word “leader” doesn’t apply. It does.

I bring this up because I’m interested in the instinct that prompted the comment. My opinion? I think something horrific happened, and because it hit close to home for some LCMSers, before the smoke really even cleared, they were reaching for a qualification. In other words, they were looking to put a little room for an explanation between the horror of what happened and the church body to which they belong. Maybe that impulse is understandable. Sometimes the instinct to circle the wagons is stronger than the will to face the trouble squarely.

I think I’m right about this because I experienced it somewhat recently. I wrote a short piece a few weeks ago about how it hurt to see Stephanie White, the coach of the Indiana Fever, and also my cousin, get bashed so publicly for what she said—or maybe didn’t say—about the men-in-women’s sports situation. I never said I agreed with her. In fact, I’m pretty sure I said I didn’t. But the point was that it hurt to watch her get pummeled, if only because she’s family. And I admitted to wanting to help her however I could. I was instinctively willing to soften her situation.

Now, I’ve distracted you long enough. What should happen to Junkin, an LCMS vicar who sexually assaulted a two-month-old baby? And before answering, consider that the evidence more than suggests he’s a profoundly troubled man. His own writings betray a serious mental illness. Does that affect your first reaction? Does it make you want the charges dropped? Does it make you think that because of his mental illness he is no longer fully culpable and prison would be unfair? Does his form of crazy make the baby any less violated, or his actions any less his actions?

My guess is that most folks are answering no to all these questions. Whatever was wrong with Junkin, something in us still insists that a line was crossed and that crossing it must have serious consequences.

Now, keep your answer about Junkin in your pocket for just one more minute.

Lindsay Clancy was mentally ill, too.

I won’t relitigate the case here. Anybody and everybody knows she’s the mother who killed all three of her children—five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan. She strangled them with an exercise band, pulling so hard that she collapsed their throats to mere inches. There’s no question about whether Clancy killed the children. She admitted to it. The question being debated right now by the same anyones and everyones, even after the mistrial, is whether she was criminally responsible and therefore deserves punishment. Her attorney argued that her mental illness—postpartum psychosis—removes her responsibility.

So now, the instinct. Interestingly, Clancy has attracted an extraordinary amount of sympathy. Women had been showing up at the courthouse wearing pink in a show of support. Her defenders point to her history of psychiatric treatment, medications, and the possibility that she experienced postpartum psychosis. For Clancy’s supporters, these things have become the controlling facts of the case. They’re insisting Clancy was sick, and regardless of what she did, the whole dreadful scene must be viewed entirely through the lens of her mental illness.

Okay. Now take Junkin back out of your pocket. He’s sick, too. Apparently, profoundly so. A mentally healthy man doesn’t molest children. A mentally healthy man doesn’t scribble out sexual fantasies about children, let alone his imagination about violent sexual encounters with kids. Whatever diagnosis eventually gets attached to Junkin, something was obviously very wrong with him. That said, I haven’t seen or heard anything about anyone lining up to support him. I haven’t heard anything about anyone wearing matching shirts for Vicar Junkin.

Why not? I guess that’s at least part of the question bothering me. In Junkin’s case, mental illness is being used to explain his culpability. In Clancy’s case, it’s a magic eraser. It’s presented as something capable of swallowing her culpability whole. In other words, it seems for Junkin, the thought is, “Yes, he’s mentally ill, but he still did it, and that makes him responsible,” while, for Clancy, it’s, “Yes, she did it, but she was mentally ill, so she’s not responsible.”

For me, the only thing that helps any of this make sense is the instinct I mentioned.

With Junkin, some LCMS folks saw an ugly headline striking close to home and immediately reached for something to soften it. Stephanie is my cousin, so I felt extra sadness for what she was enduring, and rather than steer into her wrongness, I was willing to soften it. With Clancy, the instinct is the same. For the countless women supporting her, the postpartum aspect is personal. Some have endured postpartum depression and anxiety, or they know someone who has. And so, they reached for the qualifier “Clancy was mentally ill.”

But again, while that qualification may be true, it isn’t the point. The point is there’s at least one two-month-old girl that we know of at the center of Junkin’s story. Who knows if there will be more. With Clancy, there are three dead children—Cora, Dawson, and Callan. If anything, the children in both circumstances must be first and foremost in our consideration. I mean, in the truest sense of the word, justice begins with what was done to the victim. Maybe that’s part of what it means when we say a criminal must be brought to justice. In a moral sense, the offender is brought back to the scene of the crime—to the place where the victim still exists relative to the offense—and made to answer for the harm. The offender is brought there to make things right, not to be diagnosed.

Now, before my critics start piling on, of course, of all people, Christians ought to understand compassion for broken people. Mental illness is a real thing. Seasonal affective disorder is real, too. (Wink wink.) Empathy for folks with these conditions is good. Indeed, we should pray for Junkin. We should pray for Clancy. We should pray that whatever is diseased in either of them is treated. Most of all, we should pray for their repentance. But we’re not praying for these people while wearing moral blinders. Along with repentance, we’re praying for justice. That’s because Christian love understands reconciliation and divine forgiveness while also recognizing that, for certain crimes, prison doors sometimes need to be slammed shut and electric chair switches need to be flipped (Matthew 5:25-26).

If Junkin did what he confessed to doing, his mental illness doesn’t make the baby less violated. Clancy strangled her children. Postpartum psychosis doesn’t make Cora, Dawson, and Callan any less dead. Junkin’s and Clancy’s mental illness may help us understand why they did what they did. But it doesn’t exonerate them.

And perhaps more to my point, neither does our proximity.

So, in the end, I guess at least one thing I’m saying is to keep an eye on that tendency. When something hits close to home, whatever you do, don’t let your proximity to the villain obscure your sightline of the victim.