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Another Perspective

Churches Debate Troy Davis

By on 10.3.11 @ 6:07AM

Capital punishment again faces much religious opposition — and renewed support.

Georgia’s recent execution of convicted police-killer Troy Davis activated many religious death penalty opponents. But there was significant dissent from the claims that Christianity uniformly opposes capital punishment. The 16 million Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant communion, specifically affirms it. And its most prominent theologian defended it amid the Davis controversy. 

“The death penalty is intended to affirm the value [and] sanctity of every single human life, and thus by the extremity of the penalty to make that visible and apparent to all,” declared Louisville-based Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler, who presides over his church’s largest seminary. “There is something within us that cries out for the fact that murder must be punished and that the lives of the innocent, in terms of being the victims of these crimes, must indeed be vindicated.”

Mohler warned that the “general trend of secularization and moral confusion has undermined the kind of moral and cultural consensus that makes the death penalty make sense.” And he observed: “We really do not now have the bedrock shared consensus that every single human life is a life made in the image of God and that every single human life at every stage of development is to be honored and protected and preserved.”

As Mohler pointed out in his podcast, Georgia’s execution of Davis inflamed thousands of protesters. But the execution on the same day of a far less appealing Texas white supremacist who brutally dragged to death a black man did not arouse the same fury. “It seems that even those who oppose the death penalty outright believe there are some cases that ought to be opposed more than others,” Mohler said. Of course, some of Davis’ advocates insisted he was actually innocent of gunning down a police officer who was defending a homeless man in a Burger King parking lot amid multiple witnesses, though the courts rejected appeals across 20 years.

“It is precisely because the taking of one human life by another means that the murderer has effectively, morally and theologically, forfeited his own right to live,” Mohler explained. “The death penalty is intended to affirm the value [and] sanctity of every single human life, and thus by the extremity of the penalty to make that visible and apparent to all.”

The official Southern Baptist stance on capital punishment cites the divine command to Noah after the flood, as recorded in Genesis: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” Unlike the punishments instituted later under the Mosaic code for the Hebrew theocracy, this command is considered by Southern Baptists and many Christians as still universally binding. They also cite St. Paul’s admonition in Romans that government is divinely ordained to “wield the sword” against the wicked.

In a resolution Southern Baptists approved in 2000, they declared they “support the fair and equitable use of capital punishment by civil magistrates as a legitimate form of punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts that result in death.” They also emphasized that the death penalty is right only “when the pursuit of truth and justice result in clear and overwhelming evidence of guilt.”

Contrastingly, and speaking for liberal Protestants, the 7.7 million U.S. member United Methodist Church declares that “when governments implement the death penalty then the life of the convicted person is devalued and all possibility of change in that person’s life ends.” Emphasizing “reconciliation,” the denomination’s Social Principles insist: “We oppose the death penalty and urge its elimination from all criminal codes.” Methodism has opposed capital punishment since 1956. Similarly other liberal governed denominations such as the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterians have also opposed it since the late 1950’s. Although not addressing the Troy Davis case, the National Council of Churches has opposed capital punishment for over 40 years.

The more conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod declares that “that capital punishment is in accord with the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions.” Although more liberal now and rarely discussing it, the National Association of Evangelicals still has a 40-year policy noting that “if no crime is considered serious enough to warrant capital punishment, then the gravity of the most atrocious crime is diminished accordingly.” It supports the “death penalty for such horrendous crimes as premeditated murder, the killing of a police officer or guard, murder in connection with any other crime, hijacking, skyjacking, or kidnapping where persons are physically harmed in the process.”

Roman Catholicism’s teaching on capital punishment is more complex but popularly portrayed as uniformly opposed. The late Avery Dulles, an American Cardinal and highly respected teacher, was a key interpreter of his church’s stance. “Self-defense of society continues to justify the death penalty,” Dulles said in 2002. “One could conceive of a situation where if justice were not done by executing an offender it would throw society into moral confusion,” he said. “I don’t know whether that requires any more than that it remain on the books, symbolically, that it be there for society to have recourse to.” A year earlier, he noted that capital punishment’s decline in the West reflected an “evaporation of the sense of sin, guilt, and retributive justice, all of which are essential to biblical religion and Catholic faith.”

Cardinal Dulles, who died in 2009, wrote that the early church and doctors of the church were “virtually unanimous in their support for capital punishment.” He insisted that Roman Catholicism has “never advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty” and there is “no official statement from popes or bishops, whether in the past or in the present, that denies the right of the State to execute offenders at least in certain extreme cases.” Dulles observed that Pope John Paul II taught that “as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system,” cases mandating execution “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” He explained that the Pope, with the church’s bishops, had concluded that modern states, although rightly authorized to execute the guilty, should mostly avoid it, “if the purposes of punishment can be equally well or better achieved by bloodless means, such as imprisonment.”

