Is capital punishment Christian?

[Guest]

Christopher et. al. ,

Greetings. Steve's post, as usual, is very solid and eloquent. I affirm with Steve the separation between the Church and the State. I suppose that we could say that if the State wants to kills its own, then let them do so; that's their business. However, in a society in which Christians, or a form of Christianity, is incorporated into the national life, we must make serious decisions about such ethical issues as the death penalty, largely because in this country we are given some freedom to determine the decisions that the State makes.

I am uncomfortable with saying that the killing of innocent is tolerable or necessary as though that makes it right. If that is really the position that is being taken, then that is essentially the abondment of a purely Christian agapist ethic in favor of a utilitarian ethic.

The possiblity of restorative justice very much needs to be engaged and there are several groups that are working in that very necessary field which seems closer to the Mosaic communal prescription in regards to justice.

Romans 13 traditionally has been interpreted as most are interpreting it here, but there are alternative interpretations to consider, of which I will not going into here. There are postings about the State on this forum under Anon. which address those things.

Part of the issue here is a hermeneutical one -- Paul does not take into account a society that is democratic and there are serious cultural differences between Paul's time and our own. I know that the accusation that will come will be something about invalidating the word of God, but it must be admitted that the metaphors, stories, parables, and the cultural values and time period are different from our own. The attempt is to take the principle of the thing and translate it into our own time. There is not a direct one-to-one correspondance for this, and our hermeneutics are also a part of our social location. For example, the African-American community reads the Exodus account differently than white, male Americans do. They identify in a much stronger way as a community with the liberation of the Hebrews, largely becaus slavery is so much a part of the African-American history.

I'm being somewhat tangential, so I will return to the issue at hand. Should the community of Christians support the death penalty, especially when it is applied disproportionately between ethnic groups and between income brackets? If it is justice that people are looking for and affirming, justice as the basic premise for support of the death penalty in this country, then the death penalty cannot be supported because it is not administered justly.

Do the innocent suffer? Certainly. But I feel that the real question is does the knowledge of inequitable suffering move us to chalk it up to fallenness and brokenness and go with the status quo, or does it move us to engage the powers that are in place and admonish them to forgo the use of force that results in an error that can never be fixed. I think that it is precisely because of the fallenness of man that we must admonish the State to leave off with the use of a demonstrably unjust administration of the death penalty.

Finally, what would you want if you were innocent of the crime that you were accused of, were a person of color, were poor, had your court-appointed attorney fall asleep in your trial, an attorney that had failed the bar exam several times, lost pertininet information that would help your case, and when convicted and given the death penalty found that the white guy in cell block D committed the same crime as you and got 8 years and will be paroled in 5. Would you roll over and take it and say that 'well, injustice happens, God gives the State a big thumbs up to murder me'. I think that the answer is probably in the negative. Regards.

[Guest]

Hi Pariah,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

In high school, one of my teachers quoted some famous father of our country as saying something to the effect of, "It is better to see ten guilty men go free than to have one innocent man suffer unjustly." This appealed to me at the time, until I read the Bible more and found that "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD." (Proverbs 17:15)

It is as unjust for the penal system to let the guilty white guy walk after five years as it is for them to execute the black innocent man, and seemingly as objectionable to the Lord. The State is expected to do its best to do what God has said.

Acknowledging the inevitability of miscarriages of justice should not be construed as approval, nor is it presented as an argument for apathy or neglect on our part of addressing these wrongs—but capital punishment itself is not a wrong, and is not to be opposed, per se.

It is what God commanded, and if we alter God's code, as I said above, we are left to choose one of strictly human origin—which is tantamount to departing from a code that is perfectly just (the only standard by which governments are entitled to rule) to one that is less just.

You wrote:
"Should the community of Christians support the death penalty, especially when it is applied disproportionately between ethnic groups and between income brackets? If it is justice that people are looking for and affirming, justice as the basic premise for support of the death penalty in this country, then the death penalty cannot be supported because it is not administered justly."

I think it would be possible to make as good an argument for abolition of traffic fines because I know of a few cases where traffic tickets were not issued fairly.

