In May the death of Osama bin Laden raised the question of what was the appropriate way for Christians to respond. At the time I was somewhat disturbed by what I considered excess celebration. “We must never forget that the evil comes not from the actions of ‘subhuman vermin’ but from the heart of a fallen, sacred yet degraded, human being,” I wrote. “If we are to preserve our own humanity we must not forget that our enemy differs from us in degree, not in kind. Like us, they are human, all too human.”
The night after I wrote that post my wife and I watched a news story about Bin Laden’s death. When she made a remark that seemed to express glee over the event, I chastised her for rejoicing in a man’s death. She responded that she was not rejoicing in the killing but rejoicing in justice having been done.
I realized she was right and her reaction was appropriate. In my concern for policing the borders of Christian ethics, fearing that we might be stepping over the line into bloodlust, I had forgotten that rejoicing in justice being done is a natural and healthy reaction.
I was reminded of this fact after reading my friend Rod Dreher’s post, “The ugliness of cheering for capital punishment.” My natural instinct was to agree whole-heartedly with Rod’s take on the issue. But after watching the video and seeing the context I believe there may be a more charitable interpretation:
Notice the statement made by moderator Brian Williams that precedes the question (and that leads to the applause):
Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times.
Was the audience applauding the death of criminals? Maybe. But a more charitable interpretation is that they were cheering what they considered to be Perry’s willingness—unlike most other governors—to mete out justice. Most murderers, even in Texas, do not receive the death penalty for their crimes. Those who believe, as I do, that the death penalty is the appropriate sentence for murder are often frustrated by the fact that justice is rarely carried out—even in Texas.
If justice is to be applauded (and I think it is) and the death penalty is the appropriate level of justice for murder (and I think it is) then I’m not sure why we should not applaud a politician when they have done their duty. It certainly doesn’t mean that we are gleeful about the deaths of Texas inmates. Some people are indeed so perverse that they would cheer the taking of a criminal’s life. But I think most decent people—even most Republicans!—are simply pleased that a justice is being carried out.
Even Perry recognizes that this is why the audience was applauding. When Brian Williams asked the governor what he thought of the mention of executions receiving applause, Perry answers, “I think Americans understand justice.”
Indeed, they do. And if justice was meted out more frequently, it is likely that Americans would not feel the need to cheer a state executive who was merely doing what his role requires.
September 8th, 2011 | 3:26 pm
Thank God for our wives, Mr Carter, right?
September 8th, 2011 | 3:27 pm
Sorry, but it had the feel of the Coliseum to me, with the cheering the death of these ‘christians’ which the emperor had decided were not worthy of living. Taken back 2,000 years, these may have been the same folks demanding from Pilate that ‘justice’ be done.
As you rightly point out, context is important. Many of these are same folks who have supported wars were innocents have been tortured and/or killed. Is that just? These are the same folks who (rightly) recognize the state’s bureaucratic incompetence in other areas, yet are confident that these executions are 100% accurate. Do these folks realize the number of innocent people who have been killed at the hands of the state, whether by electrocution or drone strike? More importantly, would they even try to stop it?
“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways!” Ez 33:11
Peace be with you.
September 8th, 2011 | 3:35 pm
Actually, the question was whether Perry ever lost sleep over the possibility that one of those 234 people executed might have been innocent. I think it is all but inevitable that more than one of them was, given the number of times it is discovered, sometimes long after the fact, that innocent people have been convicted. Here are a few facts from the web site of The Innocence Project:
Like any adept politician, Perry ignored the question he was asked and answered another one in which he just assumed every person convicted and executed in Texas was guilty as charged.
I know you are not from the Catholic tradition, but (although it is a fairly recent development) it is the position of the Catholic Church that executions should be “rare if practically nonexistent,” because the only justification for execution is if there is no other way to protect society from the convicted wrongdoer. As I said recently in another thread, I don’t believe anyone in the United States has ever escaped from a supermax prison. There may be justification for an occasional execution, but Texas is an execution factory.
September 8th, 2011 | 3:45 pm
These are the same folks who (rightly) recognize the state’s bureaucratic incompetence in other areas, yet are confident that these executions are 100% accurate.
Excellent point!
