Despite appeals from both religious and ethical leaders across the world, the State of Texas has again executed a prisoner. To quote Amnesty International,
According to his most recent test, Marvin Wilson has an IQ of 61 (most states bar executions for those with IQs at 70 or below). That puts him below the first percentile of human intelligence, and he’s in an even lower percentile for adaptive functioning.
Mr. Wilson was killed at 6:27pm August 7. This despite the United States Supreme Court banning the execution of mentally “retarded” prisoners (Atkins vs. Virginia).
How did Texas arrive at their determination that Marvin Wilson, despite being in the single bottom-most percentile IQ-wise, was “eligible” to die by lethal injection? Among other things, Texas’ Supreme Court cited John Steinbeck’s literary creation “Lennie,” a mentally handicapped man who kills a girl by accident in the novel “Of Mice and Men.” Or, as the court itself put it,
“Most Texas citizens [...] might agree that Steinbeck’s Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt.” That is, any prisoner less impaired than the fictional character in a book SHOULD be executed. One can only wonder if that’s how all law is done in Texas… a novel in one hand and the switch to the execution chamber in the other.
And the crime was not an open and shut case as to who exactly it was who shot the victim. As The Guardian notes,
Marvin Wilson was put on death row for the 1992 murder of a police drug informant in Beaumont, Texas. The circumstances of the crime had all elements that make death sentences for people with learning difficulties problematic: Wilson was one of two perpetrators, leaving him vulnerable to his more sophisticated accomplice, and the main witness against him was that accomplice’s wife who claimed she heard him confess to pulling the trigger.
We continue to call on Texas to stop such executions. As Christians, we see no reasonable or ethical argument for the execution of *any* prisoners. Our Lord died via execution. We resist the culture of retribution.
So, when God established the death penalty with Noah, and then later reaffirmed it under the Law of Moses (which Paul said was “holy, just, and good”), He was creating a “culture of retribution” that the people of God should have resisted?
Ron,
First and foremost, we do not currently live under a Theocratic form of government but a Democratic form of government. Thus, the heart of your argument is compromised immediately.
Second, the commands of God to his people in the Old Testament do not simply translate to New Testament Ethics. Otherwise, we would keep every single old Testament dietary and ceremonial law.
Third, you avoid the core problem for Christians supporting the death penalty, and that was the problem I raised. We exercise the Death Penalty as a form of retribution. Yet the Christian Faith subverts retributive forms of “justice” with its emphasis on Grace — Unmerited Favor rooted in Forgiveness.
And fourth, our faith is in a God-Man who died upon an engine of execution, murdered by both Church and State. Are you willing to roll the dice and possibly recreate a murder of an innocent man? I would hope not.
Jon,
The question of whether we live under a democratic or theocratic form of government is utterly irrelevant. Either the death penalty is unreasonable and unethical because it belongs to a “culture of retribution” or it is not.
And yes, the commands of God to His people absolutely and positively do translate into New Testament ethics, or else Paul, Jesus, and James could not argue (the first two explicitly, the latter implicitly) that the sum of all Christian ethics depend on two Old Testament commandments: to love God above all and our neighbors as ourselves.
And no, I do not “avoid” the “problem” of retribution, but rather I embrace it, because it’s not a problem. It certainly did not seem to be a problem for the Apostle Paul, who wrote:
“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.”
(Romans 13:1-4)
So, by opposing the death penalty, Paul would argue that you are opposing the authority that God delegated to government to carry out His wrath on wrongdoers.
Nobody wants to see innocent people executed for crimes they did not commit. But it does not follow from that that the death penalty is wrong—at least, not if we take the Scriptures as a whole seriously.
Ron, excuse me for the lag in response, I was in Montana in the aftermath of my Mother’s death.
You write:
“The question of whether we live under a democratic or theocratic form of government is utterly irrelevant.”
I would offer a few problems with that.
First, as someone who believes in God, I’d find His direct Governance a wonderful improvement over any other form of government. When it comes to the power of life and death, I’d say God alone would be trustworthy to administer said power. Are you good with innocent people being put to death? It happens. It will happen wherever the death penalty is practiced by human governments.