I don't see it quite that way. Christians should oppose the disproportionate application of legal penalties to different ethnic and economic categories, because this very practice is condemned in the very same law code that demands capital punishment (e.g. Exodus 23:3, 6, 9). We should not oppose the practice of punishing criminals according to God's unambiguous commands.

You close with a personal question, to which I would like to give a personal answer. You wrote:

"Finally, what would you want if you were innocent of the crime that you were accused of, were a person of color, were poor, had your court-appointed attorney fall asleep in your trial, an attorney that had failed the bar exam several times, lost pertininet information that would help your case, and when convicted and given the death penalty found that the white guy in cell block D committed the same crime as you and got 8 years and will be paroled in 5. Would you roll over and take it and say that 'well, injustice happens, God gives the State a big thumbs up to murder me'."

These are serious questions, deserving serious, not a glib, answers. I will tell you how I believe a Christian in such circumstances should respond. I have reason to believe that I would respond in the manner that I am going to recommend, because about 75% of the suffering I have endured in my life (by my best estimate) was suffered innocently and unjustly, and I know what my characteristic reaction, as a Christian, has been.

Also, think I can predict what my reaction would be, because I have been prepared to die for the past 40 years, and I truly believe that to die innocently is much to be preferred over dying for actual sins committed. "It is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil" (1 Pet.3:17).

You presented two questions here: 1) What would I want? and 2) Would I roll over and take it, saying, "Injustice happens"?

To the first question, I would have to say that, in such a case as you described, I would certainly want to be exonerated, set free from prison, and have my life spared. However, I would also be even more interested in the will of God for me. If I were to ascertain that God wished for me to die in this manner or to live in prison for some purpose, then I would actually prefer to have His will done over my own. I think this is the attitude of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and a good one for all believers.

As for the second question, after I had explored and exhausted every available means for appropriate redress, I would indeed choose to resign myself to the injustice—as I have had to do scores of times in my lifetime—committing my case into the hands of a sovereign God, who will not allow me to die apart from His will while I am trusting Him.

"Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator" (1 Pet.4:19). Once again, Jesus is given as our model for this approach (1 Pet.2:20-23).

I honestly believe that it is not desirable to live one minute longer on earth than God desires for me to live, and that I can not possibly (while faithful) live one day shorter.

Great emotional arguments can certainly be raised against capital punishment, but the scriptures rise above our subjectivity and present the pure ethic of an objective and all-wise Judge. I still think my earlier comments faithfully represent the biblical teaching on this subject, and we may simply have to agree to disagree on the topic.

[Guest]

Steve (et.al),

I think that we both can probably reasonably agree that Christians more than likely should not have a part in the kind of roles in the State that would put Christians in such a position as to have to execute someone, such as prison warden, soldier, or policeman. I think that I have followed your commentary on that well enough to summarize your position generally.

I still am stuck with something of a utilitarian argument -- the greatest good for the most people. The death penalty arguments being made in this sub-forum seem to be choosing a utilitarian argument over and against an agapist Christian one. If we applied this same ethic to another life-threatening situation, say a situation where a pregnant mother had to choose between her life or her own, then should we not choose the life of the mother over the life of the unborn child and terminate the pregnancy?
Would all of the pro-life people call that just? The last 100 years of Catholic social teaching is consistent in that they oppose abortion in all cases, the death penalty, and usually war. At least they apply a consistent ethic.

I think there is a significant difference between traffic fines and the death penalty. We're talking about people's life, about people being murdered, not just paying a stupid traffic fine. You're mixing arguments here that don't really parallel because of the severity.

I'm not advocating letting all the inmates on death row out and free. They indeed must pay their due to society, I am saying that because of the possiblity of error, which is more likely if your a person of color or poor, I do not think that our advice to the State should be in the form of approval of a system by which the State would become guilty of murder, having executed someone who was falsely convicted.

It seems to me that your view of suffering is a romantic and noble one. I wish that I could say that I suffered unjustly 75% of the time. It is probably the inverse; most of my suffering I deserve. Certainly there is encouragement to endure under unjust suffering, but I think that the Church has been really weak in fighting injustice in the world. I am not advocating a post-millenialist-Pat-Robertson-Jerry-Falwell-lets-remake-the-world-with-moral-law position, but there must be a place for the Church to fight injustice.