I think anyone who argues for the death penalty must acknowledge that there is at least a real risk that an innocent person will be wrongly executed. I would have had more respect for Perry if he had said something along the lines of there always being a possibility of the justice system making a mistake, and anyone in his position could not help but be concerned, but they do their best, and you can’t allow yourself to be paralyzed for fear of making a mistake. But of course few politicians would say that.
I think many Americans just love the death penalty, and they are much more enthusiastic about it than they seem to be about justice.
September 8th, 2011 | 3:47 pm
David that’s a problem with any trial though. The law is inexact, and I don’t really see how sending an innocent life to prison without chance of parole is much different in terms of the argument.
There’s the argument that life at least gives the chance of appeal, but as for the point of losing sleep, I think regardless of crime a person has to accept that sometimes the innocent are convicted and the guilty go free. Otherwise you will never sleep, ever.
September 8th, 2011 | 3:49 pm
David Nickol I think many Americans just love the death penalty, and they are much more enthusiastic about it than they seem to be about justice.
Do you really believe that? I mean really believe it and not just to make a rhetorical point?
Who would you give as an example of having that preference?
September 8th, 2011 | 4:00 pm
What justice is served by the state executing a criminal?
Justice is classically defined as rendering unto someone what it is his due.
So what justice is served when the state ends another’s life?
Statistically, at least one of those executions was in error. Some studies show that the number of errors in death penalty convictions may be as great as 68 percent. Where is justice for that? Oops?
September 8th, 2011 | 4:02 pm
Keep in mind the context too – most in the room were fellow conservative Californians. Our state has hundreds on death row and refuses to take the necessary action needed despite lengthy appeals. I think some of the applause is born out of this frustration.
Also it’s important to point out that Texas death sentences have declined under Perry.
As for capital punishment at large, I’m with Prager on this: http://bit.ly/r1ZmSD
September 8th, 2011 | 4:05 pm
“but it had the feel of the Coliseum to me, with the cheering the death of these ‘christians’ which the emperor had decided were not worthy of living.”
Of course the major problem with this analogy is that Rick Perry had absolutely zero to do with the execution decision, unless you think that he “allowed” the decision of a jury and multiple judges and oversight committees to go forward and it would be better if he stepped in and vetoed the whole process. Which would be much more Roman emperor-like, wouldn’t it?
September 8th, 2011 | 4:15 pm
David: You’re not allowed to refer to the Catholic Church as an authority in an argument unless you actually, you know, believe in the Catholic Church as an authority, which we know you don’t. Sorry.
September 8th, 2011 | 4:23 pm
David Nickol: “Texas is an execution factory.”
To quote Mr. Carter: “Do you really believe that? I mean really believe it and not just to make a rhetorical point?”
Looking up crime rates for TX (http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/txcrime.htm) it looks like roughly 12,000 murders have occurred there while Perry has been governor, which actually is a big decrease from previous decades. The notion that 234 executions qualifies as “an execution factory” is just unserious.
Jennifer: “Some studies show that the number of errors in death penalty convictions may be as great as 68 percent.”
See the above quote from Mr. Carter that I addressed to Mr. Nickol. It’s fine to be anti-death-penalty, but that number is absurd.
September 8th, 2011 | 5:02 pm
Do you really believe that? I mean really believe it and not just to make a rhetorical point?
Who would you give as an example of having that preference?
Joe Carter,
Absolutely I believe it. I don’t think people give it a great deal of thought, but I think many people love the death penalty, think it’s a signing that we are “tough on crime,” that we don’t “coddle criminals.” I think it has little to do with justice and much to do with vengeance. Here’s a sentence from a blog I just happened to run across about the execution (by lethal injection) in Texas of an illegal immigrant who committed a very heinous crime: “Good riddance to that rabid animal. He was about 17 years overdue to receive the death penalty. My only regret is that Texas didn’t let him ride the lightning.” Is that about justice?
I don’t think the people who applauded at the mere mention of the death penalty were applauding justice. I think they were applauding the death penalty. I am opposed to capital punishment, but if I weren’t, I would hope I’d consider it a grim necessity, not something to cheer over.
