Capital Punishment Is Sin

That's the title of commentary by Roger Olson, a professor of theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University.  It's at the Associated Baptist Press.

A controversy is raging over capital punishment in Texas -- a state that executes upwards of 30 to 35 people (almost all men and disproportionately African-American and poor) annually. Most Texas Christians favor capital punishment even though it has been shown repeatedly not to be a deterrent to crime. Life in prison serves just as well for that.

And:

There are several theological and ethical problems with capital punishment.

First, it ends a person’s opportunity to exonerate himself or herself. 

Second, it ends a person’s opportunity to accept Christ and live a God-honoring life in prison ministering to other inmates and guards. 

Third, it usurps God’s place and assumes a God-like right and power to take the life of a person created in God’s image and likeness.

Fourth, it has no social benefit. It only serves a blood thirst for vengeance.

Fifth, no modern, Western country still has capital punishment.

Sixth, capital punishment is barbaric and cruel -- if not to the person being executed (and who can know for sure?), to his or her family.

Seventh, innocent people are executed. A few years ago Ethel Rosenberg’s brother came forward and admitted publicly that he knew she was not complicit in the plot to steal American nuclear secrets and deliver them to the Soviet Union. He fingered her to help himself. She was electrocuted in 1953 leaving behind two small, traumatized boys.

For these and other reasons, capital punishment needs to be abolished and Christians ought to be in the forefront of that effort.

Most Christians who support capital punishment rely entirely on Old Testament material which was transcended by Jesus.

Olson also addresses the Todd Willingham case in his commentary.  Related posts are in the religion index.