If people just endured suffering, then why should we be concerned when our brothers in persecuted countries are being put to death for their faith? Why try to stop the raping, pillaging, and killing of the Sudanese Christians in Sudan (which I have worked on via the political process). Just let 'em suck it up. We'll just tell them to deal with it, or get over it, or its for the best, or any other kind of epithet.

The death penalty is similar in my mind. If their is injustice, and we know that the death penalty is administered unjustly across racial and socio-economic lines, then are we not obligated to speak against it? Isn't this the message of the prophets?

Certainly men like Ignatious of Antioch and Polycarp were martyred, Polycarp even running from such martyrdom until he concluded that God was behind it, and there may be a place for that in the Christian faith. However, the Church Fathers did have to put a stop to the practice of people running out just to be martyred.

The fatalism and death wish that many Christians have, which is often seen in an exorbant fascination with the rapture as a means of escape (they get to leave this fallen world without suffering) I think is misguided. Why should we not live here and work for a better world while we are here?

I think there is some issue also in just saying that the Scriptures simply teach this, or because the Scriptures are infallible or divine or inerrant or whatever term you want to use is something of a cop-out. The Scriptures are still handled by erring and fallen people, so how can a hermeneutic that errs on the side of injustice, murder, death, and revenge really be the most accurate interpreation of Scripture and of the teachings of Jesus?

I can understand how this would have been a different argument in the early Church when they did not have the kind of civil and political rights that we have today. That is not our place in time, and I think that we have a responsiblity to advise against something that can be unjust.

People can say that it is the command of God for the community to practice capital punishment. But doesn't the revelation of Christ trump this? What else will we say is good and commanded by God? Will we say that war also is a good and a command of God? How about genocide? God commanded that at one point. How about sinning so that good may come of it? I am probably getting sarcastic and ridiculous at this point, so I will let off.

I have followed this forum and the show for years, and I enjoy it. You all probably enjoy the debate and dialogue as much as I, or you wouldn't all be here, so I hope no offense is taken. However, I simply disagree with the death penalty position, having studied it in a major U.S. university and seeing the fruit of it. Regards.

[Guest]

Hi Pariah,

My impression is that this last post was addressed to me, but I am having a hard time believing that it is my position that you are addressing. Most of the things you are opposing are things that I also am opposed to, and I don't think most of your criticisms apply to anything I have written.

First, you say that this is a utilitarian argument, concerned with "the greatest good for the most people." I don't recall making that argument at all. This may be an important aspect of any ethical dialogue, but my argument was of an entirely different rationale. My position is concerned with the issue of maintaining justice, as defined by God, and as assigned to the State as a job description. My argument can be summarized quite simply:

1. God assigned the State to punish criminals;

2. The State must punish criminals along the lines of justice, not injustice;

3. Justice has been clearly defined by God in His word;

4. We should not object to the State's fulfilling of its mandate from God.

Any reader is free to disagree with any of these points, but it hardly seems appropriate to describe the argument as "pragmatic" or "utilitarian."

The appeal for justice is not contrary to appealing for "love" (agapist ethic). Love and justice are not mutually contradictory, which is why they can both reside in full measure in the personality of the same God. Love without justice is mere sentimentality—it is not "agape." The components of love are justice, mercy and faithfulness (Matt.23:23). You can not be loving while perpetrating an injustice. Therefore love and justice are present, or they are absent, together. When love for one party is pursued, sans justice, it is always at the expense of loving someone else. God loves everybody and is not willing to favor one party out of sentiment, if so doing promotes injustice—thus victimizing others wrongly.

I don't see the similarity in the moral dilemma of a woman who must have an abortion to save her life. There is no guilty party in the analogy. Someone innocent must die. It is only a matter of deciding which innocent party will be the sacrificial lamb. In our present debate, no one is advocating the death of any innocent party.

Your comment about the consistency of the Catholic stance about abortion, capital punishment and war suggests that you have fallen prey to the fuzzy thinking that says it is inconsistent to favor capital punishment and to oppose abortion at the same time.