I will add that occasionally when I hear of a particularly awful crime, I say to myself, “I am opposed to the death penalty, but if they execute this guy, I’m not going to scream too loud about it.” I think it is only human nature to want to see someone who causes terrible suffering to be made to suffer terribly himself, and I don’t mean merely suffer execution. I mean an eye for an eye. But I don’t want the law to be based on those kinds of feelings.
September 8th, 2011 | 5:29 pm
David: Perry ignored the question he was asked . . .
Is “I’ve never struggled with that at all” not an answer to the question?
See Book XIX, Chapter 6 of Augustine’s City of God:
What shall I say of these judgments which men pronounce on men, and which are necessary in communities, whatever outward peace they enjoy? Melancholy and lamentable judgments they are . . . the ignorance of the judge frequently involves an innocent person in suffering . . . And when he has been condemned and put to death, the judge is still in ignorance whether he has put to death an innocent or a guilty person. . . These numerous and important evils he does not consider sins; for the wise judge does these things, not with any intention of doing harm, but because his ignorance compels him, and because human society claims him as a judge.
It may be lamentable that the “melancholy” of these judgments is lost in our own time — that rhetoric and media have revealed a population that is more eager (and able) to celebrate the idea of effective justice than to dwell on the tragic necessity that requires our judges to make judgments in ignorance — but the greater difficulty from the Christian perspective ought to be our inability to countenance the death of the innocent because we do not really believe in eternal justice.
September 8th, 2011 | 5:36 pm
To quote Mr. Carter: “Do you really believe that? I mean really believe it and not just to make a rhetorical point?”
Brian,
Yes, I really believe it. Texas is a very populous state, and that has to be taken into account, but the state of Texas has the second-highest execution rate per capita, after Oklahoma.
September 8th, 2011 | 5:39 pm
Take a good look at the Psalms. David rejoiced at the fall of his enemy. I’ve always been fascinated how churches will avoid those sections of the Psalms and only concentrate on the “nice” parts. Based on the Psalms, I’d say Christians can rejoice in the death of their enemies.
September 8th, 2011 | 5:49 pm
David: You’re not allowed to refer to the Catholic Church as an authority in an argument unless you actually, you know, believe in the Catholic Church as an authority, which we know you don’t. Sorry.
Brian,
Nonsense. Whether I agree with the Catholic Church or not, and I most definitely do agree on the Catholic position on the death penalty, the Catholic Church represents over a billion people and has 2000 years of thought behind it. It is a moral authority, although not (to me) the moral authority. The first twelve years of my education were in Catholic school, and Catholicism is still a big influence on me.
It amazes me that some people think if you don’t agree with the Catholic Church some of the time, you are obliged to disagree with it all of the time. I have a feeling I am more in accord with the Catholic position on execution than most Catholics are. I opposed the death penalty well before Evangelium Vitae was written. Many Catholics feel opposition to the death penalty breaks with centuries of Catholic thought. I agree with Pope John Paul II on the death penalty and will feel free to cite him or any other person or document from the Catholic Church that I feel is persuasive.
September 8th, 2011 | 6:14 pm
If a prison could be established that realistically offered no possibility of escape, and if the condemned could be required to perform non-punitive indentured servitude, the proceeds of which would be divide in some equitable manner between (1) restitution to any victim or dependent survivor of a victim, (2) defraying the cost of imprisonment, (3) providing the prisoner with some small means of ameliorating parts of his deprivation at being incarcerated, and (4) providing a savings account in the event that he is cleared by DNA evidence, pardoned and released, or otherwise legally freed from incarceration, I would have no difficulty with the Church’s teaching that the death penalty be almost totally abolished. Unfortunately, I don’t think that we are anywhere near the possibility of achieving the conditions I have listed above. What causes me the difficulty is the sheer cost of incarceration being born by the law-abiding and the propensity of the courts to take “cruel and unusual” to what seem like absurd lengths.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
September 8th, 2011 | 6:22 pm
@Joe Carter,
I had a similar reaction to that of your wife to the news of the death of bin Laden. Although, I didn’t think of it in terms of “justice” having been done. Rather, I was put very much in mind of the slogan on a (non-issue) Marine Corps T-shirt, that appears to derive from something General Norman Schwarzkopf said.