Dulles perceptively explained that modernity is confused over capital punishment because it wrongly interprets it as the angry popular will enacting vengeance. But historic Christianity has understood capital punishment as the state acting as God’s instrument for justice. Absent a few voices like Mohler’s, such careful reasoning rooted in Christian tradition is mostly absent in today’s’ religious debates over the death penalty and likely will remain so.

About the Author

Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.


Letter to the Editor View all comments (60) |

Timothy L. Pennell| 10.3.11 @ 8:48AM

Absolutely right. NOBODY protested the Execution, in Texas. This is what I wrote, on September 23:
A Black guy, who MURDERED a White Policeman, was Executed, the other day. There were a lot of Protesters and Sympathizers. "He maintains his innocence", they say." The Death Penalty is BARBARIC and should be ABOLISHED."
The Death Penalty was WRONG, that day, in Georgia.
A White guy was executed in Texas, the other day. It hardly even made the papers. He was involved in Dragging a Black man, behind a truck, to his death. He maintained his innocence, right to the end.
There were NO protests. There were no Sympathizers. No "Letters from Jew Hating Ex Presidents". No "Letters from World Leaders". No pleas, to spare his life.
The Death Penalty was GOOD, that very same day, in Texas.
Interesting.
They had YEARS and YEARS and YEARS, to prove their innocence. Years that their VICTIMS, never did.
It's amazing, how the people, outside the Prison, in Georgia, holding hands, and CRYING, for a Convicted MURDERER, are the same folks who Riot in the streets, when their "RIGHT" to kill INNOCENT Unborn Babies, is threatened.
In a Prison, up North, a Black Radical - MUMIA ABU JAMAL - sits on Death Row. He's been there for a Generation. He calmly walked up to a young Philadelphia Police Officer, who lay BLEEDING, on the sidewalk, from a Bullet, that MUMIA had already fired in to his body, and put another one, IN HIS HEAD. He Murdered somebody's SON, somebody's HUSBAND, and a young Child's FATHER, that day.
I'm told that he gets letters of SUPPORT, from his "Supporters" and "Sympathizers", on the LEFT, by the Bag Full.
It's not about the State using Executions for PUNISHMENT. It's about something else.
And, for the life of me, I can't put my finger on it.
But, then, Liberalism IS a Mental Disorder.
So, unless you suffer from it, I guess you'll never understand it.

WJ| 10.3.11 @ 9:59PM

You were going ok until the "jew hating ex president" line. What in the hell does that have to do with anything?

David W| 10.3.11 @ 8:48AM

I will drop my support for capital punishment as soon as those who are against it will drop their support for abortion.

When I die and go before God for final judgement, I will be confident in defending my position on abortion and capital punishment. How many of these liberal anti-death penalty people can say the same (okay, they say the same all the time, but deep in the recesses of their soul do they really feel confident)?

There are crimes so terrible, so heinous, that the only recourse is to remove them from society. After all, they can still cause harm even in maximum security.

John Navratil| 10.3.11 @ 9:15AM

David W,

Or while on furlough. Willie Horton was serving life without parole when he committed rape.

John Navratil| 10.3.11 @ 8:54AM

Brewer denied having killed Byrd, as well. So both he and Davis went to their deaths proclaiming their innocence. Why is it that so many people, who were not part of the trial or appeals, decided to champion Davis and ignore Brewer?

Those suggesting the recantation of seven witnesses of the thirty-four the state presented should comment after having read the Supreme Court review of those witnesses including the witness whom Davis decided not to bring into court to affirm her affidavit.

I see the hand of political correctness. Anyone else?

Doctor Right| 10.3.11 @ 9:50AM

So Try Davis DENIED that he was guilty of the crime for which he was convicted?

Wow.

That's a pretty radical position for a defendant to take, don't you think?

DEFENDANT: "I didn't do it. I'm innocent!"

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: "The defense rests."

PROSECUTOR: "The state withdraws all charges, your Honor."

JUDGE: "Well there you have it. Case dismissed!"

Yeah, and Mumia is innocent, too, right???

Please...give me a break.

Nathan| 10.3.11 @ 9:57AM

Davis may or not not have been guilty. But we know others on death row who clearly have been sent there in error. So called infallible finger print evidence isn't. London's New Scientist magazine several years ago did a story about over 50 people who were wrongfully convicted on fingerprint evidence, several sent to death row. CSI misconduct is more widespread than we are willing to acknowledge and in the case of one southern state a number of cases will have to be revisited.

Sadly proscecutorial misconduct is for more prevelant than we likewise wish to believe. How many innocent people are on death row due to coerced interrogations the domestic equivalent of "enhanced" interrogations like perhaps the Chicago 9.

Supporters of the death penalty acknowledge that inn0cent people get executed and support it anyway. "Fix the system" they tell us. They system may not be fixable. Too many mistakes, honest or otherwise. How many innocent people must die, is acceptable to sacrifice on the alter of "justice"? These innocent people after all have "unalienable rights" which should/must be acknowledged/respected.

