(Graeme) writes:

>Michael Smith <> wrote:

>>Very early on in this debate I suggested that the bible gave no clear

>>guidelines on capital punishment and pacifism. Nothing has been said

>>since which dissuades me from that view.

>Not even the Bible! I notice you have carefully side stepped Genesis

>9:6; Romans 13.

I must agree with you that the Bible prescribes the death penalty for quite a range of offences. However most Christians who argue in favour of it want to be very selective about what merits death.

Hand up all those who said rude things about Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke or Paul Keating while they were prime Ministers. Off with their heads!

Hand up all those female Christians (but not males) who indulged in pre-marital sex. Off with their heads!

Death to male homosexuals, but not to lesbians.

Death to anyone collecting firewood on the Sabbath.

Death to all unruly teenagers.

Death to …

And what about rape? Sorry, only if it took place out in the open country, and if the woman was married or engaged. If a married woman claimed to be raped in a town, it was assumed that she didn’t scream for help, and the activity was treated as adultery: both were stoned.

Those people who want to reimpose the death penalty should really go back to their Bibles and list the couple of dozen offences for which death was prescribed.

…………

1. My own view is that the John 8 story was selected by the early church to add to the fourth gospel for one main reason: it’s a brilliant living-parable about Jesus’ commitment to grace. For the Pharisees, repentance precedes acceptance; with Jesus it was the other way around. For the Pharisees, humans’ worth are measured in terms of their belief-sytems, according to the Pharisees’ distorted view of orthodoxy. For Jesus, humans are of immeasurable worth because they were/are created in God’s image.

2. Now, whether that translates into a particular belief about pacifism/capital punishment is a moot point. Would I have sided with Bonhoeffer and others when they decided to try to kill Hitler? I think I would. Would killing Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War have prevented a greater evil – the suffering of many Iraqi people? I think so.

3. But capital punishment is another matter. I believe a highly sophisticated program of rehabilitation is called for in our penal system, not capital punishment, _ever_. Any protagonists of capital punishment should see the movie Dead Man Walking five times! Remember, the vast majority of killers were abused children. ‘Hurt people hurt people’: the only answer to that is relational love.

4. I don’t think anyone picked up on Graeme’s comment in an early post about being happy to ‘pull the trigger/lever’. I hope I’m not misquoting you Graeme. But that frightens me. It reminds me of the hardline Pharisees’ belief/delight that Gentiles are created to be ‘fuel for the fires of hell’. We should never preach about punishment, judgment and hell without tears in our voice, as the black preacher Gardner Taylor put it. When I don’t perceive a note of compassion in a post about a subject like this, I’m reading something by someone who isn’t a follower of the Jesus who told the story about welcoming the prodigal. Rather, I’m reading the sentiments of someone like the elder brother (= Pharisee)…

Rowland Croucher