“It is God’s job to judge. Our job is to arrange the meeting.” In that sense, I felt relieved that the meeting had been arranged and that God’s justice would be meted out in accordance with His will, which is as it should be. I also assumed (which may have been generous of me) that the SEAL Team would have been given orders to attempt to capture bin Laden, if possible without undue risk to themselves.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
September 8th, 2011 | 6:35 pm
Another thing to keep in mind is that Texas’ population in 2010 was 25,145,561 (US census). Many other states that do not have as high a number of executions also do not have any where near as large a population.
September 8th, 2011 | 7:04 pm
Steps could be taken to raise the bar for evidence in capital cases without doing away with the death penalty. The other night Investigation Discovery had the case of a young married couple in a countryside area who approached a single mother they knew and invited the mother to come with her six year old daughter with them to a barbeque. The single mom was very homely to look at and probably was delighted to be invited to a barbeque so they all got in the couple’s car. The couple then turned off the road and strangled the mother near a river and then took the terrified six year old to their house where they raped her and then suffocated her to death. The wife several days later went to the police and told them her husband did it all. The police cross examined them separately and ferreted out that the wife was actually the dominant mover of the couple. They got life in prison. I don’t see how life with three meals a day (which the starving in East Africa wished they had); and watching a small TV in a cell and probably doing no work or part time work in prison with total medical and dental coverage…I don’t see how that hanging around til death is commensurate with what they did. I could see it if there were hard labor, ten hours a day for life. But since modern America mistakenly sees hanging around a cell as penance, I think then they should be killed and painfully in this case. Think of the last 15 minutes of that six year old watching her loved mom strangled and then enduring a man’s rape of her and then being suffocated with a plastic bag. Those were her last moments on earth. I would prefer that the couple get the original punishment that God gave for the Jews alone. They should be stoned after being urged for several months to repent as in Charles Dickens day ( not the stoning but the several months of repentance urging). Why did God choose stoning? Perhaps because His Providence could arrange the pain level according to His wisdom. If He knew the person was particularly heinous as to formal guilt, He…God… could guide the first stones to inflict pain and not unconsciousness until there was great pain. If God knew the offender was subjectively not heinous, God could guide that very first stone to the head and unconsciousness and death.
As it stands a Catholic like me is far safer sending their daughter on foreign vacation to very very safe Japan which has the death penalty than sending her to virtually all predominant Catholic countries except Lichtenstein. Some countries of Central and South America….almost all without a death penalty…take up half of the worst 25 murder rate countries on earth according to wiki including the worst and the next to worst countries on earth as to murder rates.
September 8th, 2011 | 9:53 pm
This is a nitpick and not related to the topic, but Joe, I really hope you didn’t “chastise” your wife over this.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chastise
That word is vastly overused nowadays, and almost always misused to mean “to rebuke or criticize in a slightly strong manner.” So I hope I can put a few people off of doing so. :-)
September 8th, 2011 | 11:17 pm
“It amazes me that some people think if you don’t agree with the Catholic Church some of the time, you are obliged to disagree with it all of the time.”
Name me one person from this mythical “some” of whom you speak. I’ve never heard such an opinion voiced. Ever.
September 8th, 2011 | 11:23 pm
Statistically, at least one of those executions was in error. Some studies show that the number of errors in death penalty convictions may be as great as 68 percent. Where is justice for that? Oops?
What do you say to innocent men who’ve died in jail? Oops? What do you say to innocent men who were paroled long after men actually guilty of the crime they were convicted of would have been released? (Stubbornly insisting on your innocence is proof of hardness of heart, after all.)
September 8th, 2011 | 11:45 pm
“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways!” Ez 33:11
If being strapped to the execution table does not inspire reflection and repentance, what, pray tell, will? Life in prison may give him time, but it may give him so much more time that he never reflects on matters, and raises the danger of a sudden and unprepared death.
C. S. Lewis asked, on capital punishment, whether the man is more likely to make a good end if executed, which is surely a vital question, but I’ve never heard anyone address it.
September 8th, 2011 | 11:48 pm
If a prison could be established that realistically offered no possibility of escape,
You forgot the most important point: that offer no possibility of killing again. California not that long ago executed a man for a crime committed while serving a life sentence. (Namely, hiring a hit man.)
