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I am not a dedicated Baptist. I have not been to church for years. I am
67 years old.
I was raised as a Christian and I believe in God and I believe you can
not go to heaven except by Jesus Christ.
I have seen shows on the death penalty and it concerns me.
When a convicted criminal is sentenced to death and he is seated to be
executed, the State provides a priest or clergy to stand by his side and
do whatever he can to get the KILLER to ask the Lord to forgive his sins.
We all know that Jesus Christ died on the cross to have God forgive ALL
our sins who ask forgiveness, no matter what the sin or crime, and God
will forgive the person and he will go to heaven.
THAT, is where I have a problem. I don't want the killer to go to Heaven.
I want the killer to do life in prison and be dead a long time before a
clergy or priest can get the person to confess his sins and ask God for
forgiveness and he straight to hell.
That is my opinion.
you are speaking truth to wimpiness. not having the death penalty is the true miscarriage of justice. endless appeals and the different levels of murder are also miscarriages of justice. the death penalty is not there for justice. once an injustice has been done there is only retribution, restitution, revenge and righting a wrong. in any crime there is only injustice, justice has already gone out the window. and for the taking of a human life, deliberately or in the act of another crime, society has the not just the right but the obligation to demand the ultimate penalty for the ultimate crime. you apologists for murderers make me sick. if the founding fathers did not want the death penalty in america they would have specifically included that in the constitution. they knew it was an effective deterrent and the obligation of society to protect its citizens.
Dear Mr. Whitehead,
While there may be times when people have been wrongly charged with, even convicted of, a crime, the death penalty is not a miscarriage of justice by any stretch of the imagination. The death penalty was a penalty instituted by God to protect society against those who had become so spiritually corrupt that they had degenerated to the level of murder, adultery, homosexuality, etc. No matter who says otherwise, the death penalty is a perfectly legitimate punishment that actually raises the dignity of human life back to the level where if a person takes a life he pays for it with his own. Period. And those who are the family of the victim should get the first opportunity to throw the switch, pull the lever for the hangman, whatever.
What has happened in our culture is we have so debased the value of human life that we simply allow crime to happen with minimum punishment. Courts bargain with the lawyers of the criminal while the victim/victim's family has little or no input into that process. That is a travesty! Godly designed justice is always based upon restitution. Under that system, if you steal, you pay back double the value of what you stole. If you cannot, you are sold to indentured servitude until you work off what you owe. If you kill someone, you die, unless the killing was accidental. Then there are even specific consequences and ways of dealing with that situation.
The commandment, "Thou shalt not 'kill,'" has been so abused by the God haters because the original intent of the commandment was thou shalt not MURDER, or kill without cause. And, of course, the word "murder" in our current culture has been debased to mean any kind of killing, legitimate or not.
You have some wonderful, thought provocing articles, Mr. Whitehead, but this is one area where you are in error. If, in fact, someone is erroneously put to death - and, frankly, I don't believe it happens as often as some would have us believe - then, we do have a God who will sort out the problems when he sends Christ back and we all go before that judgement seat. Those who lie or otherwise cause the wrongful execution of someone will indeed face their own penalties before God, who is a far better judge than we will ever be. Now, before you go into the usual, "Well, then, why don't we let God judge the murderer?" routine, God laid out the law telling US that it was OUR responsibility to protect ourselves using his rules. WE were to carry out the law and the penalties. If, perchance it is discovered here and now that someone did lie and an innocent person was put to death, THAT person dies. It really is as simple as that.
Keith
I was opposed to the death penalty for many years but now I realize the problem is that it takes WAY TOO LONG to carry out. The "Mumia" killer has been on death row longer than the cop he murdered was alive.
Ergo for Richard Allen Davis here in California, far longer on death row than Polly Klaas was alive.
Blacks here in Oakland are 28% of the population but 80% of the crime, in SF 5% of the population but at least half the crime and the same is true of every major urban area in the US.
The rioters in the UK should have received the instant death penalty. Very few innocent people have been executed.
I agree it should be zero but the great thing about the penalty is that none of these murderers will be killing again, it's a 100% deterrent in the case of the particular killers.
I strongly support Ron Paul but there are some nutcases in the libertarian ranks who are out to lunch.