To be sure if we find them innocent later we cannot give them back the years they spent in prison. But we can give them the rest of their lives back. Execute them and find out later they are innocent and we give them back NOTHING. If those of you who support the death penalty are one of the innocent people who end up on death row, or see your wife end up there, your son end up there for a murder he didn't commit, tell us which option YOU prefer. I want all of you who support the death penalty to tell us that if you were wrongfully convicted that as you were strapped in waiting for the lethal injection you would at that moment still voice support for capital punishment. Or as you watched your wife or child waiting for the plunger to be pushed for a crime they didn't commit you would outside the chamber still voice support for the death penalty. Would you still do so? Honestly? Death penalty supporters are blase about innocent people being executed in part because for the most part they don't know any of these people personally?

Christians have another issue here, one not discussed by the Southern Baptist Convention or other supporters of the death penalty. Many churches have prison outreach ministries. Through these ministries inmates come to a saving knowledge of our Risen Savior and become dedicated Christians. As long as inmates are alive they have a chance to be exposed to the Word. Execute then and we close that off. As Christians do we really want to close off somewhat artificially deny a chance for these folks, in desparate need of salvation, a chance to hear and accept the information that may mean the difference between heaven and hell? What truly is the harm in life imprisonment no parole which will allow them that chance and for the truly innocent the chance to maybe someday get out?

Are we in the end talking justice here or vengeance? Should we not err on the side on keeping alive those who truly innocent of the crime of murder they were convicted of so that some day maybe they will walk out of prison free people? I for one give all the problems with the death penalty which will not be fixed, not now, now ever, say it's time to end it.

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 10:18AM

Nathan;

For your "50 wrongfully convicted" there are at least 50 wrongfully murdered. Individual human beings with names, families, and lives that were all shattered. It is always so easy to fret over the victim of "wrongful convictions" and completely forget the innocent victims.

Were you ever a friend of someone who was murdered? Try it some time. It'll change your view a bit.

And the recidivism rate of death penalty cases after completion of sentence is still perfect.

DTOM

PS. So who did kill Mrs. Simpson and that other guy? Obviously, OJ didn't do it, I mean he was found "not guilty"... Please.

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 10:30AM

And another thing, the Christian faith is based on the fact that this world is full of evil and that our ultimate goal is eternal salvation. This world is yucky and the next is not. If we behave as God's Son directed and we have not precluded our own salvation by 'what we have done and what we have failed to do,' we will reach our heavenly reward after God judges each and every one of us.

When prison outreach scores another death row conversion, there is NO way for anyone to divine whether the conversion is genuine or just a form of posturing to avoid the earthly punishment that society's legislated system is intending to mete out to the "victim." There were three crosses on that hill, one held Jesus, one held a newly-redeemed thief, and the other an unknown, probably damned thief. Until Jesus is around to call the balls and strikes inside men's hearts, we just have to do the best with what we've got.

Besides, if you have true faith, you really do want to get out of here! Even Paul wondered whether he should stay or go...

DTOM

DaveD| 10.3.11 @ 11:37AM

"So who did kill Mrs. Simpson and that other guy? Obviously, OJ didn't do it, I mean he was found 'not guilty'."

O.J,. was hard at work on that question for some time, don't you know. Unfortunately he has had to put his efforts on hold for the time being.

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 1:30PM

DaveD:

So do you think OJ's latest crime is a case of recidivism?

I think it is...

DTOM

Kingofthenet| 10.3.11 @ 4:35PM

Dan, you are acting the FOOL and proving his point, OJ was 'innocent' you ADMIT that was a wrong sentence, but I guess wrong can't swing the other way and convict an innocent person? Try to be consistent.

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 5:02PM

Kingo;

Under the law, OJ was found to be "not guilty" beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt. He was found guilty in a tort trial to a standard "preponderant of weight of evidence."

I never said OJ was "innocent." Only God can make that call. We mere mortals have courts that can only find people 'guilty' or 'not guilty.' You used the word "innocent." I did not.

I work pretty hard at consistency. I will not answer for your misrepresenting what I have said and then calling on me to be "consistent."

Please identify the quote in which I say ANYTHING about any sentence OJ Simpson received. I did not. Why don't you read what I wrote before calling me the "FOOL." So, maybe you might read what I have written and react to that. Then if you still think I am foolish and explain why, I'll address it. Right now, you might well spend some time explaining how you might not be called 'FOOL,' please.

Don't Tread On Me.

Strawmen need not apply...

W| 10.3.11 @ 5:56PM

Not guilty is not the same as Innocent. Not guilty just means the state has not convinced the jury, or the more commone term, twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty.

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 6:31PM

W;

C'mon, who would you trust on a jury more than yourself?

Take some time, and chew on it - jury duty my be a capital PITA. But isn't it a small price for freedom and justice... Remember Churchill and ours is the "worst system except for all the others..."

