NOTE: I will post a debate on the
death penalty every fortnight on the blog.
Can you be against abortion but
support capital punishment? Let us hear from two Christian leaders.
Kristi
McLaughlin is the pastor of Anew United Church of Christ in
Mitchell.
http://anewucc.areavoices.com/pastor/
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Rev. Kristi McLaughlin
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McLAUGHLIN:
‘Pro-life’ should mean anti-capital punishment
Donald
Moeller’s execution date has been set, but I do not see any of the pro-lifers
taking notice and opposing this execution.
By: The Rev. Kristi McLaughlin, Guest
columnist
“Thou shalt not murder.” It’s the foundation of the
Christian pro-life movement, and yet many within the pro-life movement do not
take the time to research the Hebrew understanding of when “life” begins.
According to Rabbi Raymond A. Zwerin and Rabbi
Richard J. Shapiro, Jewish, i.e. Hebrew, law does not grant personhood status
to a fetus. To quote, “Rashi, the great 12th century commentator on the Bible
and Talmud, states clearly of the fetus ‘lav nefesh hu’ — it is not a person.
The Talmud contains the expression ‘ubar yerech imo’ — the fetus is as the
thigh of its mother, i.e., the fetus is deemed to be part and parcel of the
pregnant woman’s body.”
I find it interesting that claiming to be pro-life
is really a pronouncement of being against abortion rather than a consistent
ideology of being pro-life.
To me, being pro-life means supporting all
policies, systems, legislation, budgets, etc., that support and honor life and
opposing all of the above that take from life. Being prolife means one sees the
life-taking effects of poverty and works to overcome systems that keep people
poor, including acknowledging that tax breaks for the most wealthy do nothing
to help the poor. Being pro-life includes health care for all regardless of
ability to pay, previous medical conditions or ability to obtain insurance. It
means quality education, access to nutritious food (has anyone tried to feed a
family a healthy diet on food stamps only?). It means preservation of the earth,
and it even means opposition to the death penalty, which brings me to the point
of this column.
Donald Moeller’s execution date has been set, but I
do not see any of the pro-lifers taking notice and opposing this execution. Is
state execution not “murder”? Or is murder OK if state-mandated?
Where are the pro-lifers who quote the words of
Scripture adamantly opposing two people of same sex who love one another and
seek “life” together in a committed monogamous relationship?
It seems that once again, we have a selective
pro-life movement that has a passion for “life” but only in its own very narrow
definitions.
Donald Moeller took a life — a young beautiful
life. What he did is tragic, violent and awful. I cannot imagine what breaks so
terribly within a human that one would be able to do such terrible things.
Donald Moeller broke the Hebrew instruction, “Thou shalt not murder,” but his
is a life as well and for those of us who claim to be Christians (let alone
pro-life) to stand silently by as he is executed does nothing for our case as
Christians. It does nothing for our case that we believe in a God of
forgiveness, mercy, grace and love. It does nothing for our case that we follow
the way of Jesus who welcomed and sat with thieves, prostitutes, and sinners —
a Jesus who opposed violence.
To quote Sister Helen Prejean, “Jesus Christ, whose
way of life I try to follow, refused to meet hate with hate and violence with
violence. I pray for the strength to be like him. I cannot believe in a God who
metes out hurt for hurt, pain for pain, torture for torture. Nor do I believe
that God invests human representatives with such power to torture and kill. The
paths of history are stained with the blood of those who have fallen victim to
‘God’s Avengers.’ Kings, popes, military generals, and heads of state have
killed, claiming God’s authority and God’s blessing. I do not believe in such a
God.”
Sister Prejean, neither do I.
Kristi McLaughlin is the pastor of Anew United
Church of Christ in Mitchell.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Richard D. Land (born 1946) is the president of The Ethics
& Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the moral and ethics concern entity
of the Southern Baptist Convention in the United States, a post he has held
since 1988. He is also currently serving as interim pastor at Red Bank Baptist
Church in Chattanooga, TN.