Rothbard strongly supported the death penalty, Rockefeller's takeback of Attica and the LAPD's whipping
of Rodney King. So your leftist intellectual mush is not any official libertarian position.
I wish to respond to this quote: "There is nothing moral or just about the death penalty--certainly not the way it is implemented in America, and anyone who says otherwise is either deluding themselves or trying to get elected by appearing tough on crime."
God told Noah this: GE 9:6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man." The reason that a man should be put to death is because we are made in the image of God. This is a transcendant thing. The reason for doing so isn't disappearing any time soon -- never, in fact.
Interestingly, God allowed David, a murderer, to live. At the same time, God put many to death and used men to carry out these things. Jesus forgave a woman caught in adultery. Thus, it is hard to know how to carry forward the Old Testament commands in that light, really hard.
"RO 13:4 For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."
Some would say, I among them, that it is a further injustice to force the family member of a murdered victim to, through taxes, pay for the murder to be incarcerated and it is made all the worse when they eat better, sleep better, have better health care, better accommodations (libraries and media) than many of the family members of murder victims. If your family member got murdered and you had to pay an extra $20 a month to feed and clothe them the rest of their life, and if that takes away food from the table of your remaining children, how do you square that with justice?
EX 20:22 Then the LORD said to Moses... 21:12 "Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death. 13 However, if he does not do it intentionally, but God lets it happen, he is to flee to a place I will designate. 14 But if a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away from my altar and put him to death. 15 "Anyone who attacks* his father or his mother must be put to death. 16 "Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death. 17 "Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death."
These are Gods words, not laws made up by man. God is not immoral. These are his standards. I don't see how being opposed to the death penalty itself as immoral can be supported scripturally.
The only challenge for me is to temper judgement with mercy. As James says: "JAS 2:13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!"
Further, when a police officer guns down a man who is on a shooting rampage, this is a just carrying out of the command to protect people made in the image of God. He is killed because he won't stop any other way. This is moral. This is just. Do we only shoot to stop a murderer in the act, or, as the Bible indicates, is it correct to mete out punishment for it also, after the fact? Consider this: the Cities of Refuge were to hand over people found guilty of intentional murder, to the avenger. What can be more clear than that?
To follow God is to be both stern and merciful, to order the execution of some and to stay the execution of others. I have to confess it would be a sober thing to actually have to mete out such a sentence. We who are forgiven much do indeed want to be merciful.
I have even considered what I would do if being attacked by someone who can only be stopped from killing me by killing them first. Should I, as a Christian, give up my physical life to give them a bit more time that God may reach them?
What about my family? Do I owe it to them to preserve myself? While I have no zero trouble killing to protect others, yet I struggle about protecting myself if it means killing another?
Do I let a person kill me and take away my children's father and source of support, do I keep me alive for them? Do I instead trust them to God? How do I decide.
If I am to base my beliefs on Scripture, npunishment that includes putting to death a murderer is both just and moral, but it is not to be exclusive of mercy. God himself exemplifies this. It is with intrepidation and prayer that we should carry out our God's standards. We should not apply them with human vengeance, but out of worship and respect for God's laws, his authority and his standards, trusting to him the results. Not for spite. Not to avenge. But to apply justice, in a just way, always mindful of his mercy, yet not to the exclusion of his justice. This is so difficult.
Bill
Yes, this is just another instance -- abolition of the death penalty -- when Left Libertarians and Right Libertarians may agree whole-heartedly with one another. Why, then, do they not combine to "put the screws" to candidates for office, at every level, who stand opposed to the factual, moral, legal, and philosophical reasonableness of abolishing this blemish on the face of our country? Because they are not commonly financed by corporations? Because they do not commonly support a return to the gold standard? Because they are not subsumed by the unthinking/unaccountable tribalism of partisan politics? As you so carefully and cogently point out, there isn't reason or anything else substantial standing in the way of immediately abolishing the death penalty. (Nor, is there anything reasonable standing in the way of a complete reconstitution of our entire penal system.) If like-minded citizens would stand together, the abomination of capital punishment would be gone over night. The profiteers and others who reap benefits from this injustice would be defeated. Do you see a chance that that might happen any time soon? If there is the slimmest chance, it will be because of people like you who continue to beat the drum for sanity and real justice. Thank you.
