But there is another even stronger reason to abolish the death penalty, wonderfully exemplified in the case of Billy Moore. On Death Row he discovered the names and addresses of the family of the man he killed and wrote to them to say sorry. Not only did they write back to say they forgave him but they continued to write to him encouraging him to turn his life round and use his experience as an incentive to help other people: and that’s what he did, starting a Bible Study Group in prison, and saying to his fellow inmates “Its bad enough us being in here with the state trying to kill us, but while we are waiting to die, we can treat each other right”.
When Billy Moore had lost all his last appeal and was faced with his final execution date the Georgia appeals board heard his case. Five members of his victim’s family were there to petition for his death sentence to be commuted. He was released, is now ordained as a Pentecostal Minister, and has been campaigning ever since. In short, people can change. One of the most moving stories in the New Testament concerns the criminal crucified beside Jesus who said “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” and who hears the words. “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” However battered and brutalized by life a person may be the Christian faith does not allow us to give up on them.
With all due respect to Bp Harries, I marvel that people think that the case of the thief on the Cross is a witness against the death penalty. Have they forgotten the words of the thief himself: [i]Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? [b]And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds[/b]: but this man hath done nothing amiss.[/i]
Through the words of the thief the Scriptures teach us that the death penalty can be just, when it is [i]the due reward of … deeds[/i] that are evil enough to merit it. We may debate whether the death penalty is effective or whether it ought to be imposed for this or that category of crime; but no Christian may argue that it is intrinsically unjust, for the Scriptures teach us otherwise.
I am of course delighted that Mr Moore came to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. But that happy turn of events does not mean that justice was served by not punishing him for his crime. I don’t know the particulars of the case, and for all I know the decision of the parole board was perfectly sound. But conversion to Christianity is not, in itself, grounds for cancelling the just punishment for a crime.
What is more upsetting is that Mr. Moore is now a minister of the Gospel. The ancient church wisely held that no man with blood on his hands should be made a priest.
I have become quite uncertain about the death penalty, I wouldn’t abolish it, but would severely limit its application. The number of prisoners exonerated by DNA evidence through the work of the Innocence Project is persuasive evidence that innocent men are sometimes convicted; not often, but often enough.
I am appalled that the kind of reasoning in the article gets traction. No one knows law anymore. No one knows morality.
The first two books that I now require a high schooler to know are the Holy Bible and Cooley’s Blackstone.
I thank the other three posters for encouraging me with their thoughtful posts.
Don
I am glad that the technology of DNA investigation has advanced to the degree that it is now able to exonerate those who have been otherwise found guilty of a capital crime. This is a good thing.
I think that DNA technology is yet another string on the bow of the defence of an accused man and so, is good.
That said, I must accept that in general, the wheels of justice do MOST of the time, find the correct person guilty and condemn them.
We give the convicted murderer years of appeal process, which is extended, it seems ad infinitum, until decades have passed. That is IMO, too extended but if it does clear even 1 person, then that too, is a good thing.
That said though, it is incumbent on government to protect the citizens of the land. To protect the citizens of the land, from enemies foreign and domestic, includes protecting the citizens for the depredations of the outlaws who murder citizens.
That protection is best served, IMO, if we execute those who have been found guilty of heinous murders. The DP is only applied, if Special Circumstances are averred and proved during trial.
IMO, the DP ought to be used, mostly because the perp executed will never, ever kill someone again, be it a civilian on the outside, or another perp on the inside, or even, a guard within the institution.
IMO again, those convicted of murder under special circumstances, are oxygen thieves.
I can pray for their souls, but I think that the state has the duty, to take their lives.
If there is any place that is “Hell on earth,” it is a maximum security prison – particularly the administrative segregation (ad-seg) (solitary confinement) or, even worse, super-seg. I am not normally a person who “leads” with his heart and I can be rather obtuse to what is happening around me. But I can feel the anger and hatred that builds up in a prison. I can sense the years of pain and anguish and hopelessness that seep in to the walls there. Prison is a terrible place to live. I’ve been there enough times to know I don’t want to ever live there. While men and women to change for the better in prison, more often they change for the worse. They become even more angry, hatefilled and hopeless.
If we are going to have a death penalty, then we do need be certain that the right person is being executed and that can only be done with DNA evidence. If the state is going to put someone to death, we need proof – not beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond (almost) all doubt.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Phil, anything beyond a reasonable doubt is by definition an irrational doubt. These are the kind that tell some that we never landed on the moon or that the US government took down the twin towers.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt”, if untampered by the judge, is all the safegaurd you need, unless you would abandon the entire pursuit of justice because of the potential of a mistake.