DTOM

W| 10.3.11 @ 7:06PM

Dan,
You are correct that it is the best we have because what else is there? You don't want just one judge, which is usually referred to as a "slow plea."
But some of these juries, like OJ and the Florida woman, Casey?, who killed her daughter, what are they thinking?

Joking aside,unfortunately we remember just the stupid juries, and not the majority who do a good job.

Kingofthenet| 10.3.11 @ 7:31PM

Depends on the case, if it Emotional charged or relied on complex evidence or Forensics, I would prefer a single educated judge.

W| 10.3.11 @ 8:01PM

What is your experience before a judge?

John Navratil| 10.3.11 @ 10:44AM

Nathan,

And how did they get off death row? In virtually all cases, it was because of judicial review (the others are clemency and pardons). The very system you damn is the one which corrected the error.

Jack London| 10.3.11 @ 12:17PM

Do you think we've executed any innocent people, John?

Drunken Sailor| 10.3.11 @ 12:58PM

Most likely. Do you think we have let guilty people go? Of that they may have committed more crimes? Here's the rub. Death row inmates take years, even decades to execute after numerouis appeals and reviews. If they can't prove by then they are innocent how strong is their case?

John Navratil| 10.3.11 @ 1:46PM

Jack London,

It's certainly possible. We are fallible humans. I suspect the probability is vanishingly low given the obstacles to (1) getting the conviction (the state has the burden of proof) and (2) assessing the death penalty. And, none that anyone knows of.

It would certainly not please me to be the innocent being sent to death, but until the number of executions begins the match the number of murders, I'll argue that the innocent being put the death occurs most often without a trial.

When you can demonstrate that the death penalty does not deter murder AND that life in prison without parole is possible, I will no longer be practically opposed to the death penalty. Unfortunately, the former seem unlikely and the latter is impossible - Willie Horton was serving life without parole but was still given furloughs.

Ryan| 10.4.11 @ 12:25PM

If this is the case, then why was there the death penalty for less egrigious offenses in the Old Testament?

cowgirl| 10.3.11 @ 10:42AM

First make abortion, which is the outright murder of unborn children, illegal.

Then we can deal with the death penalty which is imposed on people WHO Murder other people.

Unborn children are guilty of nothing.

Kingofthenet| 10.3.11 @ 4:37PM

and an acorn is an Oak tree?

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 5:08PM

King,

Will (Do) your children look more like acorns or Oak trees?

If you do not differentiate between human life and a tree, I hope maybe you fall in love with some slender, curvy fir and have many little pine cones...

Sheesh.

DTOM

PS. Don't you find a lot of those Animal Planet TV shows pornographic?

Ssheesh^2.

Kingofthenet| 10.3.11 @ 6:12PM

zygotes look more like acorns than people to me.

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 6:33PM

Let me pass a comment that Timothy L P made to me:

"Get better glasses.."

Ever hear of the crack, she's not as pretty as she looks...I think the converse might apply here: She's prettier than she looks, that cute lil' zygote...

DTOM

John Navratil| 10.3.11 @ 6:50PM

Kingofthenet,

It's a good thing for you that you looked more like a person than an acorn to your mother.

Tina B| 10.4.11 @ 2:05PM

Kingo,

You need to learn a new song. . . jus' sayin

He says He knew me in my mother's womb, and I believe Him.

nathan| 10.3.11 @ 12:24PM

Gentlemen/ladies: What did I actually write? LIFE IMPRISONMENT NO PAROLE means precisely what I wrote. Unless later found not guilty/innocent whatever based on DNA, a totally convincing confession what have you, I am in no way arguing for letting people convicted of capital crimes walk out under any circumstances except total exoneration. So recidivism doesn't apply to what I'm saying.

Mr. Hirsch I'm sorry but I'm not quite understanding you here. Are you suggesting in some manner that because any number of innocent people are murdered in this country every year that we should be ignore the innocent victims of proscecutorial misconduct, questionable eyewitness ID's, lazy CIS's, and just go ahead and execute them? Are they not just as innocent and deserving of consideration as those murder victims and their families? How does ignoring the innocent people put on death row somehow make up for the people murdered every week in our cities? (As a note aside go back several years to a USA Today story which profiled murder victims in major cities. According to that story, the vast majority of murder victims in cities like Baltimore, NY, Philly and others 70 percent and more, have prior criminal records as do in many cases the people who pull the triggers. What the story clearly points out is that if you are a law abiding citizen your chances of being a murder victim are not very high, and two, one way to limit murders in this country is to keep convicted criminals in prison longer.)

Cowgirl, I'm as opposed to abortion as you are. But one should not be dependent on the other. Innocent lives are innocent lives whether unborn or 30 years old.

None of you answered my question by way. Any of you care to?

Simpson which many of you brought up in an odd sort of way goes towards my point regarding proscecutorial misconduct. The state really screwed the case up symtomatic of what is wrong with our criminal justice system. A better presentation probably would have resulted in him going to jail. But remember in a civil case brought by the parents, he was found guilty.