Second, you who oppose “big government” (rather intensely, as I recall) are in FAVOR of the secular State having the power of life and death over its citizens? I find that rather astonishing. But of course I’m still too easily astonished.
Third, since a Democracy is by definition ruled by those empowered to do so by its citizens, Christians’ opportunity is potentially enhanced to influence said Democracy by consciously representing the heart and character of Christ. Whether we have actually done so, of course, is a dubious matter. Imagine Jesus Christ standing next to the lethal injection switch at an execution. Do you see Him willing to pull that switch? I must bear witness to what everything in the character, words, and heart of the Jesus I know from Scripture and experience says to me regarding retributive justice. In a word… “No.”
Poor Paul gets beat up by everyone from the higher critics who dismiss him to the ultra-conservatives who cite him in support of things he did not believe. I’m afraid your use of his Romans passage reflects that latter tendency:
“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.”
Exactly how does that support the death penalty? I can’t see it doing so. Anywhere. No logical inference can be made that Paul is here supporting the execution of wrongdoers. The most one can explicitly say about the passage is that Paul means to underscore the role of government to punish criminal activity using force if necessary (“the sword”). To read capital punishment into the passage is unwarranted.
You argue: “So, by opposing the death penalty, Paul would argue that you are opposing the authority that God delegated to government to carry out His wrath on wrongdoers.” This is a illogical overreach. Paul isn’t discussing the death penalty. He is discussing the right and even responsibility of government to confront and limit the activities of criminals. Your assumptions are not rooted in what Paul wrote.
But there’s a deeper element in all this. God’s wrath itself is redemptive, or we do not understand God as the God of Love. The wrath of men is BY NATURE retributive, rooted in the deceptively simple equation that when someone does evil (“evil” being defined by those with power) that person is best dealt with by being disappeared. The best method as far as permanence goes is to execute said person. That’s what the Romans of Paul’s day did to Christians. It is good to remember that as one reads Paul… or looks at our “Thanatos Syndrome” culture of today.
Retributive justice is rooted in a terrible deception that flies in the face of Christian theology. Execution suggests that we can eradicate evil from the world by using violence. Christianity reveals that evil resides in the human heart… every human heart. That knot of vipers will not be eradicated unless we eradicate every human being. And in fact when we do murder to prevent murder we only succeed in doing one thing… becoming murderers ourselves. Again, the heart of our faith is love. Paul’s extensive theology of love is rooted in the character and Human/Divine Person of Jesus Christ. Yet we turn to Paul to attempt a defense of capital punishment?! How unutterably sad.
Jon, please allow me to first express my sincere sympathy and condolences for the death of your mother. Losing a parent is a great loss, as I well know, and as you know doubly now.
When I wrote, “The question of whether we live under a democratic or theocratic form of government is utterly irrelevant,” I meant that it is utterly irrelevant to the question at hand (of whether or not our government should have a death penalty) not whether it is irrelevant in a comparative or ontological sense.
The death penalty was instituted by God with Noah many centuries before He ever instituted a theocratic government on Earth (Gen. 9:5-6). At that time, with only eight people left to reconstitute humanity, the only form of government that would have persisted for quite some time would have been some form of patriarchy. That patriarchy would have been administered by sinners, many with evil motives and all of them fallible in their judgments, and yet, God entrusted it with the death penalty.
According to Genesis, humanity eventually concentrated itself in a city called Babel, which, it is fair to assume, developed some type of government more convenient to that setting, and in that setting we are told that all humanity completely rebelled against God’s command to scatter and fill the Earth. And yet, since God had already commanded all humanity to administer the death penalty, they were responsible to carry it out at as well.
So this was the kind of society in which God instituted capital punishment: a sinful and rebellious one! Certainly God knew that if He put sinners in charge of capital punishment, it would not always be administered justly, and yet He did it anyway.
And when God did actually institute a theocratic form of government—well, all we have to do is read the book of Judges to see how that went. Sure, God’s “direct governance” would be a vast improvement over anything that mankind can produce on its own, but that’s not how historic theocracies have worked. At least it’s not the way the only true theocracy, according to Scripture, worked. It was still administered through human beings. The tribal leaders and priests were responsible to make sure the Law was kept, and when they failed (which was early and often) God raised up judges.