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Dr. Richard D. Land
|
The death penalty can be pro-life
On
Faith- Can you be pro-life and pro-death penalty? How does one reconcile these
positions?
It
is often pointed out, contrary to what most people expect, that there is a
positive correlation between being pro-life and supporting the death penalty.
Conversely, there is also a positive correlation between being pro-choice and
being against the death penalty.
Many
people who are pro-choice point this out and talk about the Roman Catholic
church’s attempt to have what they call a “seamless garment” approach, which
means that if you are pro-life you must also be opposed to the death penalty. I
support both the pro-life position and the death penalty and see consistency
rather than contradiction in holding these positions. Yet that does not mean
that I support, without reservation, the death penalty as it has been and is
still often applied in the United States.
I
am pro-life because the Bible clearly teaches us that life begins at conception
(Psalm 51:5) This truth is supported with ever increasing detail as the science
of embryology reveals more and more about the intricacies of human fetal
development. The Bible also tells us God is involved when conception takes
place (Jeremiah 1:4-5), and that God is involved intimately in the process of
maturation and development of a child even prior to birth (Psalm 139:13-16).
In
the most sustained passage in the New Testament concerning God’s plan and role
for government (Romans 13), we learn that God ordained the civil magistrate to
punish those who do evil and reward those who do right.
We
also are told, in Romans 13:4, that the civil magistrate bears not the sword in
vain. In the original Greek language the word used there for “sword” is the
same word used for the type of sword used to execute Roman citizens who were
found guilty of capital crimes. Clearly, the Apostle Paul, inspired by God’s
Holy Spirit, is granting to the civil magistrate the use of lethal force as one
of the options available to punish those who do evil--in the case of domestic
criminals, the police force, and in war, the military.
Just
War theorists have cited this passage for centuries to give biblical
justification for the use of government-authorized lethal force in warfare.
If
one is going to support the death penalty, one also has to support its just and
equitable application. Historically, in the United States we have not justly
and fairly applied the death penalty. You have been much more likely to be
executed if you were poor rather than wealthy, if you were a man rather than a
woman, and if you were a person of color rather than white.
Those
who support the continued option of the death penalty as a biblically
authorized option in heinous crimes must also work for its just and equitable
application. While the imbalance concerning race, ethnicity and sex have been
significantly reduced, it still remains true that a wealthy person is much less
likely to be executed than a poor person.
O.J.
Simpson is perhaps the classic example--a man who most people would accept as
being guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of having murdered his wife and another
person but was let off because he could hire the best lawyers available. We
need to find a way to address that unjust imbalance if we want to continue to
support the death penalty.
However,
on the other side of the coin, it must be said that people who are pro-life
believe that life is sacred, and that when a person, wantonly and
premeditatedly takes the life of another person, they have forfeited their
right to continued life. And when they are found guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt by a jury of their peers, they should be executed.
I
don’t believe that people have a right to support something that they’re not
willing to participate in themselves. If I’m going to support the death
penalty, I have to be willing to perform the execution myself. I think of the
case of Jessica Lunsford, the 9-year-old Florida girl who was abducted from her
home, raped and brutalized in every imaginable way for three days by John Couey, and then was
buried alive with her doll. If the state had the chance to give John Couey his
lethal injection, I would be comforted by the fact that justice was executed .
The
man had forfeited his right to live. And if he had not died from the ravages of
his drug abuse before he could have been executed, he should have been
executed. The only just sentence for a man committing such a crime was
execution.
I
believe we should keep the death penalty to be used in heinous cases like this,
and in cases of treason and other reprehensible crimes against humanity. I
believe this is consistent with my pro-life position.
I
believe that people who are pro-life are horrified by a person taking upon
themselves the prerogatives of God and wantonly and premeditatedly taking
another person’s life. They believe that when a person is found guilty of doing
this with premeditation, they have forfeited their right to life in a civilized
society.
