I have always been a pro-death penalty guy. It never even occurred to me that perhaps there was a conflict in being a pro-life, staunchly anti-abortion Christian and yet a firm supporter of the death penalty for capital crimes. After all just look at Romans 13:1-7 and besides there is no way to draw an equivalence between an innocent child murdered before she was even born and a criminal being punished justly for the crimes he has committed.
I have been having a harder time reconciling that lately. The whole thing with Troy Davis just smells bad. I am not enough of an expert to know what the truth is but I know this. He is dead and nothing is going to change that and there was some lingering doubt. Read what N.T. Wright had to say about American Christianity and the death penalty about a week ago. I think our brothers and sisters around the world look at the church in America sometimes and must be bewildered at our embrace of militarism and capital punishment. That doesn't mean that they are right (or Wright!) and we are wrong but it should cause us to rethink our position from the Scripture and skip the cultural platitudes...
American Christians and the death penaltyWhat do you think about that?
You can’t reconcile being pro-life on abortion and pro-death on the death penalty. Almost all the early Christian Fathers were opposed to the death penalty, even though it was of course standard practice across the ancient world. As far as they were concerned, their stance went along with the traditional ancient Jewish and Christian belief in life as a gift from God, which is why (for instance) they refused to follow the ubiquitous pagan practice of ‘exposing’ baby girls (i.e. leaving them out for the wolves or for slave-traders to pick up).
Mind you, there is in my view just as illogical a position on the part of those who solidly oppose the death penalty but are very keen on the ‘right’ of a woman (or couple) to kill their conceived but not yet born child...
From where many of us in the UK sit, American politics is hopelessly polarized. All kinds of issues get bundled up into two great heaps. The rest of the world, today and across the centuries, simply doesn’t see things in this horribly oversimplified way...
While we’re about it, how many folk out there were deeply moved both by the reading of the 9/11 victim names and by the thought that if they’d read the names of Iraqi civilians killed by your country and mine over the last ten years we’d have been there for several days?
8 comments:
I am not in the least impressed by your NTWright quote. It has no substance whatsoever.
I am resolutely pro life on abortion, and pro death penalty for murderers for the simple reason that God requires it to be so.
Why not actually look at what the word of God says.
Genesis 9v6 Who so sheds mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed......
This was given to Noah and it has not been superseded by any other pronouncement by God.
The same principle is reinforced by Moses, and again in the NT.
Deuteronomy21 gives the reason. If a dead body is found and nobody knows who did it, then the elders of the nearest town have to make a sacrifice adjacent to the place of death. As they wash their hands over the slaughtered animal they say, "Be merciful o Lord unto thy people Israel WHO YOU HAVE REDEEMED, AND LAY NOT INNOCENT BLOOD UNTO THY PEOPLE ISRAEL'S CHARGE
AND THE BLOOD SHALL BE FORGIVEN THEM
SO SHALL YOU PUT AWAY THE GUILT OF INNOCENT BLOOD FROM AMONGST YOU.
They were already a redeemed people. However they needed to appropriate that redemption for the specific event of that murder. It is not something that they could just ignore and presume.
If they ignored the murder, then the land would be polluted with blood guilt. Unrequited, it leaves the door open for Satan to establish control.
Abortion is all about polluting the land to give demonic control. Murder does the same thing. God ordained that a murderer should pay with his own blood in order to cleanse the land.
Frank
You get that America is not Israel, right? You also get that under the New Covenant that governs Christians while the state has the right to execute vengeance, followers of Christ are to never seek vengeance and are to leave it up to God (Romans 12:17-21). God demands a reckoning for the killing of another but as we do not live under a theocratic rule we must trust that God will punish sin.
Arthur,
I agree with the Wright quote, absolutely.
Frank illustrates a stumbling block which has been placed at the feet of Christians for a long time, mistaking the shadow (type)for the reality.
Your comment to Frank is very pertinent!
"But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second".
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matthew 5:39
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. Matthew 18:21-22
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Romans 12:19
I agree with NT Wright on almost nothing. Did he give ANY authoritative scripture? The Church Fathers were wrong on many things that corrupt the church to this very day. What authority do they have?