Humanity is not trustworthy to administer any power that God has given it. We have proven this over and over and over, time and time again. We are not trustworthy to administer dominion over nature, and yet God reaffirmed that responsibility to humanity through Noah as well (Gen. 9:2-3). Thus humanity’s untrustworthiness cannot constitute an argument against the practice of capital punishment today, because it did not stop God from instituting it among human governments to begin with.
So what it boils down to is this: in any sinful society, the existence of the death penalty for murder creates the possibility that the death penalty will be used *to* murder. When somebody knowingly causes the conviction of an innocent person for murder, and that person is executed, the person who caused the conviction has become a murderer, deserving of the death penalty himself. Also, when somebody commits a murder, and then allows another to be mistakenly executed for it in his place, he is guilty of double-murder.
God knew that capital punishment would be abused in a sinful society, and yet He commanded it anyway. So ultimately, your argument is with God, not me.
The reason you are too easily astonished that a “big government” opponent would oppose abolition of capital punishment is because you don’t understand what that term means. Capital punishment has nothing to do with “big government,” at least not with anything that term has remotely to do in current political debates in our country. “Big government,” as used by conservatives, is a designation for government without proper constitutional limits. The “bigness” in view has to do with the size, scope, and reach of government. The question it seeks to answer are not so much, What can government do to me if I break the law? (Although one answer to that is provided in the 8th Amendment.) But the issue of “big government” revolves around questions more along the order of: What can the government require me to do? What can the government prohibit me from doing? How much power resides in the federal government as opposed to the governments of the individual states? This discussion is defined by the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution and they alone represent the issues that separate “big government” from “limited government,” not the issue of what kind of penalties either government can exact for broken laws. Any argument against capital punishment that attempt to portray it as an example of “big government” is simply empty rhetoric devoid of historical context.
From the moment the limits on our federal government were created, in 1788, it was understood that capital punishment would be a power reserved primarily for the individual states, but also, in certain cases (e.g., treason, especially during time of war), for the federal government. The only limitation on penalties for crimes is covered under our protection from “cruel and unusual punishment” in the 8th Amendment, and the only time that clause was brought to bear on state death penalties by our Supreme Court was very briefly, back in the 1970s. The fact that our Constitution does not precisely define what constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” is explained by our legal system’s reliance on English Common Law as legal precedent (the same protection against “cruel and unusual punishment” is also found in the English Bill of Rights of 1689). Common Law, in turn, was heavily influenced by the Bible and has always affirmed the right of the government to capital punishment.
To argue that “the heart and character of Christ” is to abolish the very death penalty that He Himself, as the Second Person of the Trinity, established in Genesis, leads to all sorts of theological errors. According to John 1:18, God has always revealed Himself through Christ, even prior to the incarnation. It is as pernicious to debase the unity of Scripture by affirming different systems of morality for the Old and New Testament as it is to debase the unity of Christ with the Father, and the unity of the Christ of today with the Christ of yesterday (for He is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” [Heb. 13:8]). If a “culture of retribution” is morally wrong today, it had to have been morally wrong for all mankind at all times, including during the Old Testament. Therefore, if you have a Christ Who is opposed to this “culture of retribution” today (and thus would oppose capital punishment as a subset of it) as a moral *evil*, you simultaneously have that same Christ Who imposed that same “culture of retribution” yesterday (in a manner of speaking) as a moral *requirement*, and thus you have a double-minded Christ, who, as James would say, would have to be “unstable in all His ways.” This, of course, is a blasphemous thought!
Furthermore, it is erroneous to equate the way Jesus will run this world when He returns with how He wants us to run it in His absence. The reason I cannot imagine Jesus pulling the switch for a lethal injection today is not because I think He does not want me to do it (if that were my job), but because He is in Heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father until all things are put under his feet (1 Cor. 15:25-28). But all things are not yet under His feet, which is why we still have human governments—not to mention, sin, disease, wars, famines, death, and so on. And so while we still have human governments, they are to be run as though all things are not yet under Christ’s feet—especially since most of them will inevitably be run by unbelievers! Considering all this, if you still seek to impose the abolition of the capital punishment on the government of the United States because it is what you think “Jesus would do,” then, ironically, it is you who are seeking some form of theocracy, not me.
