A word on Capital Punishment
Q: Is the scriptural prohibition against murder necessarily a prohibition against capital punishment?
In a civilized society, guilt and innocence of crimes is decided on by a justice system, rather than by the offended party. To say that it is wrong for one to murder is not the same thing as saying that a murderer should be executed by the state.
Murder is the taking of a life for personal reasons: revenge, robbery, general hatred, personal offense, et c. Capital punishment is one in a long list of penalties that can be handed down by the courts in response to legal criminal convictions.
In the former, the person doing the killing is being faithless: he believes that justice will not be done (taking it into his own hands); or that the victim has something he wants (money, property) that he desires but can’t have as long as the victim is alive; or that the victim represents some one or group that the murderer despises. In any of these cases, the commandment not to murder is a commandment to despise faithlessness: God is the one who brings justice, not I; God is the one who provides for our needs, not I, and God is the one who calls us to love even our enemies.
The arguments against capital punishment go that if we are not to murder individually, how can we justify killing another through the courts? Is that not simply murder as well, only through the government? If revenge is a bad motive for taking a life, isn’t doing it through the court system still revenge? And if murder is wrong for one because it is faithless, isn’t it wrong on the governmental scale for the same reason? Both ends the life of a person made in the image of God.
There are several reasons why these are not the same.
First, it is not revenge when the government executes a convicted criminal. Revenge is the action of the offended party – justice is the action of the government. The governmental court system is in place to protect the rights of the accused as well as to protect the rights of the offended parties. Just as it is unjust to allow victims to seek revenge, it is unjust to allow offenders to commit crimes without having to be called to account for them. In order for this justice to come about, dis-interested parties have to be called in to consider both sides of the issue, and we have decided that it is important that the prosecution prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) its case against the defendant – that is, that innocence is assumed. If the courts have convicted one of a capital crime, it is the result of justice, not revenge.
Second, it is not inherently faithless to execute a convicted criminal. If God has set the death penalty as just in the Old Testament, it needs to be proved that it is no longer just in the time of the New Testament.
Third, God has expressly said in the New Testament that we Christians are to obey – even submit to – the governing authorities (Rom 13:1-7). In verse 4 Paul writes, “For he (the authority) is God’s servant to do you good. 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.” This sword implies deadly force, that is, capital punishment.
It can be argued that while the governments are God’s servants to bring and keep justice, there may well be punishments that are cruel, or unjust inherently. Cannot punishments be changed to be more humane, and couldn’t it be argued that capital punishment is in need of change for these reasons?
This is a worthy question, and goes beyond the question of whether or not murder and execution are the same thing. What we need to argue here are (barring offense) what the reasons are in favor of capital punishment.
Many argue that capital punishment is indeed civilized vengeance. The courts side with the offended party, and in so doing allow that offended party to kill out of hatred. But this position ignores the spiritual aspect of the issue. Assuming that guilt has been rightly discovered by the courts, and that the convict’s sentence is death, the system is actually giving a message to the convict on two levels: first that his crime is worthy of the supreme penalty – that is, that our society is agreed that his sort of crime requires this sort of response for justice to be accomplished as best we can in this fallen world; and secondly that he is a soul, and that there are actually worse things than death that can happen to a person. If we were to give you the impression that your crime were not this serious, we would be doing damage to your eternal soul. If a dog injures a neighbor, the dog is killed – this is done so that the dog won’t injure anyone else. If a man murders a neighbor, it may be also good to end his life so that he won’t kill again, but that theoretically could be accomplished by a life sentence without parole, so why the death penalty? Because there is a person’s soul at stake – he needs to know that this murder is a sin against God and that he needs to repent and get right with God before he leaves this earth. The death penalty can do what no other penalty can do: force a convict to meet his own mortality. He knows when his life will end, while the rest of us can only surmise. He has only so many days, weeks, months left to put his soul in order. To confess, repent, and be forgiven. And THIS is more important to us as a society than revenge.
It can be argued that our culture is no longer Christian, so we cannot count on our civil secularized courts to think in spiritual categories any more. However, this is not a case against capital punishment any more at all – we should call our courts back to Christian thinking on all fronts, not just the question of capital punishment. We should be considering the souls of our drug dealers, our corporate embezzlers, and our domestic disturbers as well, fitting punishments that call them to consider the need for repentance, restoration, and apologies as well – it is just that the punishment must fit the crime. If you steal from your company, you should be required to restore all that was stolen and then some, PLUS have to right any broken relationships. There should be punishments that fit the other crimes as well, punishments other than imprisonment, which should be kept for the unrepentant. There are those who would grow from being forced to spend the next number of years working to pay back those he stole from. Or be forced to serve the family he offended.