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 1:42PM

Murders by inmates are relatively common.

Are you suggesting that most murder victim's past criminal records somehow justify their murder?

You are unclear on the concept of the law.

The law is very clear in its requirement that all capital cases must be taken to extreme lengths to insure no miscarriage of justice. This law is based on the votes of our representatives, enough of whom voted to pass these laws and preserve the death penalty.

You don't agree with the death penalty and one of your reasons is decidedly illogical and plain creepy:"70% of victims have criminal records" obviously you don't believe in rehabilitation either, except maybe in capital cases? That adds up to nonsense.

You may complain all you want and you should if that's what you beleive. But look out, most of your fellow citizens disagree with you.

You might try Illinois - they have put their capital punishment laws in abeyance and they are the only State without concealed carry laws. Their budget is a total mess and they're cutting back on police. Does this looks like the smart formula for public safety? Only to the criminals in the audience...

DTOM

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 2:00PM

nathan,

I did ask if you personally knew any murder victims - I knew one. She was 12; and she wasn't just murdered, she also got to learn about sex before she died, she was raped, strangled, and stabbed. She had no criminal record, either.

Her murderer? Since he was only a few years older than she was, the mean, cruel prosecutor was trying to try him as an adult. The last time I heard of the perp was in an article in Time magazine decrying the mean, cruel prosecutor.
Time Magazine did not even bother to mention her name.

So you are entitled to your uniformed, illogical opinions. I have reason and thought behind mine. And most of the country disagrees with you and your ilk.

DTOM

Skippy| 10.3.11 @ 2:00PM

If I understand your question, let me say I have no problem with vengeance.
I call it justice; you call it vengeance; potato, potahto, let's call the whole thing off.
Murderers earned death as their wages. Pay them, and quickly.
In fact, I strongly support public executions. Folks should see what the State is doing in their name. Everyone witnessing should have no doubt about where crime leads.
Think of yourself as noble if you wish; I sleep well knowing killers will die by my(society's)hand.
I'm just not that excited about saving convicted murderers.
I save my compassion for those I judge to be worthy.
Call me cold, but there it is.

John Navratil| 10.3.11 @ 2:01PM

nathan,

In a system which provides habeas corpus, there is simply no such thing as life without parole. One cannot be denied to right to petition the courts for unjust imprisonment. Laws are in place to limit the "bites at the apple" by requiring that procedural objections be filed all at once, but arguments to prove actual innocence (Troy Davis, e.g.) will not be barred (nor should they be). The issue will be re-litigated until death occurs one way or the other. Last week, in Texas, the serial killer David Owen Brooks was up for parole again with the comment that his parole was likely. He procured, with Elmer Wayne Henley, at least 29 boys for Dean Corll to murder in the early 70's. His parole was denied and, like Manson, will likely die in jail. Even for these extreme cases, parole is an option.

It's cases like this one, and the case of Brewer, which are never used as examples for the anti-death-penalty activists.

PJ| 10.3.11 @ 2:20PM

I generally agree in what you have stated in your 2 postings.

Yet, how I also look at it is the government is obligated to protect its citizens by taking reasonable actions, in other words to keep the peace w/a minimum amt of intrusion on its innocent citizens. This includes incarcerating violent criminals. While I agree that violent criminals should have life imprisonment w/no parole, I have to wonder how effective this is simply because violent criminals can continue to do harm to others w/in the prison system.

The next logical step for controlling such criminals so that their violence can be stopped would be no parole & permanent solitary confinement w/no visitation rights. Is that a reasonable solution for the government to apply to the 10s of 1000s of rightly-convicted violent criminals? I don't know.

I do know 1 thing. Nothing man-made is perfect including penal systems. If you are a God-believing person as you state, then you will realize that He ultimately will take care of the wrongly or correctly executed person.

There is no 1 answer for capital punishment.

LiveFreeOrDie| 10.3.11 @ 1:06PM

The government in almost any form is inconsistent, inefficient and just plain bad at everything it attempts to manage. I'm not saying I'm against the death penalty as an ideal, I just don't trust the government to administer it and history shows us the process is broken.

nathan| 10.3.11 @ 3:42PM

I'm going to stop here. I want to thank the American Spectator for giving us the chance to engage in our vigorous exchange. My sincere appreciate to the editors and staff.

Mr. Hirsch: You and I go back and forth on a lot. Just briefly, I don't think those with prior records should not be pr0tected but it gives a different dimension to the problem. How to address the issue knowing those numbers? If we keep felons (I'm not talking drug users, I favor legalization) but real felons off the street longer is that a potential way of cutting down the rates here? Maybe.

No system is perfect. What we're looking for is to convict the guilty at all levels while minimizing the impact on innocent people. I have no more interest in seeing rapist continue to roam free than any of you. But we keep running into Constitutional issues on how we deal with getting him off the streets and what we do when we put him in jail.