And here’s a little news bulletin that shouldn’t really be news: when Jesus returns, He will pull the switch on the greatest “lethal injection” of all time when He separates the sheep from the goats and consigns unrepentant unbelievers to their place in the lake of fire. No matter how figurative the language may be (and I believe most of it is), the fact of conscious eternal torment for all eternity certainly deserves the name of “the second death,” and it seems from Scripture that Jesus will have no problem with it. His first coming was to save; His second will be to judge.
My use of the Romans 13 passage is clear to anyone who chooses to be fair with the text. But when you write:
“Paul isn’t discussing the death penalty. He is discussing the right and even responsibility of government to confront and limit the activities of criminals.”
you are imposing a dichotomy between the death penalty and the actual language that Paul uses that is demonstrably absurd.
If you cannot see references to capital punishment in Paul’s description of human government as being a “terror” to bad conduct and as not bearing “the sword in vain,” especially in light of Scripture, history, and the commonly-accepted use of language, and if you thus refuse to affirm the obvious logical inferences here, then I frankly cannot see how you are dealing honestly with Scripture. At no time in recorded history, especially not in Roman times, and certainly not in history as recorded in Scripture, did governments bear swords merely to scare criminals, or to somehow “confront and limit” their “activities” apart from using those swords to actually put criminals to death. I think you have made it abundantly clear with your pedantic and overblown response to my use of Romans 13 that you have a fundamental unwillingness to deal with the plain meaning of the text. Ironically, it is you who are working from assumptions that are not rooted in what Paul wrote.
Finally, your statement that “God’s wrath itself is redemptive,” which I am aware is not original with you, is a theological smokescreen that is unbiblical at the deepest level. It should bring on a feeling of immediate cognitive disorientation to anyone who tries to decipher it in a manner compatible with actual biblical vocabulary—because it can’t be done! Not only is it a twisting of Scripture, creating a false univocalism where the Bible presents the precise opposite, but it is an infinitely-adaptable twisting, ultimately supporting any statement one might wish to make by completely evacuating both the terms “wrath” and “redemptive” of their proper biblical meanings.
Biblically speaking, redemption delivers us from wrath. On that count alone they cannot be the same thing, or even close relatives of each other. More to the point: God’s redemption delivers us from God’s own wrath. To equate wrath with redemption, or to make wrath a subset of redemption, or make redemption descriptive of wrath, or to otherwise redefine it to suit the tastes of contemporary culture is to do violence to the Gospel itself.
God’s wrath is holy. To deny it is unholy. And yet, God loved us from all eternity, and that love is also holy. Wrath righteously demands punishment, and love—even God’s holy love—by itself cannot prevent punishment. But the love of an infinite Triune God can introduce redemption—something that must be utterly separate from wrath if it is to overcome wrath—and thus redeem us by bearing our punishment and satisfying God’s wrath. This is because redemption is never merely “rescue,” or “deliverance,” but it is a very specific kind of rescue and deliverance: one that rescues us from our guilt by paying its penalty.
So to make “wrath redemptive” is to essentially deny biblical wrath. And to deny wrath is to deny the real need for redemption. And to deny the real need for redemption is to deny the Gospel.
The Gospel depends upon the truth of retributive justice. It was for us that Christ bore the retributive wrath of God. And one day, as the Bible teaches, those who reject the Gospel, and refuse its solution for their evil—and yes, since God is the ultimate “power” He gets to define who and what is evil—will be dealt with by “being disappeared” in a sense. What you treat with postmodern sarcasm, God treats with deadly seriousness. The theology you have presented on this topic sounds very Socinian, and that’s not a good thing. I also find it surprising how easily it seems you have sold your Christian birthright of Scriptural doctrine for the pottage and lentils of postmodern categories.
The proper administration of civil government in a world of sinners also depends upon the administration of retributive justice. By resisting it, I believe you are resisting the will of your heavenly Father.
