Justice, Mercy, and Three Forgotten Children

Three children are dead.

Cora was five. Dawson was three. Callan was eight months old. Their mother, Lindsay Clancy, strangled them with exercise bands in their own home in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023. She then attempted to take her own life. She does not deny she did it.

Her trial just ended in a mistrial—seven days, 38 hours of deliberation, and a jury that couldn't agree whether she was criminally responsible. The prosecution argued she acted deliberately. The defense argued she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis and couldn't distinguish right from wrong.

I'll come back to the complexity of that question. But first, I want to say something that should be obvious but apparently isn't: three children are dead. And the public conversation has become almost entirely about Lindsay Clancy's suffering.

Where are Cora, Dawson, and Callan in all of this?

The prophet Micah gave us the framework for this whole conversation

Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? 

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly.

Notice the order. Justice comes first, not because God doesn't care about mercy, but because justice is the foundation on which mercy is built. You can't have genuine mercy without genuine justice, because mercy without justice is just sentimentality. It's feeling good without doing right.

And notice the verbs. We're told to do justice…actively pursue it, carry it out, make it real. We're told to love kindness…not just tolerate it, not just acknowledge it, but delight in it, desire it, seek it out. And we're told to walk humbly…which means recognizing that we are not God, that our judgment is limited, that we need wisdom beyond our own.

This is the lens through which we have to look at the Lindsay Clancy case. Not with outrage that ignores complexity. Not with sympathy that erases the victims. But with a commitment to justice, a love for mercy, and a humility that recognizes we are not the final judge.

Sympathy That Erases

If you've followed the reaction to this case, you've seen it. Women identifying with Clancy's postpartum struggles. Commentators pointing to the failures of the medical system. Social media flooded with "there but for the grace of God go I."

Let me be clear; postpartum psychosis is real. It is terrifying. Mothers do suffer, and the medical system is far from perfect. These are true statements.

But here is what is also true; explaining a tragedy is not the same as excusing it.

The viral sympathy for Lindsay Clancy has crossed a line from compassion into something much darker…a reflexive identification with the wrongdoer that has seemingly erased the victims. Three small children, made in the image of God, entrusted to a mother who was supposed to protect them, killed by that same mother. And the cultural response has been to center on her pain, her struggle, her story.

That is a profound moral failure. And it tells us something deeply disturbing about where our culture stands.

A Culture That Has Lost Its Moral Seriousness About Life

Here's what I can't stop thinking about; this happened in Massachusetts. The same state that just weeks ago, August 10, 2026, expanded abortion to allow the procedure for any reason, at any time, up to the moment of birth. The tenth state to do so.

Do you see the connection?

Massachusetts has declared that a child in the womb has no inherent right to life; that the mother's desire to terminate the pregnancy, for any reason, at any point, outweighs the child's right to exist. And then we act shocked—shocked—when a mother decides that her children's lives outside the womb are disposable too.

Here’s the point, when a society legally declares that children can be killed because they are inconvenient, unwanted, or difficult, that society has lost the moral vocabulary to condemn a mother who kills her children.

You cannot build a culture of life by first tearing it down at the foundation. You cannot declare that the lives of the most vulnerable, the unborn, are expendable and then act bewildered when other vulnerable, the very young, are treated as expendable too. The logic is the same; this life is in the way. This life is too much. This life can be ended.

The only difference is whether the child has taken its first breath.

This is where the Christian witness has to be clear. We cannot be the people who defend the unborn on Monday and then minimize the lives of children who have been born on Tuesday. We cannot say "every life is sacred" and then make exceptions for the ones that are hard to look at.

The sanctity of life is not a principle we apply when it's convenient. It is a conviction rooted in the nature of God Himself. Human beings–every one of them, from conception to natural death, from the womb to the grave, from the newborn to the elderly—bear the image of God. That is not something we earn. It is not something we lose when we become inconvenient to the people who are supposed to love us. It is something we are, by divine design.

When that image is violently taken, justice is not optional. It is required.

Justice and Mercy: Two Passages, One Truth

Here's where I think a lot of Christians get confused, and I want to address it directly because it's the heart of this conversation.

Some will point to Jesus and the woman caught in adultery in John 8 and say, "doesn't Jesus show mercy? Doesn't He let her go?"

Yes, He does. But look at what actually happens. The Pharisees bring a woman caught in adultery and say, "Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. What do you say?" They're not interested in justice, they're setting a trap. Jesus responds: "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." One by one, they leave. Then Jesus tells her: "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."

Notice what Jesus doesn't do. He doesn't say the law was wrong. He doesn't say "Moses got it wrong" or "stoning is too harsh." He doesn't abolish the death penalty. He exposes the hypocrisy of the accusers; these men weren't operating as righteous judges, they were weaponizing this woman to trap Jesus. And He commands her to repent, go and sin no more.

This isn't mercy without justice. This is Jesus, the Son of God, exercising His divine authority to show mercy in a specific case. It's not a legislative act. He's not issuing a universal policy that "no one should ever be punished." He's demonstrating that mercy and judgment belong to God, and that He came to seek and save the lost.

Now contrast that with what Paul says about civil government in Romans 13

Romans 13:1-4 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. 

This is the other side of the picture. Jesus, in His divine authority, shows personal mercy. But Paul, writing to the church about the role of civil government, says the state is "God's servant" and "does not bear the sword in vain." The sword in the first-century context was an instrument of capital justice. The state has a God-given mandate to punish evil and protect the good.

