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A Sermon by Donel McClellan
A Sermon by Donel McClellan June 16, 2001
Genesis 9:1-7
God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you shall rest on every
animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps
on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are
delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you;
and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4
Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5
For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I
will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I
will require a reckoning for human life.
6
Whoever
sheds the blood of a human,
7
And you, be fruitful
and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.”
Luke 6:38-45
38
“You have heard
that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39
But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if
anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and
if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well;
41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.
42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who
wants to borrow from you.
43
“You have heard that it
was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in
heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain
on the righteous and on the unrighteous
The first Sunday of my
annual “Hot Topics for the Summer” series is always
a little intimidating.
First, I have a tendency
to bite off more than I can chew with these subjects. Each of them is too
large and complex to be meaningfully addressed in a 20 minute sermon. Second,
they are issues about which the jury is not in. There is no fully accepted
position on one side or the other of these Hot Topics. In the case of this
morning’s topic, a number of church and community members, who command far
more expertise than I on the subject, have already spoken eloquently in three
wonderful adult classes.
Today’s topic is worded:
Is Capital Punishment Christian? If you want to sleep through the rest
of the sermon I can give you my conclusion right now. My answer is:
possibly, sometimes.
Now, let me try to get
back from the answer to the question. This morning I am speaking as
Christian minister to the Christian community. My responsibility is to remind
this community of the traditions from which judgments are formed by faithful
people. My arguments are not transferable to the civil realm. You can’t take
them out of this sanctuary and use them to argue in City Hall. Our political
society is diverse and it lacks a sense of common authority beyond that of the
law itself. The church is a religious community. We recognize that God,
as revealed in Jesus Christ, is the ultimate
authority of life and faith.
To begin, let me provide a
little context. Since the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, over
13,000 people have been legally executed in the United States. Between thirty
and eighty prisoners are executed annually. Approximately 3,000 prisoners are
currently on death row in the 38 states which provide for a death penalty.
Worldwide, the United
States is one of a dwindling minority of nations that still conduct
executions. At this time the death penalty has been abolished in most of
Western Europe and Latin America. It is still practiced in Islamic countries,
many African and Asian countries, and those formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Of the economically developed democratic countries, only the United States and
Japan continue to execute criminals.
In the year 2000, four
countries accounted for 88% of known executions. They are China with at least
1000 executions, Saudi Arabia with 123 executions reported, the United States
with 85 executions, and Iran with at least 75 executions.[1]
What does the Bible say
about capital punishment? Frankly, it generally supports it. In the Hebrew
Bible, an early statement is found in Genesis:
Whoever sheds the blood of a human,
The Hebrew law imposes the
death penalty for a wide range of crimes. These are found primarily in Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. To their credit, the courts of
Israel
required a high degree of proof before they would order the death penalty.
And what were considered
capital crimes in ancient Israel? Murder is foremost (although the death
penalty is withheld for one who kills his male or female slave). A number of
religious crimes may result in death: blasphemy, communicating with the dead,
practicing black magic, and practicing another religion. And a variety of
sexual crimes is included: adultery (both parties are to be put to death),
incest, rape of an engaged woman, temple prostitution, and several others.
Finally, capital crimes also have included: kidnapping, human sacrifice,
cursing or abusing parents, perjury, working on Saturday, and irresponsible
handling of an animal that kills another.
You might wonder about the
sixth commandment? Doesn’t it say “Thou shalt not
kill?” Actually, no it doesn’t. That is an unfortunate translation from the
King James Bible. The commandment literally says, “You shall not murder with
malice”. In our New Revised Standard version of the Bible it is translated,
“You shall not murder.”[2]
Throughout the history of
Israel,
capital punishment was considered a legitimate means of exercising justice. So
the question becomes, did this attitude change in the New Testament?
One thing certainly
changed. In Jesus’ time Israel was occupied by Rome and Roman law became the
law of the land. Some vestiges of Hebrew law were still enacted, however, and
one occasion of this provided a dramatic encounter with Jesus.
According to the story in
John 8, Jesus comes upon a legal execution and interrupts it by confronting
the religious authorities. A woman convicted of adultery is about to be
executed by stoning. Jesus intervenes by challenging the authorities to
consider their own sinfulness. Only those without sin have the right to throw
a stone.
Jesus also challenges the
ancient lex
talionis, the Hebrew principle of equal retribution for a crime a
life for a life. In the Sermon on the Mount he preached:
You have heard
that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to
you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone
strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;[3]
We all know the stories of
Jesus’ compassion and inclusive love. The Sermon on the Mount also contains
passages in which a more demanding and judgmental Jesus says:
Do not think that I
have come to abolish the law or the prophets.: I
have come not to abolish but to fulfill . . . You have heard it said to those
of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder”; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable
to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister
you will be liable for judgment.[4]
Nothing in the New
Testament directly challenges capital punishment. It was accepted uncritically
as part of the culture, much as slavery was accepted by the early church. In
addition, the Apostle Paul counseled Christians to accept the authority of
civil government as God ordained:
Let every person be
subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from
God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore
whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed and those who resist
will incur judgment.[5]
A we move from the time of
the Bible to the history of the Christian church we find much the same
diversity of opinion. The very first Christian theologians were unanimous in
their opposition to capital punishment.