Oh, dear. The gap between our views of Scripture is not small. We could play hand after hand of proof-text poker and probably not get anywhere. On certain topics (our support of women as pastors, for instance) I’ve had the experience to the point of exhaustion. Whether or not you were in on that marathon is not something i recall. But the issue of capital punishment is even worse, if that is possible. The issue seems extremely clear-cut to me (and many others who share my views on the nature of Biblical Grace). But as you illustrate, there are many who find my position clear as mud.
At risk of boring the snot out of anyone watching this thread, I can only point out the following general principles:
You make clear from your comments that you — and your idea of God — support the death of some innocents in the pursuit of making sure the guilty are killed by the state (religious or irreligious). After all, you say: “God knew that capital punishment would be abused in a sinful society, and yet He commanded it anyway. So ultimately, your argument is with God, not me.”
No, my argument is just with you.
I suspect I’ll end up guilty of some sort of theological sin in your eyes by saying the following, but here goes.
I have to read the Old Testament through the New Testament, NOT vice-versa. And further, as far as possible I have to apprehend the character and commands of God through Jesus Christ, NOT vice-versa. What does Jesus do when faced with a capital punishment case?
Turns out the New Testament gives us just such a specific case. Adultery is a capital offense according to various Old Testament passages (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22 as two examples). Yet what did Jesus say to the (sarcasm alert) righteous religious authorities when they brought a woman caught in adultery to him? He first addressed them: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (that is, be the first to pull the switch, fire the first bullet, stick in the first needle). And to the sinner? “Go and sin no more.”
You see, I think Christians who support the death penalty are the ones who don’t take sin seriously enough. In God’s eyes, and this is clear from Scripture, ALL sins are worthy of death. ALL sins separate us from God, potentially eternally.
And about those Old Testament passages…
It really does matter that they occur in a specific context with specific meaning. After all, if it does not matter, then shouldn’t we be militating for capital punishment to also include the afore-mentioned adultery, homosexuality, and even having sex with one’s wife while she’s on her period (if as some commentators suggest, “cut off from their people” means execution). There’s also working on the sabbath as cause for capital punishment, which is quite interesting considering Jesus’ words which seem to turn the Sabbath commandment upside down.
In effect, then, you argue to hold on to capital punishment while (unless you’re going to shock me) agree with me that many if not most of the reasons for capital punishment in the Old Testament no longer hold true.
I pray these things give you pause.
Finally, I again insist your defense of retributive justice reflects a non-comprehension of the core of Christ’s Identity, message, and purpose…. even his character. Over and over Jesus undermines the concept of retribution:
“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” John 8:7 (And yes, already discussed)
And,
“From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:16,17
And from Paul,
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:17-21
And Peter:
“Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called–that you might inherit a blessing.” 1 Peter 3:9
And finally and foremost, back to Jesus, who encapsulates his own heart (and thus that of God’s and God’s Word’s) in a relentless progression:
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” – John 13:34
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:35
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” – John 15:12
“I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” – John 15:17
And then, of course, Jesus responded to humankind who singularly and collectively were and are deserving of death by laying down his own life instead, by loving those who hated him and successfully conspired to murder him. When Saul participated in the murder of Stephen, Jesus had him executed…. no, wait, that’s not what happened. Jesus met him on the road and made Saul, the Zealot for the Law, into the Apostle of Love.
I stand before a God I believe is a God of Love, a God who like the God-Man Jesus calls human beings to a new life in Him reflecting a new way of doing everything. Retribution is God’s business (and God, I hasten to add, seems unwilling to quickly execute such retribution). Loving as Christ loved is our business. Let us be about it.
–All Scriptures cited from New Revised Standard Version.
What I find most amazing is that the post-article discussion has gotten away from the abhorrent facts at hand, namely, the State of Texas executed a mentally retarded man, and did so citing a fictional novel and also did so in spite of Atkins vs. Virginia which clearly stated that it is cruel and unusual punishment to execute the mentally retarded.
I don’t give a rat’s patooey if yer fer or a’gin the death penalty at that point, because the point is that the State of Texas violated a ruling of the US Supreme Court and put a mentally retarded man to death.