But in the case of capital crimes – when one person is murdered by another – the penalty has to be as serious as the crime. This is not said with the vindictiveness of a victim, but with the disengaged wisdom of the community. There are some crimes that we won’t tolerate as a society, and the perpetrators of those crimes should know ahead of time that the punishment is death. This supports the last point in favor of capital punishment, that the death penalty can be a deterrent. It is true that many murders are committed in the heat of passion. However, many more would be planned and concluded if there were no fear of death.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Is history repeating itself? Iran and Iraq.
This morning, the AP reports that Iran is unhappy with President Obama, saying that he is just as bad as George W. Bush, and that all his rhetoric about change was just a lie (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575187,00.html). It seems that another middle east country is threatening the world with weapons of mass destruction, and the U.S. is standing in their way. Once again we hear that there are UN sanctions, funds being frozen, weapons inspectors denied access... Our present President is going to find himself in the real world his predecessor had to deal with, only this time he has a weakened country and world backing him up. In his work undermining the strength of America in the world (politically, economically, troop morale-wise), he has actually undermined the very strength he needs now to use. It is easy to be a radical community organizer, "power to the people!" when the real power and responsibility rests on those evil "other guys" that they think they can hate with impugnity. But when that power is actually transferred to the community organizers, and they dilute it (underfunding and vision with Gitmo and Afghanistan, economic disasters at home like the health plan, TARP funds, et c), they may find that what they really need is the very power of a consolidated country, a strong military, and the robust free-market underneath it all -- they may find that what they really need is respect, not love, from the rest of the world.
What if we are going through the 2002 Iraq conflict all over again with Iran? Will we have to invade? What would keep us from it? If it unfolds as the last did, we say: we cannot afford to have WMDs in the hands of rogue nations like Iraq/Iran, so we need UN sanctions. When they don't work (the people suffer while the leaders find ways to sell their oil on the black market to willing countries like France and Russia: Oil-for-food scandal, remember?) someone will have to enforce the UN sanctions. Who will do it except the US? In order to keep the WMDs out of the hands of terrorists, or to keep them from being a threat to Israel, we will have to require proof (Iran is denying it has such weapons, sound familiar?), and if Iraq/Iran will not allow us to confirm that they don't have WMDs, we will have to use military force in some way. What will this do to Obama's reputation as being different from "W"? The country will have to go to war again, and many will have to apologize to Dick Chaney. That will be a bitter pill to swallow for the left.
This morning, the AP reports that Iran is unhappy with President Obama, saying that he is just as bad as George W. Bush, and that all his rhetoric about change was just a lie (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575187,00.html). It seems that another middle east country is threatening the world with weapons of mass destruction, and the U.S. is standing in their way. Once again we hear that there are UN sanctions, funds being frozen, weapons inspectors denied access... Our present President is going to find himself in the real world his predecessor had to deal with, only this time he has a weakened country and world backing him up. In his work undermining the strength of America in the world (politically, economically, troop morale-wise), he has actually undermined the very strength he needs now to use. It is easy to be a radical community organizer, "power to the people!" when the real power and responsibility rests on those evil "other guys" that they think they can hate with impugnity. But when that power is actually transferred to the community organizers, and they dilute it (underfunding and vision with Gitmo and Afghanistan, economic disasters at home like the health plan, TARP funds, et c), they may find that what they really need is the very power of a consolidated country, a strong military, and the robust free-market underneath it all -- they may find that what they really need is respect, not love, from the rest of the world.
What if we are going through the 2002 Iraq conflict all over again with Iran? Will we have to invade? What would keep us from it? If it unfolds as the last did, we say: we cannot afford to have WMDs in the hands of rogue nations like Iraq/Iran, so we need UN sanctions. When they don't work (the people suffer while the leaders find ways to sell their oil on the black market to willing countries like France and Russia: Oil-for-food scandal, remember?) someone will have to enforce the UN sanctions. Who will do it except the US? In order to keep the WMDs out of the hands of terrorists, or to keep them from being a threat to Israel, we will have to require proof (Iran is denying it has such weapons, sound familiar?), and if Iraq/Iran will not allow us to confirm that they don't have WMDs, we will have to use military force in some way. What will this do to Obama's reputation as being different from "W"? The country will have to go to war again, and many will have to apologize to Dick Chaney. That will be a bitter pill to swallow for the left.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
I have an uncontrollable urge to tell everyone about this video (http://www.pjtv.com/v/2235), partly because I wish I had written it. Whatever you think of Sarah Palin, we are in a war for the truth. Do we as a culture put up with irrational, emotional personal attacks in the place of ordered debate? Does even that question seem to have no traction in your soul? Has it lost its appeal? Does something in your heart sink when it is asked, knowing that it will go nowhere and accomplish nothing?