#2. Chris Hathaway wrote:
Mr. Hathaway – really? What about St. Paul?
Then Paul said: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death…”
from Acts 22 (New International Version).
To the contrary, I believe that our Lord uses repentant sinners in his work, which distinguishes Mr. Moore from Gene Robinson.
[blockquote] That said though, it is incumbent on government to protect the citizens of the land. [/blockquote]
One of the paradoxes then that needs to be discussed is that while the United States is one of the very few countries in the world with the death penalty, it also has the highest murder rate by OECD standards. (It also has an extremely high incarceration rate too).
So whatever the death penalty is doing (and the rate of imprisonment) there is no evidence to suggest it is effective in “protecting the citizens of the land”.
The OECD statistics show:
[blockquote] In 2002, the OECD average homicide death rate was 2.0 deaths per 100,000 for males and 1.0 per 100,000 for females.
Australia and Canada had higher male homicide rates (2.0 and 2.1 per 100,000, respectively), while the United Kingdom had a lower male rate (1.2 per 100,000). The United Kingdom and Canada had lower female homicide rates (0.5 and 0.8 deaths per 100,000, respectively), while the Australian rate for females was higher (1.1 per 100,000). [i] Death rates from homicide are highest in the United States; the rate for males in 2002, at 11 per 100,000, was five times greater than the OECD average, while the female rate of 3.2 per 100,000 was three times greater. [/i] [/blockquote]
Personally I think I prefer to be in New Zealand — without the death penalty — but with a sentence of “preventive detention” given to violent offenders who have a history that suggests that they have a high risk of offending again. We have statistics that suggest that this is indeed effective in “protecting the citizens of the land”.
[blockquote] The New Zealand homicide rates were lower than the OECD average for males (1.8 per 100,000) and higher than average for females (1.1 per 100,000). [/blockquote]
Interesting. Here’s a way to commit a murder and get away almost scot free. Either the law means something or it doesn’t, and in this case it apparently doesn’t. People do change, but the murder he committed does not, regardless of whether the relatives forgive him or not. And why would they forgive him to the degree that the penalty he has earned is not charged to him? This is not Christian charity, it is irresponsibility. He has broken Caesar’s law, and Christ has told us to pay Caesar that which is his. LM
If you believe that the state is without corruptioin, then let the death penalty stand.
The evidence is not so clear.
Harries pontificates on British radio about the death penalty (not a ‘live’ issue in the UK where voters don’t get to choose, but a chance to bash the USA anyway), while all the time supporting abortion and embryo experimentation. A strange position for a Christian (ex-)bishop.
Mr. Sulik,
St. Paul was not a murderer. The death of Stephen, for which Paul was indirectly complicit, does not fit into the category of murder. Even in persecuting the church Paul did not go outside the law and technically had no blood on his hands.
You’ll have to look somewhere else for a precedent.
It would be heartening if Richard Harries were to extend his “In short, people can change” to those who practise same-sex fornication.
Paul not a murderer? I don’t think that the New Testament ethics of the Sermon on the Mount lets him off the hook that easily. Besides, even if it is not spelled out explicitly, it is rather implausible that Saul’s vigorous persecutions before Damascus never led to Christian deaths.
In scripture, we find out time and again (Moses, David, Paul…) how the sovereign Lord uses deeply flawed, sin-soaked, blood-splattered people powerfully in whatever capacity it is his pleasure to use them. It seems to me that this thread reveals once more how deeply offensive his grace is to us.
Yet it is the gospel of grace we proclaim, and we can not box it in, we must not fence it off, we should not diminish it in any way to satisfy our own sense of justice. Before the throne we all stand condemned, and in justice there is no hope at all. Thank God that he chooses to pour out grace instead. And don’t tell me that this is only happening in some kind of spiritual parallel universe and cannot have any bearing on our own actions and attitudes, even in court. A worldview like that has caved in to secularism, even paganism, and is ultimately intellectually untenable. His lordship extends over every realm of his creation. It is up to us to follow him wherever he is at work.
In our desire to show mercy we also need to uphold God’s justice. The two are in tension. Life for life is an element of God’s justice and it shows us how highly God values life. It is expressly upheld in the OT.
So does the NT modify this? I am unsure. But I am unwilling to state dogmaticaly that the death penalty is contrary to Scripture. Nor am I willing to find moral equivalence between execution at the hand of the state and those who murder others.
If, as some seem to argue, you are entitled to mercy in all cases, then is that mercy at all? Haven’t we then transformed mercy into some sort of entitlement and thus dispensed with justice?