These two passages aren't in tension. They're complementary. Jesus shows us that mercy is real and available to repentant sinners. Paul shows us that justice is real and required of civil authorities. The gospel doesn't erase justice, Christ went to the cross because justice had to be satisfied. But the gospel also doesn't erase mercy, Christ bore the judgment so that sinners could be forgiven.

Mercy without justice is cheap grace. Justice without mercy is harsh law. The gospel holds them together.

And here's the thing we need to understand; mercy for the soul does not erase the consequences of our actions. If I murdered my wife tomorrow, God could still extend me mercy and forgiveness? Yes, He could still offer me eternal life through Jesus Christ. My soul could be saved. But that doesn't mean I don't go to prison for life or face the death penalty. God's mercy toward me doesn't negate the justice that my actions demand.

That's the distinction we keep missing. Lindsay Clancy's soul matters. She needs the gospel. She needs repentance and faith in Christ. But that doesn't mean the law doesn't apply to her. It doesn't mean three children didn't die. It doesn't mean justice isn't required.

We can pray for her salvation and insist on her accountability. We can love her soul and still say what she did was murder. Those aren't contradictions. That's the truth.

So what does justice require?

Justice isn't about making Lindsay Clancy suffer. It's not about vengeance. It's about upholding the moral order that says human life is sacred because humans bear God's image. Justice says; what you did matters. These children mattered. Their lives were not yours to take.

The jury couldn't agree. That's where the legal system landed. But it is an indictment on our society as a whole and the cultural response. The response of reflexive sympathy, identifying with Lindsay over the sidelining of three dead children, that tells you everything you need to know about where we are. That's not a courtroom wrestling with evidence. That's a culture that has lost its moral bearings.

Walking Humbly

Here's where the humility part of Micah 6:8 comes in. We are not God. Our judgment is limited. We don't see the full picture of Lindsay Clancy's mental state, her struggles, her suffering. We can acknowledge that reality without erasing the reality of what she did.

Walking humbly means…

We can grieve the mistakes of the medical system without using it as an excuse for murder.

We can pray for Lindsay's repentance and salvation while insisting that what she did was murder.

We can recognize the reality of postpartum psychosis without collapsing moral accountability.

We can love mercy without abandoning justice.

Humility doesn't mean moral relativism. It means recognizing that we are finite, that we don't know everything, and that we need to hold our convictions with both clarity and compassion.

We can desire Lindsay's salvation with everything in us and we should, for that is truly loving ultimate mercy for her and her soul. We can also still insist that the law must account for what she did. Her standing before God and her standing before the court are two different questions, and both matter.

And I say all of this knowing how easy it is to talk about these things in the abstract. But this isn't abstract for me.

I'm a dad of three kids. When I read about Cora, Dawson, and Callan, I don't see abstract victims. I see my kids. I see my 9-year-old daughter Selah, my 5-year-old son Silas, my 1-year-old Shepherd. And the thought of what happened to those children; what they experienced in their final moments, at the hands of the person who was supposed to love them more than anyone in this world…makes me sick.

My wife has had postpartum depression. I've watched her struggle. I've seen the exhaustion, the anxiety, the moments when she felt like she was drowning. I know what postpartum depression looks like in a marriage. I know how hard it is. I know how important it is to get help, to talk about it, to not pretend it's not real.

And that's exactly why this case hits me so hard. Because I know that postpartum mental issues are real and terrible. And I also know that it doesn't turn mothers into murderers. 99% of women who struggle with postpartum issues never hurt their children. They suffer because they love their children. They fight the darkness for their children.

So when I see people using Lindsay Clancy's postpartum struggles as a blanket explanation–or worse, an excuse–for what she did, it doesn't help mothers who are struggling. It hurts them. It stigmatizes them. It makes it harder for them to get help because now every mother who admits she's struggling is going to wonder if people think she's capable of killing her kids. 

That's not compassion. That's the opposite of compassion.

And if you're a mom reading this and you're struggling, please hear me... Getting help is not weakness. Asking for help is not failure. Your children need you, and there is no shame in saying you can't do this alone. The enemy wants you to suffer in silence. Don't give him that ground.

As a pastor, I want to love and shepherd people well. I want to be a safe place for people to bring their struggles, their doubts, their failures. As a pastor, I'm not interested in just piling on, but I'm also not interested in pretending that three dead children don't demand a moral answer. I can't look at those three babies and say, "well, it's complicated," and leave it there.

The truth is; three children are dead. Their mother killed them. That is a moral reality that has to be named, no matter how much we want to soften it. And we can hold that truth and still love people who are struggling. We can do both. We have to do both.

If we can't; if we have to somehow choose between justice and mercy, between truth and compassion, then we've already lost.

A Question for the Church

Here's what I want to leave you with. If the church in America cannot see the connection between a culture that kills its unborn children and a culture that sympathizes with a mother who kills her born children...if we cannot name the thread of a society that has decided some lives are disposable, then we are no longer salt and light…we are just the world with a cross on the wall.

We are the people who should be the first to preach the gospel; the only message in the world where justice and mercy are not enemies but partners. At the cross, God did not choose between them. He satisfied both. Justice was done, sin was punished. Mercy was poured out, sinners were forgiven. That's the message we carry.That's the framework we bring to every broken story in this broken world.

Cora. Dawson. Callan.

Three children. Three image-bearers. Three lives that mattered infinitely.

The culture will not hold this line. It will bend to sentiment. It will erase the victims to comfort the perpetrators. It will call evil good and good evil.

But we are not the culture. We are the church. And we have a Word that does not bend.

May God give us the courage to stand on it–to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Him–even when it costs us. Even when it makes us unpopular. Even when the whole world is going the other direction.