A recent murder trial in the UK shocked the nation. Lucy Letby, a young personable nurse in her early thirties was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others. The nation’s shock is two-fold. Firstly, the murder of helpless babies, actually, premature babies, is unspeakable. Secondly, Lucy Letby does not fit our perception of a murderer. She has committed depraved acts but is not obviously depraved.
Letby is an apparently well-adjusted lass brought up in a good home and well liked by her friends. She attended church in her youth and worked hard to gain her nursing degree. She was an able and apparently caring nurse held in esteem by her colleagues. In fact, because she was so well thought of she was able to murder for some time undetected. When suspicion began to fall on her the response of others was ‘Not Lucy!’. That Lucy was killing the helpless babies in her charge was unthinkable.
Lucy was the girl next door. She was a nice girl who holidayed with her parents each year in Torquay. She was vanilla. When her life was probed there was no smoking gun to account for her actions. She had two cats she loved and soft toys in her bed. Her murderous activity was inexplicable. Two public reactions flowed from this. Some, like me, found it difficult to believe she had committed these awful crimes. I still hold out hope a terrible mistake has been made that will be soon discovered. The other reaction, on the opposite pole, damns her as a monster, as the embodiment of evil. She is a psychopath, incapable of normal feelings.. Both reactions arise from an inability to recognise the banality of evil.
The expression ‘banality of evil’ was coined by Hannah Arendt, a Jewish writer, as she tried to come to terms with Nazi atrocities. She concluded that the evils committed had been done by ordinary people. People just like us. It is this we find so difficult to accept. We want to find in Letby some illness, some genetic pathology or some dreadful character-twisting event in her history that accounts for her actions. She cannot be one of us.
Yet everything about her history points to a normal person. But normal persons do not murder helpless babies?
Don’t they?
We live in a society which has sanctioned the murder of millions of babies and has little conscience about doing so. Are we not more than a little hypocritical in our moral horror and outrage at Letby?
We want to distance ourselves from Letby because we do not really believe that in our flesh dwells no good thing. Yet this is precisely what the Bible says is true of us. We are deeply flawed human beings. It is Jesus who says, ‘For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.’ (Matt 5:19). He says unjust anger is murder; John includes hate (Matt 5:21-26; 1 Jn 3:15). These ugly things are the stuff of human hearts. This is the soil in which Letby’s murderous intentions grew. It is the soil of all human hearts, constantly. demonstrated in social media should we be in any doubt.
Lucy Letby is one of us. Given the right circumstances ordinary people, all of us, are capable of extraordinary evil. This is human nature.
This is why the gospel is so desperately needed. Only through the gospel can corrupt human hearts be renewed and made whole. Through the gospel those who kill can be forgiven and renewed. Through the gospel self-righteous Pharisees can see they too are sinners and discover the joy of repentance and faith. And through the gospel, parents desperately broken by the murder of their little ones and ready to hate can learn to forgive and find release.
The gospel teaches us there is grace abounding for the chief of sinners and herein lies our hope and salvation.
Cave Adullam 