As the parent of a child with a developmental disability I find this especially abhorrent, and as a US citizen who doesn’t necessarily like the death penalty but in some cases might be convinced to support it (even as a bleeding heart liberal), to hear people arguing over the death penalty in general and forgetting the facts of this particular case is just troubling. Ron, you espouse pages of text in favor of killing criminals, but you’ve forgotten why Jon posted this. And Jon, my friend, you’ve allowed yourself to go off topic and get into the minutia of pro death penalty vs anti-death penalty, when the real story here is that the State of Texas just got away with taking the life of a man with the IQ of an elementary school child. How can even a pro death-penalty advocate stand here and defend this indefensible action that flies in the fact of the US Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and the ruling of Atkins vs. Virginia????
I absolutely support Atkins vs. Virginia’s prohibition against executing mentally retarded citizens, regardless of their crime, no matter how heinous, because a civilized society does not execute people, if indeed a civilized society does at all, who can’t fully comprehend what they’ve done, or the punishment that awaits them.
I’d give you both my real feelings on the death penalty, but I won’t be dragged down into that argument, when the topic at hands is that a man with an IQ of 61 was illegally executed by the State of Texas in spite of Atkins vs. Virginia.
MIke, I agree with you that this specific case is especially horrific — not to mention an apparent violation of Atkins vs Virginia. I say “apparent” because the current Supreme Court *refused* to hear the case, allowing Texas to go ahead and put Marvin Wilson to death. Just why the current court ruled as it did is not a subject I can bear to go into.
I’m incapable of not discussing the larger picture. But thanks for bringing me back to the small, specific, one.
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Jon,
As for that larger picture to which you refer, I’ve decided to follow up our previous comments—and most especially your most recent reply to me—in a blog post over at Midwest Christian Outreach’s web site.
The link is here: http://www.midwestoutreach.org/is-the-death-penalty-contrary-to-scripture.
Glad to contribute to your own thoughts on the subject. I suppose I should write a longer piece on the death penalty, though what holds me back is a sense that it simply doesn’t matter, especially in America. The conversation gives me the same sensation I often got on Face Book before I removed myself there. Opinions are fixed; everyone has their own narrative truth into which they pour Scriptures supporting that truth and ignore the ones that contradict that truth. But I have to trust that words — and especially The Word — doesn’t return void despite evidence to the contrary. And by saying that I’m not claiming special knowledge for my word vs your word; just clinging to faith that the Word itself, invigorated by the Holy Spirit, will do what I often fail to see it doing.
Blessings.
Having read Ron’s prolific arguments in favor of killing people for capital offenses, I can only surmise that if capital punishment was good enough for Jesus, it ought to be good enough for us, too.
Mercy, between this page and that blog post, I can’t personally fathom spending so much time trying to prove oneself right(eous) and triumphant on the topic of execution of another human, heinous human or not.
What truly baffles me is how somebody can put so much energy and time into espousing something so frankly morbid and repulsive as the planned killing of another person. And to do this on a website that supposedly espouses outreaching with the love of God seems just an odd way to shine that light on the world.
But what do I know, anyway? Obviously not enough to spend hours researching then pontificating on all of the wondrous reasons why capital punishment is a Christian value. Heaven help me. Maybe I’ll see the same light Ron sees, someday.
I suppose I’m too easily wounded… but the pro-death penalty view expressed by many Evangelicals physically hurts me. I mean, I feel it the way a person feels when another person verbally abuses them. That isn’t to say Ron or anyone else isn’t entitled to their views on the death penalty. But it is to say that something about the death penalty strikes at the heart of the Gospel itself, and — as I see it — strikes at the very conception of a God of Love. But hey, maybe I’m just an old hippie.
We do miss you on Facebook. I’ll try not to drag that over here, Mr Trott.
I miss you, Mike, and many others as well. Nice to be missed in my own right. Ha.
Thanks for your comments, Mike. They’re very enlightening. When all people have to offer in return for careful, sincere exegesis of the words of Christ and Paul is haughty, self-righteous sarcasm, it reminds me of some other things Jesus said about what not to do with your pearls.
Thanks for yours, too, Jon. Yes, you are just an old hippie!
” When all people have to offer in return for careful, sincere exegesis of the words of Christ and Paul is haughty, self-righteous sarcasm, it reminds me of some other things Jesus said about what not to do with your pearls.”
Yeah, kind of what i was thinking, too.
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