Tertullian
was doubtful that a Christian could occupy a public office if it required
sitting in judgment on a capital charge[6]
and Lactantius opposed the bringing a capital
charge, because he believed that the commandment against taking life applied
to the punishment by the state as certainly as it did to the original crime.[7]
Later theologians often
supported the prerogative of the state to use execution as a means of
maintaining justice and order. St. Augustine noted that those who have waged
war or executed criminals in conformity with God’s commands have not violated
the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.”[8]
John Calvin followed
Augustine’s logic:
If by the law of God
all Christians are forbidden to kill . . . how can
it be compatible for magistrates to shed blood? . . . The magistrate does not
act at all from himself, but merely executes the judgments of God . . . We can
find no objection to the infliction of public vengeance, unless the justice of
God be restrained from the punishment of crimes.[9]
For hundreds of years, the
church was closely affiliated with the state and tended to support the laws
necessary to provide order and authority in the civil realm. The Church of
England supported the application of the death penalty for offences as
innocent as stealing five shillings from a shopkeeper. Our pilgrim ancestors
recoiled against this authoritarianism as much as against the imposition of
theological authority by the Church of England. They attempted, in
establishing a New England, to enact more humane and charitable laws to govern
their colonies. That law continues, with appropriate modifications to our day.
I hope that it is clear to
you by now that from the biblical and theological heritage of the Christian
church one could mount a legitimate argument for or against capital
punishment.
Kenneth
Cauthen, in his book Toward a New Modernism,
has devised a helpful analysis of the contemporary Christian options[10]
He suggests that a case may be made for capital punishment on the basis of
justice and the nature of a moral community. A case against capital punishment
may be made on the basis of love and the nature of an ideal spiritual
community.
The arguments go something
like this:
A just and moral society
is founded on the equal right of every individual to “life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.” A position supporting capital punishment would argue
that there acts so vile and so destructive of community that they remove from
the perpetrator the right to membership in the community and even of life
itself. The nature of a moral community requires that there be strong
sanctions for those who persistently and violently deprive other members of
the community of their rights.
If the focus shifts from
an emphasis justice and a moral community to emphasizing love and a spiritual
community, the arguments reverse on the question of capital punishment. Agape
love, as Christians understand it, is unconditional and does not depend upon
the merit of those to whom it is directed. A community founded on this
principle would seek to balance individual concerns and development with a
commitment to the common good. What would happen in such a community to
someone who committed acts of violence, brutality and murder? Clearly that
person would be restrained— permanently if necessary—to protect the community.
The purpose of the confinement, however, would not be punishment or revenge,
but reconciliation. A spiritual community always holds out the hope of growth
and redemption, even of its criminals.
A Christian in good
conscience might support either of these views. But there is one more factor
to be considered in the question: Is Capital Punishment Christian? That factor
is the concrete administration of capital punishment in our society.
Last Monday morning we,
the citizens of the United States of America, executed Timothy McVeigh for a
crime of unimaginable horror and violence. There was no question of his guilt
and no doubt about the terror he released on Oklahoma City. I thought the
president was courageous in his comments following the execution. President
Bush asked that God’s mercy be with the lives that were taken in Oklahoma
City, the survivors of the tragedy, and the life taken today. I was moved that
Timothy McVeigh was included in that plea for God’s mercy.
I think that, in some
sense, we might say that in the case of Timothy McVeigh, the judicial process
leading to capital punishment worked reasonably well. But Timothy McVeigh is
the great exception. He was not a minority. He had excellent legal counsel. He
was not uneducated, young, mentally retarded or the victim himself of cruel
abuse.
In America today the death
penalty is unfair and discriminatory. Only one in 1000 murderers is executed.
The unlucky ones are chosen by race, class, and geography. Although 90% of the
persons executed are convicted of killing whites, more than half of the
victims of homicide are people of color. Since 1976 over half of America’s
executions have been in the states of Texas, Virginia and Florida.
To make matters worse,
legal representation for poor people is provided by attorneys who are too
often inexperienced, underpaid, and ineffective. Without an adequate defense
there can be no justice for the accused.
Finally it is becoming
apparent that innocent people are being executed by our criminal justice
system. In this century, at least 23 innocent people have been executed. Since
the 70's 69 wrongly convicted people have been released from death row, 21 of
them since 1993.[11]
These facts are so
egregious that I believe they compel persons of faith to work for a moratorium
on the death penalty until these issues of justice are addressed and repaired.
To return to the beginning of the sermon, Is
Capital Punishment Christian? My answer is: possibly, sometimes,
but not now. Not in America. The Christian faith demands a better way.
Amen.
[1].
Source: Amnisty International as reported in
The Christian Science Monitor, Friday, June 8, 2001 p. 8
[2].
Exodus 20:13
[3].
Matthew 5:38-39
[4].
Matthew 5:21-22
[5].
Romans 13:1-2
[6].
Dr idololatria, 17
[7].
Divinae
institutiones, 6.20
[8].
St. Augustine, The City of
God,
Lib. 1, cap. Xxi;
[9].
John Calvin, Institutes.
[10].
Kenneth Cauthen, Toward a New Modernism
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997), 151-165.
[11].
Statistics from Christianity Today magazine.
April 6, 1998 Vol. 42, No. 4, Page 15 |