To begin with, this post is not about Zimmerman’s innocence or guilt. I wish to suspend my judgment for the court to establish that. Whether the court finds him justified or not in shooting someone, I think it is a tragic thing that the boy “Trey” Martin was killed. That is a life, that is a soul, a person who is made in the image of God. It is sad. To pre-empt any possible charge, I want to state that I am not racist either, being a minority myself and having many pleasant memories in the Marines with African Americans.

I bring Zimmerman up more for the point of illustrating how the way people present “evidence” or images matters and that as discerning Christians we must always be careful to not let images alone sway us, since we know that every picture is itself limited to a certain rectangular and square shape of an event or person from a certain angle in a certain time, etc. My point is only to note how the manner of presentation is not neutral and Christians must learn to realize this, not just only about someone’s innocence or not in trial but also for any other discussion including people’s discussion for or against Christianity. I think the Christian apologist Cornelius Van Til has been insightful here, and you can read our recent posts on resources on Van Til, evidence and philosophy of evidence HERE.

The following is an example of a case study of how presentation matters.

After the shooting occurred on Feb. 26th, 2012, the pictures that I often saw of Martin and Zimmerman was this file with the two being shown side by side with one another:

What goes through your mind when you see this picture? What is your preception of the boy and the man?

This picture of course prompted some to ask why a younger picture of Martin is used and an unflattering picture of Zimmerman, along with this picture as a response:

Zimmerman’s side of the story include that the reason why he fired his gun was because he was bloodied and attack. But news article such as this one questioned it on the basis of stills from police videos:

But then this picture of his back side of his head came out:

And finally this week on the headline news was this graphic colored photo of Zimmerman’s face:

His defense attorney have expressed being unhappy why this picture took so long to be released for the public.

And compare that color picture with an uncolored one:

All of this should be a lesson for us all to be careful of what we see–and be aware of what we don’t see or have not seen yet.

The Christian must not forget Proverbs 18:17, “The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him.”