Tag Archives: Capital Punishment

God’s Righteousness

Living in the Spirit

November 15, 2022

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-6

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’ –Jeremiah 23:5-6

Apparently, what was missing in Israel in Jeremiah’s time was justice—at least the right kind of justice. What is just to me may not be just to you. For example, I do not think capital punishment is just, but its use is legal in my state. I do not think undocumented aliens being sent to jail when they are caught is just when they were brought here to work at below-legal wages with no benefits and no limits on the number of hours required to work for a company that will only get a fine for hiring them. I think the CEO committed the crime and should be the one going to jail. I would vet the undocumented person. If they have a clean record, they should be considered for a work visa allowing them to work for someone who is following the law. If there is no legal job available for them or they do not have a clean record, they should be deported to their native country. Labor trafficking is perhaps less repulsive but is not different from sex trafficking.

Jeremiah is saying that true justice and righteousness are defined by God and modeled for us by the one called the Lord-is-our-righteousness, whom we Christians identify as Jesus Christ. Much of the teachings in the gospels describe Jesus’s interpretation of justice. We love those stories, but do we live them?

Prayer: Lord, help us to study your word to discern your ways of righteousness. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Given Time to Repent

Advent

December 4, 2020

Scripture Reading:
2 Peter 3:8-15a
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.

Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

I do not support the use of the death penalty in any circumstances. Thus, it broke my heart when I read that after 17 years with no federal executions, our nation since July 2020 has been executing people. My stance on the death penalty is based on the belief that no human has the right to limit the time for a person to repent. I also see execution as rendering a final judgment, which I believe is God’s job and not any human’s assignment. There are, however, many non-faith based reasons for stopping executions. It does not serve as a deterrent to crime, it cost far more to execute someone than to sentence them to life in prison, and at least 18 people have been executed since 1976 who were most likely innocent of the crime for which they were sentenced to death*. There have been 167 exonerations of prisoners on death row in the United States since 1973**. I have no idea why we started executing people again other than having the power to do it, right or wrong.

Peter, the author of the above scripture, knew well the importance of repentance after denying even knowing Jesus three times on the night of his trial. Legend has it that when Peter was executed, he asked to be hung on the cross upside down as he felt unworthy of hanging on the cross in the same manner Jesus had. Peter committed no crime worthy of death when he was executed rather than upset Rome’s principalities and powers. Jesus was executed for standing up to religious leaders who were envious of his power.

Prayer: God, forgive us as a nation for preempting your power of final judgment. Help us learn to restore the prisoner as you restored Peter. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Capital Punishment

Living in the Spirit
June 3, 2018

Scripture Reading: Mark 2:23-3:6

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come forward.’ Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. –Mark 3:1-6

What rules are more important to us than the life of another person? An immediate response to that might be, “What an absurd question? No rule is more important than a human life?” Do we support capital punishment? Our federal laws and the law in Oklahoma says that the lives of certain people who have committed certain crimes are worth less than the rules they broke. I fundamentally do not believe that such final judgment is the job of any human. If anything, we should hope that such criminals live long enough to take advantage of the opportunity to seek salvation through Jesus Christ. At the least humans are robbing them of that opportunity by ending their lives prematurely.

There are other good reasons not to use the death penalty*:

  • The primary one is that the death penalty does not work as the deterrent it is supposed to be.
  • As of May 17, 2018, since the death penalty was reinstated in the USA in 1973, 162 people found guilty and sentenced to death have been exonerated. There is no good count of the number that was innocent but executed anyway. Well-intentioned humans make mistakes which can never be rectified if the defendant has been executed.
  • There is much racial inequality in the application of the death penalty that has no justification.
  • The cost of enforcing the use of the death penalty is much higher than a sentence of life in prison.

We do now well one innocent person who was executed, Jesus. He upset religious rulers by breaking their laws that they deemed more important than life itself, although I doubt the laws were as important to them as Jesus’ challenging their power to enforce them.

How hard are our hearts when it comes to making life and death judgment on another human being?

Prayer: Father, forgive us for we do not know what we do. Amen.

*For more information see https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf
**Derived from Luke 23:34

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.