Contemplative Bible Reading

Exodus 23:2-3 (New International Version)

² “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, ³ and do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.

Here it is, The Peer Pressure Law. Simply stated,

Don’t follow the crowd in doing wrong.

How could it be any simpler? How could this not make sense to people? Yet, how often do people violate this? You have a few people bent on doing wrong, they stand up in front, they charge into their wrongdoing, and people follow them.

Then this statement is followed by a less simple, less direct, yet just as important clause:

do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd,

This statement is one of the foundations of America. In America, we have three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. In principle (in principle mind you as sometimes people skid off the path of principle and, well you know, mess up) the executive and legislative branches are determined by the crowd – the majority. The judicial protects the rights of the minority.

There are many examples where the majority of Americans felt someone was guilty of a crime. A trial by jury of a handful of citizens found the person not guilty. The handful did not side with the crowd – end of story. O.J. Simpson comes to mind as does Muhammad Ali as do the Los Angeles Police officers associated with Rodney King.

Yea, but those guys were…Those guys were all found not guilty by a minority of people exercising justice.

Hmmm, sometimes that simple little peer pressure thing becomes a bit stickier than we would like.