God’s jus tice and ours are two very different matters. We MUST judge though we can never have certain knowledge that will render judgment without error, and this is not God’s condition. This is, in short, Caesar’s world, with all its limitations, and Christ has been clear about this. BUt when we have made our judgment the best that we can, our justice requires that we keep that judgment precisely because it is always based on flawed knowledge, a limitation that cannot be avoided..
In one sense, this limitation suggests that the death penalty must be cancelled, since we can never know the entire truth of a murder. This is a reasonable argument. But it is also true that once the judgment has been made and found sound and necessary, we cannot circumvent it for sentimental reasons and still pretend that justice will be done to all equally. LM
Perhaps some don’t understand the difference between being forgiven by God and being a worthy vessel to minister the Gospel, or between having your sins forgiven and having the stain of them removed from your flesh.
If some think that God’s power being made great through our weakness is a license for having no higher standards for clergy than for the laity then they have an argument with St. Paul. The name of this blog refers to some of his standards.
Christianity is not cheap grace.
i am unsure about this issue, i can see both sides. cannot justice be served by living your life in horrible prison? i heard a liberal once espouse that ‘most conservatives want to preserve life at birth and kill them later’, i mentioned that most liberals want the exact opposite.
on the one hand i can see supporting the death penalty, especially if it involved a member of my family, but on the other if you truly believe that all life is sacred, then that should include murderers and the like shouldn’t it?
Romans 13:1-4 [NIV]
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, [b]he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted[/b], and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. [b]But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.[/b]
The sword is the power of death. God has given that authority to government. Those in government who exercise that power [justly] are God’s servants and agents of wrath [God’s wrath] to bring PUNISHMENT…not rehabilitation, not prevention…punishment on the wrongdoer. Those who rebel against that authority are rebelling against what God instituted.
#20 Sick & Tired says:
Really? That’s not an argument I’d want to take and run with. Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, all “instituted by God”? They were certainly “authorities that exist” in their time.
As for the death penalty, here’s what I think: as a matter of ethical principle, there are cases where society (acting through its representative, the state) is entitled to take a human life. “War” is one example, with numerous caveats about why and how and where; sufficiently heinous crimes are, in my opinion, another example.
However… I’m not at all convinced that, in practice, we’re consistently careful enough with capital cases to be trusted with the death penalty. There are some cases where the evidence is so overwhelming, and the crime so heinous, that I have no qualms — Ted Bundy, for instance, or Timothy McVeigh. But enough people have been found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt” and sentenced to death, only to later be proven innocent by hard evidence, that it makes me very uneasy about the way the sentence is applied in general.
Add to that the fact that the evidence for any significant deterrent effect of the death penalty is dubious, and that there exists a practical alternative (life imprisonment with no possibility of parole), I think that it’s safer to eschew the death penalty.
#21
I guess you didn’t actually completely read my post. I’ll repeat the part you seem to have missed:
“Those in government who exercise that power [justly] are God’s servants…”
Note the word “justly”.
Then again, an argument could be made that Stalin, Pol Pot, and Saddam Hussein are similar to Claudius, Caligula, and Nero. Perhaps God also uses unjust authorities to accomplish His purposes. You may feel at liberty to cherry pick the bits of scripture you will “take and run with”. I do not. The Scripture quote makes an unambiguous statement that there “is no authority except that which God has established”.
If you don’t believe that, your argument isn’t with me.
#22:
You used the word “justly.” Paul, in the passage you quoted, did not; and your argument appeared to be one of arguing by authority. In which case, your introduction of the caveat “justly” was an unwarranted modification of the text.
But in fact, I will happily complete the implication of your last line: I think Paul was wrong. Tyrants are not authorities “instituted by God” whom it is sinful to resist. Sic semper tyrannus, and all that.
Actually, what I really think Paul is doing in this passage is being cagy: if you were a Christian in Rome at that time, it was prudent to be pretty vocal about your loyalty to the Empire. I’m not sure he intended his words to be applied beyond that immediate context.
But that’s speculation; maybe he did mean to make a universal statement. If so, he was mistaken.
#22 – you mean, like Bill Clinton?
Sick and tired – there is some evidence to demonstrate that Paul was using irony that would have been easily recognizable by his urban audience. His larger goal was to encourage solidarity to the Judaen population who would have been victimized by further unrest.
Remember there were popular protests – resulting in a few executions of Jews by Roman Soldiers, who thereby secured “peace.” Paul is urging caution in Romans 13:1-7. It is a practical need. Compared with other parts of scripture, it cannot be taken as an absolute (shall we reread Maccabees?).