How can this be? Are we so deaf to the call of the truth that we have resigned ourselves to a culture that runs on power instead of logic? Could it be that we are so overwhelmed that we think the only approach is cynicism toward all things reasonable?
This is just the place that the devil wants us to occupy -- no ability to think clearly or willingness to throw the weight of our lives and energies behind a the good where we find it. What if we were such moral cowards that we would rather be in with the hip crowd than take a stand for the true and the good when we find them?
I have been reading Saul Alinsky's book "Rules for Radicals," and he is an amoral, pragmatic, shell of a human being who will do or say anything (and teach others to do the same) in order to achieve power for the people he represents. This is ALWAYS the problem: the people you would LIKE to have lead you are people of character, but the only people who can rise to power are those who are willing to compromise character to achieve power. What hope do those who are NOT willing to do anything have? When it comes to "the Chicago way," Sean Connery's character in The Untouchables says, "if they pull a knife, you pull a gun; if they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue...how far are you willing to go?" That's the question, and in the movie it seems like a call to courage in the face of opposition -- but can we fight the devil on his own terms and not lose our souls?
The plan put forth by the Cloward-Piven bunch is being put into practice all around us. (If you don't know about the Cloward-Piven strategy, read about it here: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967) The idea is to bring the present government down by overloading the system wherever it is weakest. The applications of this approach are everywhere:
Health care: because 20-40 million Americans don't have health insurance (and somehow folks are convinced everyone has a right to insurance), let's revamp the system for all 300 million of us and pay for it all through the government. This destroys the medical care for everyone, and incidentally crashes the economy. We were vulnerable because the country generally accepts the idea that the government should provide health care.
Housing: because a small percentage of the population don't own their own houses (because their finances are such that they are bad loan risks), direct the nation's banks to lower their standards and raise the loan risk level and loan requirements so that we can get everyone his own house. This overextends banks (on the promise that the Fed government will back defaults), loans fail, foreclosures ramp up, banks are bought out by the very government that said they'd back them, house prices fall, owners find they have negative equity, savings are lost, and the economy crashes. We were vulnerable because the country bought the idea that everyone should be given what they haven't earned (for whatever reason).
Voter registration: because it seems there are a lot of people who have not (for whatever reason) registered to vote, community organizers launch grass-roots projects to get everyone registered. Sounds good, but the real reason is not to get general registrations (as they tell the Republicans knowing it will stop their opposition), or to target groups that will vote Democrat (as they tell the Democrats, knowing it will stop their opposition), but that it will bring the election system to a collapse. The organizers know the voter registration offices are woefully understaffed, thus vulnerable to an overwhelming flood of paperwork that will lead to choke-points all through the system, bringing it all to a standstill. The registrations sent in by ACORN "volunteers" by the thousands were often frauds, but it takes time to track them each down to confirm. Not only does this slow the entire process of voting, it gives the enemies of the system credibility when they claim voter fraud -- "just look at all those illegitimate ballots!" they cry, knowing that they sent them in themselves. We are vulnerable precisely because of our conscientiousness.
In fact, we are vulnerable to these sorts of attacks because we want to be "good people" at every turn. Our very consciences are being used against us. What are people like Sarah Palin to do when they are attacked for being horrible, nasty, self-centered people who don't care about those without health care, housing, or the vote? Honest people want to address the accusations and redress any wrong they think they have caused -- and this is their mistake: they think the accusations must be somewhat true or they wouldn't be so raised. But dishonest people USE this honesty against them.
Why DON'T we expect Bill Clinton, Charles Rangel, Dan Rather, or Barney Frank to be ashamed of themselves for their actions? Why DOESN'T ACORN act ashamed when they are caught in blatant illegality/immorality? Imagine the storm of moral indignation if it were found that Sarah Palin had had sex with an intern? Or that George Bush had been running a homosexual escort service out of his home? What if it were found that Rush Limbaugh had knowingly faked and lied on his show in order to undermine a candidate he wanted to see fail? This fellow (on the video) says "of course we don't expect morality from them, they are Democrats." Have we as a COUNTRY really sunk so low? Is there no category from which to evaluate both parties on their honesty? This is how the empire can fall -- from the inside. Our own desire for open honesty and sympathy for the underdog is being used to neutralize our best and brightest.