On this as those of you, including you Mr. Hirsch have noticed, I am a rights absolutist. I do not believe in trashing the Constitution for any reason, not for national security, not to take bad guys off the street, not any of it. I believe if we are to secure our freedoms, to remain however free we are (which is increasingly debatable to be sure) we must find ways to do these things, address national security, deal with criminals within the bounds of the principles the Founders established this country on. It's too dangerous not to. The twentieth century is tells us what happens when you stray from those principles. But our own history does too. The ethnic cleansing/likely genocidal acts against the Indians within the boundaries of this country should be a cautionary tale to all of you. The terrorism against blacks after the Civil War. We are capable of horrible things. Which is why in the end we can't cross lines, we have to err on the side supporting the rights of those we hate as Tom Paine said. To do otherwise is horribly risky.

Again Mr. Hirsch, I enjoy our exchange and the opportunity given by TAS to be able to do so. And the rest of you, we are indeed fortunate here. And I will remind you all again "don't feed the trolls"! LOL Be grateful for God gives you.

Regards

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 5:29PM

nathan;

I agree with your thanks to AS and its editors. I also appreciate the difference of opinions we two hold. I respect the measured arguments and hope you find mine to be measured as well. I infer from your post that you do. This is all good.

But I offer you something to think about with respect to being an "absolutist." The Founders were not perfect; their work is not perfect either. Actually it is pretty darn good. But the exceptions that you are concerned about, "national security" and "taking bad guys off the street." are actually the whole point of those documents. So we need to be careful when respect for the "letter of the law" is preserved at the expense of the document's intent. Only perfect documents won't eventually conflict at some point, in some way with their own stated purpose.

Churchill said something that I re-phrase, "Our Founders' documents are the worst; except for all the rest..."

I applaud your intensity and devotion to our system of government, and hope that you will find all the good that is in it, while being mindful of its many failings, which still number fewer failings than all the rest.

Stay strong and true, good sir,

DTOM

DH

Kingofthenet| 10.3.11 @ 4:26PM

When LESS than 1% of Murders get this punishment, there is definitely a sense of inequity and arbitrariness that worries me. I would prefer we get 'Truth in Sentencing' rules past that 20 yrs MEAN 20 yrs. not these inflated sentences that with time off for good behavior and Parole mean 20%. Why should I as a juror have to give someone a 15 year sentence to make sure he stays in for 5?

W| 10.3.11 @ 5:49PM

Your 1% figure is misleading. Most states have Murer First Degree, Murder Second Degree, and Murder Third Degree. Only Murder one has a death penalty, and only murders that have certain factors, such as killing a police officer, kill for hire, and others. There are many more Murder 3 convictions that Murder 2 and more Murder 3 and 2 than 1.
If you are really concerned read some better analysis that explain how sentencing works, and skip the headlines.

Kingofthenet| 10.3.11 @ 6:04PM

How was the Troy Davis case a Murder 1 case than, there was no indication he identified himself as a cop, and wasn't in uniform,would it still be killing an officer if he were retired? look at what some states call aggravating factors, really stupid stuff, like one's likelihood to commit other serious crimes, for first time murderers.

W| 10.3.11 @ 7:10PM

Go read the Georgia statute and then get back to us. The law was passed by the legislature, signed by the governor, and upheld by the court. Don't you believe in representative government?

Gee, imagine, the people don't want to give a first time murderer a chance to be a second time murderer.

Kingofthenet| 10.3.11 @ 6:11PM

The idea that we need to do this for proper 'Punishment' is nuts, in NO other case do we do Eye for an Eye, otherwise we would 'Rape' a rapist....than let him go. Or take from a thief all his stuff, than let him go, no in EVERY other case crimes=time. The idea you 'could' be a serial 'maimer' and receive a MAX sentence of life in prison, because somehow that is less serious is a travesty.

Dan Hirsch| 10.3.11 @ 6:43PM

King,

It's set out in legislation voted on by our elected representatives, so we all sort of agree. Except for some of us...nervous types, maybe...

That nervousness may well lead to better behavior...

Don't tread on me...

DTOM

Quartermaster| 10.3.11 @ 7:34PM

What you are pushing is nuts. Moonbat insanity. But, alas, that's redundant.

shipley130| 10.3.11 @ 6:24PM

I can solve the death penalty problem with one question. "Would you want one of these death row inmates living in the house next to you?" If your answer is any form close to "Heck No" then you should support the death penalty. If you say "Heck Yeah" then you deserve the death that has been afforded you by the Death Row inmate.

POST American| 10.3.11 @ 11:04PM

--BTW--

WHERE are the Chrsitians? --ANY Christians
----or Jews? ---on the matter of psychopathic
USURY/ EUGENICS and Globalism
setting forth and implementing its horrifying
'age-enda' of cultural annihilation and genocide?