John Whitehead:
I heard your interview in WVTF this evening.
It sounds as though you have been hanging out with your apostate buddy Franky Schaeffer.
You may make denigrating comments about Christianity, but you know very well the law of God requires the death penalty for capital crimes.
Please take Samuel Rutherford's name off your organization. You'd be better served by becoming a branch office of the ACLU.
Sincerely,
David
You're right. I couldn't agree with you more. The death penalty, as we do it now, is a miscarriage of justice and should be abolished. Lethal injection is just so tacky and tasteless.
The Japanese had the right idea. Instead of forcible execution, we need to bring back mandatory seppuku!
What utter rubbish. So this system must be perfect or eliminated? Will this metric then be used for the entire legal system? The entire welfare system? ad naseum. Has it not been recognized by you we live is and imperfect world? A world in rebellion to its' maker. He had a plan, rejected in the old testament then rejected in the new. Perfection is longed for by all creation so if it's not here and now it will best best to remove evil from the camp once and for all and the ways to determine the evidence, means of judgement and penalties are quite clear in Deuteronomy. Take a peek and then comment on what the Judge of all the earth has missed. cruft
John,
I make an effort to read all your pieces on LRC; I appreciate your work.
Your argument against the death penalty is certainly provocative. The fact that it doesn’t seem to deter the act of murder would seem to lean more toward the fact of the grind of the system, and possibly to the lack of public executions for capital offenses.
However, since God’s word is the final authority, should we reconsider? I’m thinking that your argument could be applied to any civil crime as justice is rarely carried out, much less to biblical standards should one be convicted of rape, theft, fraud, etc.
Do you recall Rushdoony commenting on the plight of the wrongly convicted?
Regards,
Curt
I think the real injustice about the death penalty is discrimination by gender. A man is MUCH more likely to be executed for a crime than a woman who does the exact same thing. Why doesn't this ever get mentioned? If women were the victim of "disparate impact", we'd hear this over and over and over again. But it almost never gets mentioned.
Men are the Rodney Dangerfield of American society. We get no respect.
"It is hard to understand politics if you are hung up on reality. Politicians leave reality to others. What matters in politics is what you can get the voters to believe, whether it bears any resemblance to reality or not."
Thomas
Actually I believe it was George Ryan of Illinois who suspended executions in Illinois. His successor may have signed the legislation.
John.
with DNA evidence catching and trying the criminal is more precise. I'm for the death penalty if it's a 100% air tight case proven with dna and other witness/police evidence. If someone killed a family member or close friend, I'd personally want to see the perp dead and out of society for good, and so would most, except the liberals of course.
-- L. A.
"There is nothing moral or just about the death penalty – certainly not the way it is implemented in America"
Mr. Whitehead, I quit reading your column at this point. No need to read further to know that we are in complete agreement. A quick scan told me that I am familiar with the anecdotal support for your position.
I have long been a believer that the death penalty--justly applied--is morally tenable in a Christian ethos. Jesus, on the cross, did not tell either thief that he was getting a raw deal. (As for His unjust punishment, well, that is utterly unique and beyond this interlocution.)
The late John Paul II (even as a Catholic, I refuse to call him "blessed," for reasons that are another discussion) left the door open the merest crack for the just application of a death penalty. However, his general disparagement of the modern death penalty was technologically-based: suggesting that the state of the art of penology was such that society could be sufficiently protected from the lethal depredations of convicted "stone" killers. Unfortunately, that logic offered no protection whatsoever to fellow prisoners or to prison staff--who are, after all, members of "society."
(Was Jeffrey Dahmer saved? We'll never know, in this life. However, he might have been saved, had he had to face the executioner. And the fact that his fellow-convict murderer faced no lethal consequences for the murder is immensely problematic.)
Anyhow, there is no question at all that our American system of "justice" is light-years from achieving even the general intention to mete out true justice. For that reason, I years ago abandoned my stubborn--albeit qualified--defense of the death penalty in this country.
I admire your work and your writings. Thanks for reading my thoughts.