How anyone could make this error in logic has always puzzled me. What inconsistency could possibly be found in a person favoring the just execution of one who has commited acts deserving of death, on the one hand, and the same person opposing the murder of an innocent human being, who has done nothing worthy of death, on the other? Both positions spring from a consistent passion for justice, such as God has always required of His people. The real craziness is seen in the liberal position that opposes the punishment of the guilty, and favors the killing of the innocent.

The analogy of abolishing traffic fines as well as capital punishment doesn't appeal to you, as you say, because there is not the same degree of severity of the two penalties. I cannot follow you. I am opposed to all injustice—not just that which crosses some arbitrary line of severity. "He who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much" (Luke 16:10).

My point all along has been that we should object to all injustice, including the unjust imposition of a traffic fine or of capital punishment upon undeserving recipients. Do so is not the same as opposing all traffic fines or all capital punishment.

Of the inmates on death row, you write, "They indeed must pay their due to society." I guess I have to wonder what it is that you think they owe to society? If they are innocent, as you seem to think a significant number of them are, then they owe society nothing, and have no such debt to pay. If they are guilty of murder, on the other hand, then what is the exact amount of the debt that you think they should pay. God has answered this question explicitly. Where do you suggest that we look for alternative answers?

You wrote:

"If people just endured suffering, then why should we be concerned when our brothers in persecuted countries are being put to death for their faith? Why try to stop the raping, pillaging, and killing of the Sudanese Christians in Sudan (which I have worked on via the political process). Just let 'em suck it up. We'll just tell them to deal with it, or get over it, or its for the best, or any other kind of epithet."

You are confusing the acceptance of the inevitable with the negligence of duty. Of course, it is our duty to speak up for the cause of the afflicted and the oppressed, and to do what we may to help them. However, the fact remains that our efforts will succeed only so far in eliminating injustice from the world. When suffering injustice is unavoidable (as, for example, it was for Stephen when he was unjustly tried by the Sanhedrin) it is normative for Christians to say, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" and "Do not lay this sin to their charge." If you want to paraphrase this attitude as "sucking it up," I suppose you are at liberty to do so.

You wrote:

"The death penalty is similar in my mind. If their [sic] is injustice, and we know that the death penalty is administered unjustly across racial and socio-economic lines, then are we not obligated to speak against it? Isn't this the message of the prophets?"

We know for certain that the death penalty was frequently administered unjustly by the Romans in Paul's day (much more often than in our society), but that did not lead Paul to speak up against the death penalty itself—only its unjust administration: "If I am an offender, or have committed anything deserving of death, I do not object to dying; but if there is nothing in these things of which these men accuse me, no one can deliver me to them. I appeal to Caesar.” (Acts 25:11).

Paul clearly said he did not object to the death penalty being administered (even to himself) in the case of a criminal who had "committed anything deserving of death." It was the fact that he was innocent that made him object to it in this particular case.

Jeremiah objected to being falsely imprisoned (where he would have died, had he not been rescued), but this injustice did not cause the prophet to advocate the abolition of the prison system altogether.

Your reference to Christians "running to martyrdom" does not seem to relate to anything that has been said in this discussion. Being willing to die in the Lord when you have been captured and falsely condemned and when death is inevitable and unavoidable is not exactly like "running to martyrdom." It was not wrong for Polycarp, having once fled from arrest, to resign himself to capture and death after the Lord showed him in a dream that he should not avoid arrest and should submit to being burned. What I suggested in my last post was very much like this.

Your rhetorical question seems out of place: "Why should we not live here and work for a better world while we are here?" I certainly said nothing to discourage Christians from working for a better world. But who is to define "better." A world where murderers are not put to death, but where they are supported for the rest of their lives in idleness at the expense of innocent, overburdened tax-payers may seem like a better world for the murderer...but most murderers are not the best judges of morality. Sticking with God's definitions is much safer.

You think that my appeal to Scripture for guidance on this issue is a "cop out," because "The Scriptures are still handled by erring and fallen people." They are, but are we to trust nothing in scripture, then, because we are capable of misunderstanding certain things? Not every scripture is easy to interpret. I do not think, though, that there is anything very vague in the wording of God's commands about the death penalty. They do not present real hermeneutical challenges—only emotional challenges.