September 9th, 2011 | 1:07 am
Perry claims to be a United Methodist. The UMC position:
“We believe the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore, and transform all human beings,” the Social Principles statement says. While expressing concern about crime and the value of life taken by murder or homicide, delegates to the most recent General Conference in 2004 reaffirmed the church’s position that “all human life is sacred and created by God.” United Methodists are urged to see all human life as “significant and valuable.” (Social Principles, ¶164 G, “The Death Penalty,” Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 2004 )
God selected two murders to have major roles to spread his word. Why???How about an example the God loves everyone and every person can be redeemed no matter what they do.
Matthew 25: visit prisoners. Jesus did not include any exceptions. Why would Jesus tell us to visit prisoners? For evangelism?
Even though I initially was happy about the death of bin Laden, I later felt bad about it. I believe the only justification for killing him was a threat to the Navy Seals.
September 9th, 2011 | 6:43 am
Linda
Actually God continued the OT intimate killing for sacrilege by Himself in the New Testament when He killed Herod Agrippa in Acts 12 and had worms then consume him. In Acts 5 God kills Ananias and Saphirra for lying to the Holy Spirit and He does it in concert with Peter’s verbal participation. In Romans 13:4 God uses the synecdoche “sword” to repeat the full brunt of punishment for states to use up to and including death ( He could have inspired the word “scourge” instead of “sword” were the anti death penalty people correct). See Genesis 9:5-6 for the death penalty given to Gentile and Jewish governments as antecedent to Romans 13:3-4.
It then is given at the very beginning of the Bible and at the end and John Paul II never mentions either passage in Evangelium Vitae and no Cardinal nor Bishop pointed that out in a media capable public forum ( Catholicism continues it’s problem of group think due to dependency….apparently til Elijah arrives…(and
I’m Catholic).
September 9th, 2011 | 7:00 am
Robert George, with whom I very often disagree, gets it right over on Mirror of Justice:
September 9th, 2011 | 9:40 am
Speaking of “justice”, whatever happened to the victims, and their suffering? Or the innocent blood that cries to heaven, for “justice”?
September 9th, 2011 | 10:29 am
Just my two cents. I decided back in high school (the 1960s) that capital punishment was wrong for the sole reason that it might take the life of an innocent. I remember a class debate in the 11th grade where the class stood sometime like 25 for, 3 against (including me), and 1 undecided. I was pleased when it was over that there were 25 for and 4 against. I arrived there not directly as a Catholic but indirectly through my belief, as a Catholic and an American, in the sanctity of life. (The DOI can do that.) It was over 20 years until JPII contextualized it for me. I still believe that for the same reason.
That said, I understand the passion among those in favor of capital punishment. Concerns for safety and the biblical call of an eye for an eye as the basis for justice are persuasive, particularly given the ancient sense that a murderer’s family, all generations, should go as well. But they haven’t persuaded me.
There are those who seem to relish the spectacle of an execution. I don’t understand them but neither do I condemn them. I also think they are relatively few in number.
If nothing else, I think the applause from the audience, probably more conservative than liberal, was the sense of prejudgement, aka prejudice, in the interlocutor’s question, an attitude of “Can you possibly believe that…” as if it was, to use the overwrought term, “settled” law. But in the end, I do not believe this was a crowd prone to blood lust. They were serious enough to sit through a political debate. I believe, at heart, this crowd applauded for what they hoped would be justice.
September 9th, 2011 | 11:08 am
I think the applause from the audience, probably more conservative than liberal, was the sense of prejudgement, aka prejudice, in the interlocutor’s question . . .
Mike Melendez,
If you watch the video. The applause comes before the audience knows what the question is.
September 9th, 2011 | 1:39 pm
Mike Melendez gets it right, and just about everyone else, Joe Carter included, misinterpreted the partisan applause.
The reaction was not a cheer for death or justice per se, it was a public affirmation of the legitimacy of dissension to the party line expressed by Brian Williams’s question, which contained a presumption of infallibility. It was against this presumption that the crowd made itself known.
The clapping announced, “No, little media man, we will not be intimidated into pretending the controversy is settled for your side.” Both Perry and Williams picked up on that undercurrent, which is why the moderator followed up with his condescending Can you believe what those yokels just did! condemnation masquerading as a “question.”
