David Evans & James Olson: Yeah, I wrestle with that tension too. I have no good answers, and those issues were very relevant in the case I reference here (though I didn’t feel like I could go into too much detail). Sometimes “banishment” (whatever that looks like) really is the only option, if an individual is genuinely dangerous to others. And it’s probably important for me to clarify that I’m also speaking from the perspective of being the person that individuals such as this end up getting “banished” to, so my role is a bit unique that way. I wouldn’t hold myself up as an example on how everyone should necessarily treat situations like this, because it’s my actual job. :) In any case, I think your questions are important, and I wish I had better answers.

I worry sometimes that expressions of understanding of the intimidators can come across as insufficient support for the intimidated. I’m not sure how to balance those in public discourse.

Also, like you, I find the fact that our Cosmology eschews happily ever after (as well as happy-once-upon-a-time), and instead gives us an eternity of wrestling with pain and loss in the midsts of exaltation to be one of its most bracingly true and empowering aspects.

The villain is a former ‘disciple ‘ who was seduced by a demon who promised the end of death and suffering. I realize it wasn’t the promise in and of itself that was the sinister twist. The twist was that the promise was a lie, and assimilation into the demon was the actual fulfillment of the ‘promise ‘ which was not obvious to this lost group of disciples until it was too late.

Pain and loss happen, with no particular will behind the events. This universe is complicated with lots of players, human and non-human, many not even organic. Collision is inevitable, change will occur, following cycles sometimes, happening randomly at other times.

God’s best service to us is not preventing these events, but helping us bounce back from them. The universal gift of the atonement from Jesus the Christ is resurrection for all. But dearh comes first. And the ultimate gift, exaltation, comes after we wade through opposition and surrender our own weaknesses. We are not intended to be the same people returning to Heavenly Father that we were when we left.

Our return is not as children, but as adults, ready for the responsibilities that God shoulders.

In thinking about the “complicated stories” and “vulnerability” you mention, I couldn’t help but think of the young men in the article who, knowing what they knew about Derek, chose to invite him to their weekly Shabbat dinners anyway — a step that would end up changing the whole course of Derek’s life:

Matthew Stevenson had started hosting weekly Shabbat dinners at his campus apartment shortly after enrolling in New College in 2010. He was the only Orthodox Jew at a school with little Jewish infrastructure, so he began cooking for a small group of students at his apartment each Friday night. Matthew always drank from a kiddush cup and said the traditional prayers, but most of his guests were Christian, atheist, black or Hispanic — anyone open-minded enough to listen to a few blessings in Hebrew. Now, in the fall of 2011, Matthew invited Derek to join them.

Matthew had spent a few weeks debating whether it was a good idea. He and Derek had lived near each other in the dorm, but they hadn’t spoken since Derek was exposed on the forum. Matthew, who almost always wore a yarmulke, had experienced enough anti-Semitism in his life to be familiar with the KKK, David Duke and Stormfront. He went back and read some of Derek’s posts on the site from 2007 and 2008: “Jews are NOT white.” “Jews worm their way into power over our society.” “They must go.”

Matthew decided his best chance to affect Derek’s thinking was not to ignore him or confront him, but simply to include him. “Maybe he’d never spent time with a Jewish person before,” Matthew remembered thinking.

It was the only social invitation Derek had received since returning to campus, so he agreed to go. The Shabbat meals had sometimes included eight or 10 students, but this time only a few showed up. “Let’s try to treat him like anyone else,” Matthew remembered instructing them.

Derek arrived with a bottle of wine. Nobody mentioned white nationalism or the forum, out of respect for Matthew. Derek was quiet and polite, and he came back the next week and then the next, until after a few months, nobody felt all that threatened, and the Shabbat group grew back to its original size….