At the Washington Post's On Faith, Reverend Matt Randles posts, "One Christian's view on the death penalty." He's the pastor of Headwaters Covenant Church in Helena, Mont. Randles' essay is drawn from remarks delivered at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty annual meeting, earlier this year.
In the Easter season, we remember Jesus' crucifixion and death for the sin of the world. Christians declare that Jesus' death brings life, so how can we then demand the death of certain criminals?
The Old Testament says, "You are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth." But developing a biblical understanding of capital punishment isn't as simple as appropriating select verses from the Old Testament. Are we prepared to execute those who curse their parents or worship other gods? These are also capital offenses in the Bible.
In light of the New Testament, we don't follow Old Testament regulations about such things as burnt offerings, building codes, or dietary laws. Jesus addressed "eye for an eye" and said, "Turn the other cheek." He talked about murder but focused on the root issue of anger. And when faced with an actual situation--a woman guilty of adultery--he called for the one without sin to cast the first stone.
A biblical understanding of capital punishment isn't a matter of assembling proof texts; it must be consistent with the gospel: that God redeems the worst people--and even calls them to do great things.
And:
Is fighting the death penalty worthwhile? Aren't there more important priorities-- poverty, homelessness, world hunger? But think about who Jesus stood up for: The guilty, the prostitutes, the sinners. Whom did he criticize? The self-righteous, the judgmental, those interested in maintaining the status quo. So, in speaking up for those that society disdains and against a corrupt system, we are speaking the language of Jesus. Jesus' own death was unjust; Christians, then, of all people, should oppose a system that is impossibly flawed.
Margaret Summers has posted, "Easter Season, Capital Punishment, and the 'Drum Major for Peace'," at Afro-Netizen. She's the Communications Director for NCADP.
During Easter season, Christians worldwide celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It occurs in the early spring, a season rife with anticipation and the promise of new beginnings; of the shoots of green plants pushing their way through soil warmed by the sun, thawed after a long and frozen winter; of new leaves opening on trees and bushes; of blossoming flowers upturned to the rays of a welcoming sun.
This year, in a tragic historic coincidence, Easter Sunday fell on the 42nd anniversary of the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil and human rights champion, a self-described “drum major for peace.” Dr. King was shot dead on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel with friends and fellow activists. They were in Memphis to support economic justice for striking sanitation workers, a majority of whom were African American.
Uprisings exploded in several urban U.S. cities in reaction to the murder – expressions of uncontrollable grief, rage, and hopelessness, now that the man who had led millions up figurative mountaintops where all could share in his vision of a promised land where races could live together in equality, respect and love, was so violently and brutally taken from them.
Undoubtedly such anger and anguish back then prompted many to call for the execution of whoever was responsible for killing Dr. King. But neither Dr. King nor his immediate family had ever supported capital punishment. For Dr. King, a follower of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, whose massive nonviolent demonstrations brought down British colonial rule in India – a tactic that Dr. King later used with great success in the sit-ins, pray-ins, and other anti-segregation protests in the Deep South – it was impossible to simultaneously believe in nonviolence as a way of life and also believe in the death penalty.
Dr. King felt the punishment effectively writes off human beings as forever irredeemable and unforgivable. “Make your way to death row and speak with the tragic victims of criminality,” he said. “As they prepare to make their pathetic walk to the electric chair, their hopeless cry is that society will not forgive. Capital punishment is society's final assertion that it will not forgive.”
“I do not think God approves the death penalty for any crime - rape and murder included,” Dr. King asserted. “Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.”
Dr. King’s family, suddenly left without a husband and father 42 years ago, nevertheless agreed with his views that the death penalty perpetuates violence.
And:
The King family’s beliefs are not unusual. They are shared by many murder victims’ families. Among the members of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s Board of Directors, three individuals – New Hampshire State Rep. Robert “Renny” Cushing, Bill Pelke and Bud Welch – lost family members to murder. Rep. Cushing’s father was killed by gunfire through the family home’s screen door. Pelke’s grandmother was killed in the course of a robbery of her home by four teenaged girls. Welch’s daughter was killed in the Oklahoma City federal building bombing.
Related posts are in the religion and victims' issues index.
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