Christians and the Death Penalty

[Sojourner]

I finally gave in and subscribed to First Things, a magazine I've been reading off and on for years.

In this month's issue, there's an interesting article on the death penalty by Joseph Bottum, editor of FT:

[url="http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0508/articles/bottum.html"]Christians and the Death Penalty[/url]

It's long, but well-written, and makes some very interesting points ... several of which are a refreshing change from the oft-rehashed arguments for and against capital punishment.

For discussion's sake, for those who don't wish to read through the entire thing, Bottum talks about an execution as providing a form of closure to the story of a horrific crime ... that through this event, somehow we bring balance back to the universe.

He says:
[quote]It aims, as satisfying stories must, at what we used to call poetic justice: the killer killed, the blood-debt repaid with blood, death satisfied with death.

Unfortunately, it is also, in its essence, a pagan story, and Jesus—well, yes, Jesus turned all our stories inside out. Especially the old, old ones about blood and blood’s repayment.[/quote]

Here's another interesting section:

[quote]When the jury brought in a sentence of execution for the man in Texas who had dragged to death a black man tied to his truck with a chain, one spokesman for the local African-American community announced that he was normally against the death penalty, but in this case it was justified repayment in blood for two hundred years of lynching. Horrible as that crime was, this is a fright ening thing to hear. The distinction between torts and crimes, between harms done to individuals and evils done to society, is breaking down across America.

You can see it in the recent emergence of civil suits for damages from murders, and the congressional orders for changes in trial procedures to accommodate the victims’ families during the Oklahoma City bombing trials, and the provisions of every new bill for victims’ rights, and the kind of testimony increasingly allowed during sentencing hearings. You can see it, perhaps most of all, in the thought, expressed by nearly everyone at Michael Ross’ execution, that the state’s criminal-justice system was paying something back to the families of his victims. Even Michael Ross came to believe it—came, in fact, to demand it, fighting every attempt to save him—and it is a primitive and pre-Christian understanding of justice.

The divine right of kings was a short-lived political theory, swept under by rival theories in early modern times. A new understanding of the limited sovereignty of government emerged, and one of the primary causes was the gradually developing awareness that Christianity had thoroughly demythologized the state. But that is not, by itself, a stable condition. Without constant pressure from the New Testament’s revelation of Christ’s death and resurrection, the state always threatens to rise back up as an idol. And one sign of a government’s overreaching is its claim of power to balance the books of the universe—to repay blood with blood.
[/quote]

[White Knight]

Just to let ya know I started a thread about this awhile ago, and it triggered a huge debate war. Do yourself a favor and skip this question lol.

[Sojourner]

Sorry, didn't know you'd already posted on this article ... my bad.

[White Knight]

Its alright, its closed now anyway, you can keep this one up if you want, but I was giving you a warning about what kind of attention this type of thread generates.

[Sojourner]

Oh, I know ... I just thought some of the arguments presented in this article were a novel approach to the topic. It's nice to see someone looking at the issue in a different way without simply rehashing all the arguments we all know.

[phatcatholic]

for a wealth of articles on capital punishment, go here:
[url="http://www.phatmass.com/directory/index.php/cat_id/435"]http://www.phatmass.com/directory/index.php/cat_id/435[/url]