Richard
Land | Sep 15, 2011 10:54 AM
My
response to Kristi
McLaughlin: ‘Pro-life’ should mean anti-capital
punishment’
I respect Kristi McLaughlin as I am
a Christian too but as a former opponent of the death penalty and a former
supporter of abortion (I have changed to being pro death penalty and pro-life),
I agree with her stance against abortion but not against capital punishment. I
would like to explain why:
I find it interesting that claiming to be pro-life is really a
pronouncement of being against abortion rather than a consistent ideology of
being pro-life.
It means preservation
of the earth, and it even means opposition to the death penalty.
Explanation:
Please see what Richard Land wrote above. Also, here is another quote, “Nothing shows
the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the
sanctity of human life. And it is this same atrophy of moral fiber that appears
in the plea for the abolition of the death penalty. It is the sanctity of life
that validates the death penalty for the crime of murder. It is the sense of
this sanctity that constrains the demand for the infliction of this penalty.
The deeper our regard for life the firmer will be our hold upon the penal
sanction which the violation of that sanctity merit.” (Page 122 of Principles of Conduct) -
John Murray (14 October 1898 – 8 May
1975) was a Scottish-born Calvinist theologian who taught at Princeton Seminary
and then left to help found Westminster Theological Seminary, where he taught
for many years.
Donald
Moeller’s execution date has been set, but I do not see any of the pro-lifers
taking notice and opposing this execution. Is state execution not “murder”? Or
is murder OK if state-mandated?
Explanation: The state is not
being a murderer in response to murder; the state is being an executioner. To
compare execution to murder is like comparing incarceration to kidnapping and
slavery, fines to extortions, restitutions to thefts and a defensive war to an
aggressive war. Donald Moeller is still a human being but he was found guilty
and he has taken an innocent life, so he must forfeit his.
Donald Moeller took a life — a young beautiful life. What he did is
tragic, violent and awful. I cannot imagine what breaks so terribly within a
human that one would be able to do such terrible things. Donald Moeller broke
the Hebrew instruction, “Thou shalt not murder,” but his is a life as well and
for those of us who claim to be Christians (let alone pro-life) to stand
silently by as he is executed does nothing for our case as Christians. It does
nothing for our case that we believe in a God of forgiveness, mercy, grace and
love. It does nothing for our case that we follow the way of Jesus who welcomed
and sat with thieves, prostitutes, and sinners — a Jesus who opposed violence.
To quote Sister Helen Prejean, “Jesus
Christ, whose way of life I try to follow, refused to meet hate with hate and
violence with violence. I pray for the strength to be like him. I cannot
believe in a God who metes out hurt for hurt, pain for pain, torture for
torture. Nor do I believe that God invests human representatives with such
power to torture and kill. The paths of history are stained with the blood of
those who have fallen victim to ‘God’s Avengers.’ Kings, popes, military
generals, and heads of state have killed, claiming God’s authority and God’s
blessing. I do not believe in such a God.”
Sister Prejean, neither do I.
Explanation: Do not mix up the
love and justice of God. Matthew Henry, John Calvin and St. Thomas Aquinas all acknowledge that the
state has the right to protect its citizens from evildoers. You must understand
that the 6th commandment and the New Testament still support the
death penalty. Professor Michael Pakaluk was quoted in The Death Penalty: An
Opposing Viewpoints Series Book, Greenhaven Press, (hereafter TDP:OVS), 1991: "If no crime deserves the death penalty, then it is
hard to see why it was fitting that Christ be put to death for our sins and
crucified among thieves. St. Thomas Aquinas quotes a gloss of St. Jerome on
Matthew 27: ‘As Christ became accursed of the cross for us, for our salvation
He was crucified as a guilty one among the guilty.’ That Christ be put to death
as a guilty person, presupposes that death is a fitting punishment for those
who are guilty."
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