I see where you are coming from, but consider:
American militarism: we rule a big portion of the world through pressure or using military might to force cooperation/set up our own stooges as the country's leaders (Operation Ajax, etc.). It's like the game Risk, based on fear of others & greed for ourselves, masked behind "National defense," etc. Some claim 9/11 was a false-flag attempt (like Hitler burning the Reichstag & blaming his opponents or Nero burning Rome & blaming Christians), & true or not we don't want others to "tread on us" so we shouldn't do that to them. There ARE legitimate times for war (Ecclesiastes 3:8) but what we're doing isn't 1 of them.
Execution:
God commands execution "so shalt thou put away evil from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear" (Deuteronomy 21:21). When we disobey & don't execute those he commanded the evil isn't put away...it grows. So instead of 1 murderer, rapist, or adulterer there are thousands & thousands.
The problem isn't God's system doesn't work but that we AREN'T doing what God commanded. Instead of jettisoning God's system we need to abandon our FALSE one.
There HAS to be at least 2 witnesses or no 1 is to be put to death (I haven't studied it much so I don't know if these would include DNA evidence or physical people only & that no witnesses is God's way of showing mercy to the criminal if guilty.. Deuteronomy 21:1-9 tells us how to deal with murders when we don't know the killer) (Deut. 17:6, 19:15)
It is to be by stoning. I don't know if this could be modified but stoning is what is prescribed, not drowning, hanging, cutting, etc. SOME argue stoning is prescribed so the offender gets a reminder that hell will be painful so he can repent.. or so the community can be involved & fear.. not sure.
The witnesses are to throw the 1st stones (Deut. 17:7). This COULD serve to make false accusation less likely or if the witnesses were the parents of a murdered child they could get some frustration out that way, it doesn't say why these are just possibile explanations.
The people of the community were to participate in the stoning (Deut. 21:21). This COULD be so the community takes it to heart: it's public & personal. For example if I have to participate in stoning an adulterer I knew growing up, if I see a kid going down the same path the guy took I'd be much more apt to warn & plead with him.
The bodies aren't to be hung all night on the tree (Deut. 21:22-23) Not sure if they always have to be or not, but at least sometimes they are in order to warn people.
If the matter is too hard to understand in a lesser court it's to be brought to a higher court, .. if anyone in the community refuses to obey God's voice in carrying out judgment, they are to be executed (Deut. 17:8-13).
If the witnesses were lying they are to get the punishment they were trying to give (Deuteronomy 19:16-21)
People can do evil & cover it up (an example of this with execution: 1 Kings 21), but God set that system up anyway knowing people can be wicked & didn't change his laws after it happened..instead he judged those who did wickedly.
But what about Jesus' command to forgive in the New Testament? How can we reconcile the 2? 1st we need to understand there isn't a "God of the Old T" & "God of the New T," there is 1 God & he doesn't change (Malachi 3:6). God is MORE loving & MORE merciful than we ever could be, so if a all-loving, all-merciful God commanded it, it is GOOD. If executing people for SPECIFIC crimes is evil then God is evil & the Bible is trash. When Israel rejected God as ruler & wanted a king, God said to choose a king that he would set up & also for that ruler to write a copy of Deuteronomy & read from it ALL the days of his life (Deut. 17:18-20) so that he would do good. If it helps the understanding, God commanded us to love our enemies & not avenge in the Old T (Leviticus 19:18,) as well as the New, & the death sentance is prescribed in the New T as well as the Old (Acts 25:11, also in the fact that Christ HAD to be put to death). Jesus was talking about our attitudes & behaviors.. we are not to be vengeful people or wish evil to offenders but that they change. God didn't give individual people "the sword" but ordained the gov't to punish evildoers (Romans 13:4). If the gov't is corrupt, God will ultimately give justice, sometimes in this life but always at the end of it.
God laid out his law to guide Israel (a nation composed of saved & unsaved people) in what is good & to what is sin. Christians should be taking a stand & pressuring our government to rule like God prescribed because what he says is good & for a nation's good.
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