Have a look at this and tell me what you think.
http://www.pjtv.com/v/2235
How can this be? Are we so deaf to the call of the truth that we have resigned ourselves to a culture that runs on power instead of logic? Could it be that we are so overwhelmed that we think the only approach is cynicism toward all things reasonable?
This is just the place that the devil wants us to occupy -- no ability to think clearly or willingness to throw the weight of our lives and energies behind a the good where we find it. What if we were such moral cowards that we would rather be in with the hip crowd than take a stand for the true and the good when we find them?
I have been reading Saul Alinsky's book "Rules for Radicals," and he is an amoral, pragmatic, shell of a human being who will do or say anything (and teach others to do the same) in order to achieve power for the people he represents. This is ALWAYS the problem: the people you would LIKE to have lead you are people of character, but the only people who can rise to power are those who are willing to compromise character to achieve power. What hope do those who are NOT willing to do anything have? When it comes to "the Chicago way," Sean Connery's character in The Untouchables says, "if they pull a knife, you pull a gun; if they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue...how far are you willing to go?" That's the question, and in the movie it seems like a call to courage in the face of opposition -- but can we fight the devil on his own terms and not lose our souls?
The plan put forth by the Cloward-Piven bunch is being put into practice all around us. (If you don't know about the Cloward-Piven strategy, read about it here: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967) The idea is to bring the present government down by overloading the system wherever it is weakest. The applications of this approach are everywhere:
Health care: because 20-40 million Americans don't have health insurance (and somehow folks are convinced everyone has a right to insurance), let's revamp the system for all 300 million of us and pay for it all through the government. This destroys the medical care for everyone, and incidentally crashes the economy. We were vulnerable because the country generally accepts the idea that the government should provide health care.
Housing: because a small percentage of the population don't own their own houses (because their finances are such that they are bad loan risks), direct the nation's banks to lower their standards and raise the loan risk level and loan requirements so that we can get everyone his own house. This overextends banks (on the promise that the Fed government will back defaults), loans fail, foreclosures ramp up, banks are bought out by the very government that said they'd back them, house prices fall, owners find they have negative equity, savings are lost, and the economy crashes. We were vulnerable because the country bought the idea that everyone should be given what they haven't earned (for whatever reason).
Voter registration: because it seems there are a lot of people who have not (for whatever reason) registered to vote, community organizers launch grass-roots projects to get everyone registered. Sounds good, but the real reason is not to get general registrations (as they tell the Republicans knowing it will stop their opposition), or to target groups that will vote Democrat (as they tell the Democrats, knowing it will stop their opposition), but that it will bring the election system to a collapse. The organizers know the voter registration offices are woefully understaffed, thus vulnerable to an overwhelming flood of paperwork that will lead to choke-points all through the system, bringing it all to a standstill. The registrations sent in by ACORN "volunteers" by the thousands were often frauds, but it takes time to track them each down to confirm. Not only does this slow the entire process of voting, it gives the enemies of the system credibility when they claim voter fraud -- "just look at all those illegitimate ballots!" they cry, knowing that they sent them in themselves. We are vulnerable precisely because of our conscientiousness.
In fact, we are vulnerable to these sorts of attacks because we want to be "good people" at every turn. Our very consciences are being used against us. What are people like Sarah Palin to do when they are attacked for being horrible, nasty, self-centered people who don't care about those without health care, housing, or the vote? Honest people want to address the accusations and redress any wrong they think they have caused -- and this is their mistake: they think the accusations must be somewhat true or they wouldn't be so raised. But dishonest people USE this honesty against them.
Why DON'T we expect Bill Clinton, Charles Rangel, Dan Rather, or Barney Frank to be ashamed of themselves for their actions? Why DOESN'T ACORN act ashamed when they are caught in blatant illegality/immorality? Imagine the storm of moral indignation if it were found that Sarah Palin had had sex with an intern? Or that George Bush had been running a homosexual escort service out of his home? What if it were found that Rush Limbaugh had knowingly faked and lied on his show in order to undermine a candidate he wanted to see fail? This fellow (on the video) says "of course we don't expect morality from them, they are Democrats." Have we as a COUNTRY really sunk so low? Is there no category from which to evaluate both parties on their honesty? This is how the empire can fall -- from the inside. Our own desire for open honesty and sympathy for the underdog is being used to neutralize our best and brightest.
Have a look at this and tell me what you think.
http://www.pjtv.com/v/2235
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