I recently posted a note about my friend Patrick’s wife Mary and her act of Christian Civil Disobedience. Several people have emailed me and also commented on other places on the Internet with various responses, a common one being that Mary broke the law and thus deserved to go to jail. Others have expressed concern for the victim and wondered where his rights are in all this.  I thought I would respond here and explain why I am against capital punishment.

First, I want to say that I fully understand that this is a subject on which good people can disagree, which is why the title of this missive is Why I Oppose the Death Penalty and not Why You Should Oppose the Death Penalty. In addition, some of those who disagreed with me were and are, people I deeply love and will continue to love regardless of whether we ever reach agreement on this issue.

The reasons I oppose the death penalty can be grouped into two broad categories; philosophical and practical. In the interest of length I have broken this topic into several posts. In this one, I deal with the philosophical reasons I am against the death penalty.

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I am a follower of Jesus, and I take his teachings seriously. As a result, I believe he meant what he said when he told us to not respond to evil with violence. In addition, I believe that when he told us to love our enemies, he probably meant, among other things, to not kill them. Violence always begets violence and, as Ghandi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”.  This is the first plank in my platform and, honestly, although I have more, I need no other.

One of the earliest of the Judeo-Christian beliefs is that all humans are made in the image of God (this would include murderers).  Because of my faith I am pro-all-human-life, not just pro-the-life of an unborn fetus. This is the lens through which I see a wide variety of issues, ranging from poverty and health care to how we treat the elderly to the war in Iraq to the death penalty. I do not believe that I, nor any government that purports to represent me, has the right to take a life.

Death is, to state the obvious, permanent and killing someone says, in effect, “we hold no hope for your redemption”. I believe in a God who can redeem and change the hearts of those who oppose him and who believes that no one is beyond that redemption.  I have friends who have seen acts of forgiveness between the the families of victims and the families of murderers. If we believe that God cannot change the hearts of those who commit acts of violence, we would have to disregard the 2/3 of the New Testament that was written by the reformed religious terrorist Saul of Tarsus.

I grieve deeply for all the victims of violence (whoever perpetrates it) and dream of a world where such things no longer happen. I believe that the death penalty does not so much punish the murderer as it does the family of the murderer, causing them to feel the pain and agony the victims family did at the loss of their loved one.  I oppose any system designed to inflict pain on those who had nothing to do with the crime and I reject any teaching that says violence can solve problems.

I should point out that I do believe in law and order and I do believe in the right of the state to arrest and try people who commit crimes. I believe that those who are convicted after a fair and just trial should be locked away from us where they can reflect on the evils they have committed and where we will be protected from their actions.

I reject the authority of the state to commit murder in my name and call it justice and I, along with followers of Jesus throughout the ages am willing to protest, to disobey and to speak truth to the powers that be until we no longer kill people under the guise of teaching the rest of us not to kill. Mary is a proud part of that tradition. She chose to be jailed rather than to pay a fine into a system that kills in her name. In allowing herself to go to jail, she has submitted to the government, without endorsing or obeying the government.

Admittedly, this post is filled with qualifiers, with my often stating ‘I believe”. But, that is what a philosophy is – what we believe. In my next post I will spend some time with concrete, practical reasons I oppose the death penalty.

Feel free to comment, but remember, be nice.