--------------WHERE ARE THEY?!!!!!!!--------------

--------In the name of GOD ----WHERE???????-----

DaveS| 10.4.11 @ 10:02AM

Cardinal-priest Dulles was exactly right. Even the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not have a ban on capital punishment in it. Why? There is no scriptural basis (nor basis in Tradition); therefore, only modernity can contrive a reason to ban it. This is why I do not reply when the Petitions at Mass call for respect for life from so-called 'birth to natural death.' It's an improper twist. And, if you believed it, you'd encourage soldiers to go AWOL.

Mark30339| 10.4.11 @ 10:46AM

Clearly Mark Tooley uses this piece to reassure those who might be waivering in light of the criminal justice system's inability to commute the Davis sentence to life in prison due to witness testimony being steered by prosecutors and detectives and due to other reasonable doubts on who did the killing. It is a piece urging us to believe that capital punishment is consistent with God's justice and God's will.

And so Tooley trots out Gen. 9:6, one of many Old Testament refuges for hardliners which display a psychological transference of bloodlust from man to God. This bloodlust climaxes twice: first with scapegoating God to have commanded Saul and his troops to kill every man, woman, child, infant and all livestock of Amalek (1 Sam 15:3); and ultimately with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Yet this supposedly blood lusting God disobeys His own justice. Not only does He not execute Cain for killing Abel, He forbids other men from killing Cain. And then God's shining star, King David, causes the death of Uriah -- yet God does not require his life. Instead, in David we
see the pain of life for life justice on display. When a beloved son rapes a daughter by another wife, David struggles to find a way to love the son while punishing the act. Another son, Absalom, rejects the compromise justice and rather wickedly kills the wicked brother. This leads to war between father and son in which another beloved son is killed, and the father's grief cannot be consoled.

Ultimately this God sends his Son to tell us that mercy is what He seeks, not sacrifices. And when the world ultimately rejects the Son by torture and execution, God bears the pain and sends no blood shedding reprisals to restore justice and order. The crucifix is a reminder that men do the killing in this world, and God bears the pain.

Is it too much to ask that the Mark Tooley's of the world to at least mourn the loss of life in the case of Anthony Davis, and wonder if taking a life for a life is really the justice God has in mind?

Ryan| 10.4.11 @ 12:34PM

The OT law definitely supports the notion...and every apostle (other than John) was executed by the state with no complaint that the state had no authority to do so - Paul practically upholds it.

God is able to pronounce judgment from His Law and grant mercy and grace from the Cross - it is why He could release Cain (who served a separate sentence) and bestow mercy upon David, who deserved to be struck down.

God is BOTH Judge AND Saviour, and each of us deserve to be struck dead from our first sin. It does not release governments from enacting justice.

Nick| 10.4.11 @ 1:41PM

Mark30339,

"And when the world ultimately rejects the Son by torture and execution, God bears the pain and sends no blood shedding reprisals to restore justice and order." (Emphasis mine.)

Read what happened to the Jews at the hands of the Romans from Anno Domini 67 to 70, culminating in the final destruction of the Temple, and still say that there was "no blood shedding reprisals." The Jewish authorities most definitely paid for their crimes and apostasy.

Regarding King Saul and Amelek, I think you have missed the point of 1 Samuel 15. First, God can demand the life of anyone He wants, after all, He is the giver of life. And, there are things worse than death, like rejecting God, and disobeying Him.

Secondly, herem warfare was common in the ancient middle east. It was called putting the people under the ban. The Amekelites occupied territory that had belonged to Abraham, which was inherited by Jacob. So, Saul was just taking back territory that belonged to the descendants of Israel.

Finally, the point of 1 Samuel 15 is that Saul disobeyed the LORD God Almighty. Saul did not kill King Agag. The Israelites, also, disobeyed God, by taking the finest of the herds and only destroyed what was "vile and good for nothing." Saul was then going to offer this ill-gotten gain as sacrifices to the LORD of Hosts.

Samuel rebukes Saul for his disobedience, not for killing men, women, and children. Interestingly, Samuel chops Agag to pieces, condemning him with the words, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women." This implies that the Amekelites practiced the evil of infanticide, among other abominations.

It was God who instituted the death penalty, as part of the "an eye for eye, tooth for tooth" legislation. This was a radical improvement in the barbaric "justice" that was practiced in Moses' time. Its aim was to limit the crimes that required execution.

Mark30339| 10.4.11 @ 8:26PM

I appreciate the respectful tone of your comment and I do not expect you to adopt my point of view. I would like to think that the torture and murder of God's Son in A.D. 33 would command a more timely and unambiguous reprisal, if one were to come. The fact that the Jewish nation chose to rise in armed rebellion and initially defeated Roman forces, in my view, led to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. But you attribute it to God, and that is my point. Like you, Old Testament chroniclers regularly attribute human bloodlust to be the will of God. Yet God does not execute Cain or David (or Caiaphas or Pilate), and God's Son firmly admonishes us not to respond to evil with violence. An essential part of the Good News delivered by Christ is that God isn't the killer the Old Testament makes Him out to be.

Nick| 10.5.11 @ 12:18AM

Mark30339,

Thank you for your response.