--
Mark
Dear Mr. Whitehead,
I am a college freshman at UCLA and trying to get my blog (bunburydave.tumblr) going and trying to get into nationally syndicated journalism. I came across your article after being referred to lewrockwell to read about Ron Paul being under appreciated by the press-which he is.
I just wanted to point out this particular line from your article: "...there are 1,371 blacks on death row (42% of the total death row population) despite the fact that blacks only make up 12% of the U.S. population."
It was very misleading to include that blacks make up 12% of the population when the pertinent statistic would have been what percentage of criminals in the United States are black, because only criminals are eligible to be committed to death row. Also, you did not acknowledge any counter argument. Just a little constructive criticism.
Josh
John:
You know I love you and your work.
But on the issue of abolishing the death penalty I believe you are wrong.
First the death penalty is Biblical. You know that. Second, nations and societies that fail to execute capital punishment incur God's wrath, 'blood guiltiness'.
That said, I realize the state - US government is screwed up big time and has executed people wrongly. However, that is not to negate the clear Biblical and historical precedent for capital punishment.
The Bible clearly states that those who fail to administer capital punishment properly at then subject to that punishment. Go back and read Rushdoony's the Institutes of Biblical law on this.
Rather than abolish the death penalty, we should demand it be carried out properly, and if it is not those involved in injustice should be subject to it. That's the proper solution.
When you can make a Biblical and historical argument against the death penalty, I'll listen, but to say because the EU has abolished the death penalty so we should too is a poor argument (and you know it).
To think that Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dalmer, Charles Manson and others don't deserve the death penalty is not only unBiblical but irresponsible.
I greatly respect you and your share with you your fear of the state using its increasing power against its citizens. The answer is to correct this over reach, which its a root cause.
Once again, I greatly respect you and your work. I think you are seriously wrong on this issue and that such a position hurts the institute and damages it's standing for truth and righteousness in the Christain community.
Love you and the Institute.
Gary
In a recent article on Lew Rockwell's web site you write, "Even if most of those condemned to die prove to be guilty, if just one innocent person is wrongly executed, that is still one too many."
I think by this logic one could never justify a death penalty, which is clearly a result at odds with the scriptures.
God seems to equate wrongfully letting the guilty live (which you support, with regrets) with putting to death the innocent (which you think is utterly intolerable to the point of prohibiting the death penalty). Both should be avoided, of course, but mistakes will be made, as God (of course) knows. Your balance would seem to be that one innocent death outweighs letting dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of guilty people live. That is a very common standard among decent and godly men but one I feel is unbiblical and humanistic.
For a good articulation of what I'm referring to, consider listening to the following:
Casey Anthony: Soulless Murderer by Phil Elmore
http://kgov.com/bel/20110707
Thanks for giving this some thought. Enjoy your writing and have for years.
Frederick
Mr. Whitehead,
You make a pragmatic case for the abeyance of death penalty executions. However, unless God is in error himself in having governments do them, the idea remains that if one man sheds another man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God was man made. Further, if such punishment is swift, it brings terror to evil doers said Solomon. The way our appeals processes go, it makes the "swift" part practically non-existent, and thus renders the penalty (if it ever comes) not the deterent it would be. The Bible is clear that justice, if swift, is a deterrent. There is no arguing that. It makes clear the standard that those who murder deserve the death penalty, as the Cities of Refuge give up those who are not found innocent to the avenger of blood. But we do see mercy for David who ordered a murder, for God did not order David's death, the God who declared the standard. Jesus did not stone a woman caught in adultery to death. Those two things, together with your pragmatic considerations leave much room for viewpoints on this. Include the fact that God did not carry out the death of Adam and Eve swiftly but over time, givng them time to repent and call upon God. Perhaps in your conversations, you might speak to the ideal, and the Biblical truths, even while we acknowledge the pragmatic current limitations. I must not be so idealistic that people die needlessly for it. Yet we must not be so pragmatic that we let go of a standard that is fitting. We ought hold both. That's the best I see it. Thank you for explaning your viewpoint more thoroughly.
Bill
Best if all the very bad people are given the opportunity to commit
suicide. Start with the guy in Norway. At the end - God will judge us
all so if there is any doubt; then
the sentence should be a life term
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