I have my reservations about capital punishment as any Culture of Life proponent should. But nothing justifies the presumptiveness which has become so ubiquitous among our cultural commissars that it is no longer detectable by those who unconsciously deploy it. I will applaud to puncture that presumption every time, and I will never cheer a man’s death.
Overt celebrations of any justice are generally in poor taste — the sign of immoderation and slavery to mob passion — and insufficiently respectful of the force that drives creation: Mercy moves the heavens, not justice. Justice follows, as it must, only when reconciliation has failed. We shouldn’t celebrate failure. The angels sing for joy as one when a single sinner repents. Every other outcome is, at some level, lamentable.
September 9th, 2011 | 2:11 pm
David, I did watch the video. The applause comes at several points right up to and including Gov Perry’s last zinger on the subject. Did you stop right after the question was asked?
September 9th, 2011 | 5:24 pm
Did you stop right after the question was asked?
Mike,
I watched the whole clip more than once. Clearly the first round of applause is not in response to “prejudgement, aka prejudice, in the interlocutor’s question,” since no question had been asked yet. Also, I don’t think there is any prejudice in asking a governor who has had 234 executions take place during his years in office whether he ever “loses sleep” over the possibility of an innocent person being executed.
It is actually true, however, that even if Perry were adamantly opposed to the death penalty, there is absolutely nothing he can do about it as governor (except try to get the law changed_. Texas governors can only commute sentences when it is recommended by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. To the best of my knowledge, there has been one such recommendation during Perry’s time in office, and he agreed with the board. Otherwise, the only power a Texas governor has is to delay an execution, one time, for 30 days.
Now, if I were the governor of Texas, it might still bother me that innocent people were being executed, but I doubt that I would lose sleep over it, since it really was outside my area of responsibility. Perry could have said that, but I have a hunch he would rather be perceived as more responsible for executions in Texas than he really is.
Note, by the way, that no one has more solid conservative credentials than Robert George, part of whose comments I reproduced above, and he was not pleased about the audience’s reaction. The death penalty is largely a liberal/conservative thing, but not entirely.
September 9th, 2011 | 7:29 pm
One commenter found my statistic absurd. I’ll give you the citation. Then, let’s do a little math and see how absurd it is.
The figure of 68% comes from a Columbia University study of 4,578 capital cases, out of a total of 5,760, that were appealed between 1973 and 1995.
In the study, 316 of the cases went on to execution, but almost 7 out of every 10 of those cases were found to have serious judicial errors as measured by the law–standard measures provided by judicial review.
Do the math.
That means that even if the study is off by a magnitude of 34x that you’ve killed 6 people who were not guilty.
Hey, you’re comfortable with it if it is 1 person? The state is so infallible that you’d give it the power of life and death? I find that a little uncomfortable. But go ahead cheer. Just realize that you can be mathematically certain that you are cheering for the death of innocent people.
September 9th, 2011 | 7:29 pm
I totally agree with the Robert George quote, and I mostly agree with what David Nickol wrote in this thread.
Joe, I know self-avowed Christians who at finding out about the execution of a death row convict expressed not so much somber relief, but actually unseemly pleasure. It seems that such people are not as rare as you think. (Moreover, some express disappointment that the executed don’t suffer enough–that their deaths are too easy.)
The Catholic Church’s stance on the death penalty is clear and reasonable. Nobody wants a society where murderers live with impunity, but why believe that earthly justice demands the death penalty? There are several countries with no capital punishment and which also have much lower rates of violent crime than the US. Should we claim that these countries are more unjust than the US because their convicted murderers are not subject to the death penalty?
Some are fond of quoting the OT to justify their support of the death penalty. Why then should we not support the slaying of defeated enemies (men, women and children)? Why not execute women for not being virgins before their first marriage? Or why not stone to death disobedient children fond of alcohol? Does Israel disrespect the Old Testament by not applying the death penalty to non-Holocaust murderers?
September 9th, 2011 | 11:02 pm
Phil
Actually read the Bible cover to cover someday and you’ll see that
God gave the laws you are deriding in the Old Testament to the Jews only and those Jews only death penalties stop with Christ’s arrival but Christ as the eternal Word actually gave those Jews-only death penalties as God in the first Person imperative.