You ask, "so how can a hermeneutic that errs on the side of injustice, murder, death, and revenge really be the most accurate interpretation of Scripture and of the teachings of Jesus?" Obviously, an ethic that "errs" in any direction is not "the most accurate interpretation" of scripture. No one here advocates an ethic that "errs on the side of injustice, murder, death, and revenge." In fact, the arguments I have presented are more concerned to avoid injustice and to deal intolerantly with murder, than is your ethic. It is not at all obvious which ethic errs more on the side of death, and neither has anything at all to do with revenge.

Capital punishment is not about revenge, but about justice. Anything less than killing a murderer is disrespect for the life of his victim. Nothing honors human life more than that ethic that teaches that human life is sacred in God's sight—so sacred, in fact, that anyone who wrongfully destroys it has done so at the forfeiture of his own right to live. This is taught as clearly as is any doctrine of scripture. It is not the product of an erring hermeneutic.

You wrote:

"I can understand how this would have been a different argument in the early Church when they did not have the kind of civil and political rights that we have today. That is not our place in time, and I think that we have a responsiblity to advise against something that can be unjust."

I think the responsibility to speak against injustice is about equal irrespective of the kind of political system a Christian may live under. However, the obligation to oppose "something that can be unjust" is different from the obligation to oppose actual injustice. If we must eradicate every institution that "can be unjust," then we must dispose of all government, all parenting, all welfare programs, all nursing homes, all church leadership, and, in short, just about everything that involves human beings. Why stop at capital punishment?

You become admittedly ridiculous when you write:

"People can say that it is the command of God for the community to practice capital punishment. But doesn't the revelation of Christ trump this? What else will we say is good and commanded by God? Will we say that war also is a good and a command of God? How about genocide? God commanded that at one point. How about sinning so that good may come of it? I am probably getting sarcastic and ridiculous at this point, so I will let off."

I would be reluctant to conclude that anything in "the revelation of Christ" trumps the book of Romans or First Peter—both of which tell us that the State officials are assigned the task of punishing evildoers. All that remains to discover is what form of punishment is most just, and what forms unjust.

The revelation of Christ is the ethic of the people of God, not of the State. I agree that the appropriateness of a Christian's involvement in civil government and police work should be viewed as a matter open to serious reassessment. To confuse capital punishment with such things as genocide and divinely-mandated war is to show little consideration for a responsible hermeneutic. What God commanded one unique nation to do in one unique circumstance is not to be applied so universally as what He commanded all governments to do in every circumstance. Capital punishment, as has been shown previously, is in the latter category.

[Guest]

Hi Pariah,

I don't have much to add to Steve's comments, except my own experience. Being in prison ministry, I personally know many murderers. Many of them I consider friends and dear brothers in the Lord. Most of them, if asked, would tell you that they do deserve the death penalty. But then, so do I, and you, and everyone else for that matter who has transgressed against God in any way (For the wages of sin is death Rom 6:23.) Those that know the Word of God well would also admit that the State failed to carry out it's duty to execute justice (although you probably wont' find many of them complaining to the State about it). As Steve said, this is an injustice to the victim of their crime. For every person who is executed wrongly, there are no doubt hundreds of deserving murderers that were not executed. Many Christians in prison that deserved the death penalty realize that they are living on borrowed, no, mercy time. I think Paul realized this about himself since he brought it up so much (Acts 22:4, 26:11, 1Cor 15:9, Gal 1:13)

I think it's also important to realize that nobody can honestly claim the right to life. Even the most devout Christian is nothing but an "unprofitable servant" (Luke 17:10). Even an unjust execution is not truly unjust when you consider that what all of us deserve is hell. Besides that, if God really wants to deliver someone from death row, He is more than able to do so. He delivered Peter (Acts 12). Our focus is not to be on this life and the injustices herein, but on the kingdom of God.

I find it interesting that Jesus didn't run to the defense of John the Baptist when he was unjustly imprisoned (and later executed) by Herod. Rather, He simply assured him that He was the Messiah. Also, when people came to Jesus and told him about the innocent people that were killed in the temple (Luke 13), He didn't protest to the State, but told them to repent or likewise perish. Who did he rebuke and protest? The religious leaders that made their converts "sons of hell" (Matt 23). It seems that His example to us is to be concerned most with eternal things.

God bless.