The reprisal was not ambiguous at all. Christ described it well in chapter 24 of the Gospel of Saint Matthew, which is known as the "Little Apocalypse." It is described cryptically in the visions of Saint John the Apostle, written down in the Book of Revelation, the "Big Apocalypse."

The High-priest Caiaphas was deposed in Anno Domini 36/37 by Vitellius. Pontius Pilate was sent to Rome by Vitellius for massacring Samaritans, at about the same time. Pilate later committed suicide.

Christ never says that we can't defend ourselves. Nor, does He condemn societies, or nations, for defending themselves. The Apostles never condemn self-defense, or capital punishment, either. The early Church Fathers, also, make no condemnation of self-defense.

I attribute nothing to God, only that which is written in the Sacred Scriptures. The Old Testament is inspired by the Holy Spirit just as much as the New Testament. Christ is announced in the Old Testament. There is no "killer" God in the Old Covenant. The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament, i.e., the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Again, death is not the worst that can happen to us. It is disobeying and rejecting God that causes eternal death. Christ conquered death, both physical and spiritual. This is why the first three Commandments are about worshiping the One, True God; and killing innocent people is dealt with in the fifth. It tells us what is more important to God.

Also, you are wrong about the Jewish rebellion. There were several Roman massacres of Jews, after Christ's Crucifixion, leading up to the rebellion. Such as the one in Alexandria, by the Roman Governor Flaccus, in Anno Domini 38. And, after persecuting Christians from Anno Domini 63 to 66, at the instigation of the Jewish ruling elite, Nero turned on the Jews in Anno Domini 66. This is what lead to the Great Revolt.

"And the ten horns which you saw in the beast: These shall hate the harlot and shall make her desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and shall burn her with fire." - Revelation 17:16

The Romans, also, suffered from rebellions in all parts of the Empire, immediately following Christ's Crucifixion. After Tiberius died, the Romans suffered under six emperors, who were all either murdered, or committed suicide. Finally, the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline was destroyed in Anno Domini 69.

Both the Jewish and Roman rulers suffered for their rejection of the One, True God.
God Bless!

Ryan| 10.5.11 @ 8:29AM

"God isn't the killer the Old Testament makes Him out to be."

Sorry, but this is a MASSIVE misunderstanding of scripture. The NT is replete with condemnation of sinners and what we deserve without Christ.

Tina B| 10.4.11 @ 2:28PM

I have traveled the same thought road as you, having read the History Fair Project Essay written by the nephew of Anthony Troy Davis. I also read the local Savannah Newspaper reporter's in depth article on the events both now and 20 years ago.

I have been retired since Friday, and decided to read Genesis (after reading a wonderful little book, The Evolution of a Creationist, Jobe Martin, D.M.D. and M.Th) over Saturday/Sunday. Sometimes I drifted off to ponder God, again, and sometimes to nap, because I can now.

The God of Genesis and the God of today are one and the same, no changes. So yes, His dealings with Cain, David, Jacob as well as many of Jacob's sons, and evil on earth and among His chosen people in general, Moses' murder of the Egyptian, all leave me thinking about the death penalty in the case of Troy Davis.

I was always so sure about the execution of a cop killer. But only if he was guilty in the eyes of the law. And now, especially now, keeping BHO and his cronies in mind, I don't know if I can trust the law.

I'll go back to God's Law for the time being, as revealed in Exodus, Leviticus, et al.

BobRN| 10.4.11 @ 11:00AM

The Catholic Church doesn't ban capital punishment. The Church does teach, however, that the purpose of capital punishment is not vengeance, since that belongs to the Lord, but the right of society to protect itself from dangerous criminals. If society can achieve this protection by other means, than the case for capital punishment dissolves.

Blessed John Paul II believed that society has the capacity to protect itself by means other than capital punishment, which is why he concluded that cases that justify the use of capital punishment are few, if practically non-existent. Catholics are free to agree or disagree with Bl. John Paul II in his conclusion that society has the capacity to protect itself by means other than capital punishment, which is the crux of the matter.

Of course, even if society has the means to do so, it must also have the will to do so.

David W. Robertson | 10.9.11 @ 6:18PM

Mark Tooley writes, "Similarly other liberal governed denominations such as the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterians have also opposed it [capital punishment] since the late 1950's."
Can someone please tell Mr. Tooley that more than one Presbyterian denomination exists. The Presbyterian Church (USA) is liberal, but the Presbyterian Church in America is not.

Computer Repair Palm Beach | 10.18.11 @ 11:28AM

Like Religion, Laws guide humans to be what we consider "Ethical"

The threat of punishment, is what prevents people from doing the wrong thing.

Religious people have the threat of "not getting into Heaven".

Crooks are willing to do a crime, if it is worth "the time"(in Prison)

The death penalty, just puts an extra layer on it. I say if there is re-refutable proof, one person took another life, they should be put down.
An eye for an eye.

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