The reason God gave such severe penalties only to the Jews for sins not just crimes was because God wanted them to be Holy prior to Christ bringing sanctifying grace. But without sanctifying grace and with great power by the devil shown in the many possession cases in the NT, being good needed great threats by God until grace came. When Christ brings sanctifying grace (Jn.1:17) and when He weakens the devil until the end times for all people, then the death penalties for the Jews cease at technically Pentecost.
Entirely separate from those death penalties both in the OT and in the NT was the right of the state to execute….given not just to Jews ( in the person of Shem) but to the Gentiles too (in the persons of Ham and Japheth)Gen.9:6. This had zero to do with the Jewish death penalties for mortal sins that you mixed with the one for murder.
God commands murderers to be killed unlike Cain (Genesis 9:5-6) only when the first king appears in history in Genesis 10:10…Nimrod….a
non private person in that he was the first king. John Paul missed that entirely in Evangelium Vitae where he pointed to Cain’s immunity from being killed as being against the death penalty….no…Cain’s immunity was from being
killed by private persons because there was no kingdom until Nimrod ( Vulgate: Gen10:8 “porro Chus genuit Nemrod ipse coepit esse potens in terra”). Once there was a kingdom, murderers were to be killed by Jewish or Gentile governments.
That is why when Pilate said to Christ, ” Do you not know that I have the power of life and death over you”…Christ responded, “You would have no power over me at all were it not given you from above.” Christ is saying to Pilate that the source of his death penalty power is in Gen.9:6 and it is for murder only and it comes from God to whom he will answer. It actually came too from Christ as part of the Trinity who inspired Gen.9:6:
”Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”
That verse is not just to the Jews but to Gentiles like Pilate and only arrives after Cain’s immunity when there is a kingdom. It’s lethality is repeated in the NT in Romans 13:3-4.
September 10th, 2011 | 8:42 am
I think something is being overlooked here.
I think to a large extent the audience applauded in advance, as it were. They knew this was another “gotcha” question, they knew Perry would not rise to the bait, and they were encouraging him not to do so.
BTW, if every single opponent of the Death Penalty was also opposed to abortion, then I’d be willing to listen to them.
But, they are not, so I am not.
[Applause for myself]
September 10th, 2011 | 10:04 am
David wrote: “I watched the whole clip more than once. Clearly the first round of applause is not in response to ‘prejudgement, aka prejudice, in the interlocutor’s question,’ since no question had been asked yet.”
You’re splitting hairs, David. The journalist was there to ask questions and he did in this case. The audience is not a machine that only gets turned on by the question. The audience anticipated and was not disappointed as their continued applause indicated.
Would I applaud in that situation? No. I do get irked by people who find it unbelievable that others disagree with them. I am well aware who Robert George is and deeply respect his opinion. I certainly didn’t cheer when Seal Team Six did their work but neither did I begrudge their work. It’s interesting but that same post indicates George and I disagree on capital punishment. I’m against it (in the US, thank you JPII). He’s for it in limited cases.
I note something you share with King. Both you and he said that the person that agreed with you was “right”. You both even use the same phrase: “gets it right”. I suggest you (and King) examine your mindset. You both meant you agreed with the person on the issue. None of you, he, or I are certain to be “right”. I leave that to God. I suggest you (and King) find something or Someone to leave the complete Truth to.
If I do the same, please call me on it. The first rule of religion is that I am not God, but I am a sinner.
September 10th, 2011 | 4:48 pm
Mike,
Often when I read over something I have written before clicking on Submit Comment, I find it’s filled with phrases like “it seems to me” and “in my opinion.” Sometimes I take out some of them, and sometimes I take out all of them. I think it goes without saying that in a forum like this, we’re giving our opinions, and when I say someone “gets it right,” I am saying I agree with him.
I think if you went back and analyzed what I have written in First Thoughts to date, you’d find that much of it is put forward rather tentatively, with qualifications, and filled with phrases like “if this is true, then,” “I think,” “it seems to me,” and so on. But I must say that it’s a wasted effort a great deal of the time to avoid blatant pontification, because in the topics that come up here, suggesting to people that they might not be right is often in practice just as inflammatory as saying, “You’re just wrong!”
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