Why I Oppose the Death Penalty: "The Talking Place: Discussing the Death Penalty" Forum on the Death Penalty, Fairbanks Alaska
[NOTE: I was invited to participate in a
statewide dialogue on the Death Penalty in Alaska, where capital punishment is off the
law books. The issue was heating
up, sadly because of Evangelicals in that state. I, representative of Mennonite Central
Committee Canada Victim Offender Ministries at the time, was asked to
“debate” the issue on biblical grounds with Dr. Richard Land (read
about him at: http://www.erlc.com/CC_Content_Page/0,,PTID314166|CHID600674|CIID,00.html),
then as now President
of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist
Convention. I said I would not take
part unless the event was changed to a “dialogue” where winners are
not declared like a gladiatorial contest, but participants are honoured in
honest dialogue. Below is the text
I first spoke from in that dialogue, held at the University
of Alaska Fairbanks, and
teleconferenced throughout Alaska, including
to the Juneau
legislature. I reflect on this,
including inserting a letter I wrote Dr. Land years later in seeing that his
support of the death penalty (he is after all a sixth-generation Texan, where
Texas is the most killing jurisdiction in the Western world) had grown to
support for U.S. Empire worldwide capital punishment (of vast numbers of
innocents) in its War on Terror.
You may read these reflections at: http://www.clarion-journal.ca/article.php?story=20040721064535388. A professional video was done at the
time, which one may borrow from me.
The initial presentation is divided into Parts One and Two. There is also Part Three where I adduced responses to specific biblical texts usually (wrongly, I argue) adduced in support of the Death Panalty.]
Why I Oppose the Death Penalty: “The Talking Place: Discussing the Death Penalty” Forum on the Death Penalty, Fairbanks Alaska, March 22, 1997 – Part One]
Part I
A. Introduction
I have come to participate in this forum today with some reluctance. On principle I am opposed to “debates”, since they already presuppose a winner and a loser. As I understand the Bible, Jesus draws a circle, and invites us to do the same, large enough to invite everyone into it, no exceptions, no losers. Even when he was at his harshest in condemnation of the Pharisees, Jesus still had a Nicodemus and a Joseph of Arimathea knowing he was nonetheless reaching out to them. I am pleased therefore that this is preferably called a “dialogue” today. Yet it cannot help but be set up as two opposing sides kind of “going after each other”.
I guess that is unavoidable on any issue that has such life and death implications as the death penalty.
B. Biblical Hermeneutics and the Picture of God
I was raised in the Church. My parents both came from other denominational backgrounds into the “denomination” in which I was raised, the Plymouth Brethren. If you know anything about that tradition, the Bible was kind of drilled into us. One Church historian refers to my tradition as “quintessentially fundamentalist”, in part because of its emphasis upon the Bible as the “Supreme Authority”. Some refer to this approach to the Bible as believing in a “paper Pope”.
Will Campbell, a Southern Baptist preacher and writer, tells the humourous story of a man who came to his door one day to share his faith. Campbell let him go on for a time, not revealing that he was a Christian pastor, and a Southern Baptist like his visitor. The man at the door mentioned that he believed in the Bible, 100%. Campbell quizzed him closely on that to be sure he had heard correctly. When he repeated his statement, Campbell ceremoniously walked over to his coatrack, picked up his coat, and said to the man: “Sir, I’ve been just looking for someone like you! Come along with me right now! Let’s go! For doesn’t Jesus say somewhere in that Bible of yours that he has come to set the prisoners free? Well sir, there is a prison just a few miles from here, and I want you to come with me right now to knock on the front gates, and in the name of Jesus declare with me: ‘We have come to set your prisoners free!’ “
The man was horrified and said back to Campbell: “When Jesus said that, he meant spiritually not physically....”
“Don’t you go doin’ any fancy exegetin’ on me!”, Campbell shot back with a twinkle in his eye. “You say you take the Bible to be literally true. The Bible says that Jesus came to set the prisoners free, and I say that we ought to act on it right now! Further, I understand there are at least 15 million Southern Baptists like you in America who believe in taking Jesus and the Bible literally. I want you to help me mount a campaign all across America to ‘set our prisoners free!....’“
That would-be door-to-door evangelist that day got more than he had bargained for.
The point of the story according to Campbell is: we all interpret our Bibles. And we are therefore in an immediate dilemma about how to understand them. The fancy word for the “how” is hermeneutics.
1. Story of the Photographer and the Dark Blotches
An unusual picture was once circulated around our Church when I was a kid. I remember it well. The brief notation below the picture explained that a man had been travelling along the highway after a pristine snowfall sparkled its brightness everywhere under a glorious sun. At one point he stopped, and noticed an unusual play of shadow against the backdrop of the freshly fallen snow. Being an amateur photographer with his own dark room, he took out his camera and snapped a few pictures of the strange phenomenon. He was astounded when, upon developing them, one in particular displayed an amazing likeness to the traditional artists’ depictions of the face of Jesus. We all were invited to see what he saw.
What I saw first however, as did most, were dark blotches against a snow-white background. There was no face of any kind to see. Except there was!
It took some doing, some adjusting, but finally I got it! I saw the face too!
Then, what was fascinating after that was, no matter how I looked at the picture, sidewards glance, upside down, back to front even when held against a clear window, I never failed immediately to recognize the face of Jesus in that photo.
We all know this phenomenon.
But some never did see the face. Their eyes simply never adjusted. They even doubted that we who saw really “saw”.
Theology means literally, a word, or words about God. What theology really is concerning is creating for us, the believer, an accurate word-picture of God’s face. Now I’m not an artist, unfortunately. Still, my task at the outset is to draw a picture of God’s face for you, to ask if this fits Scripture, tradition, and your experience.
Unfortunately, there are no artists’ drawings of the real face of Jesus that have come down to us. So we have to discover the face of Jesus, and thereby the face of God, we Christians say, somehow in the written word - the Bible. The data of Scripture, in ongoing dialogue with Christians’ interpretations through the ages and our faith community’s understandings today all help us throughout our lives to form an ever sharper image of God.
Once an editor (in his 50’s) of a theological piece I had written and was publishing said to me as the task was completed: “I have never been able to shake a picture of God I have had since my childhood. That picture is one of a God who is stern, harsh, totally demanding, punitive, a ‘Hangin’ Judge’ ready to condemn me severely for anything I do wrong, and likely to relegate me to hellfire should I ever so slightly step out of line.” He was a Christian, to be sure, and a faithful church-goer, he acknowledged, but he wasn’t entirely sure that spending an eternity with such a “god” would not be more like his understanding of hell!
The dilemma we are in can be put as an analogy. The Bible is like a monstrous jigsaw puzzle, with a vast number of individual pieces to it. It’s in fact the Ultimate Cosmic Jigsaw Puzzle, we Christians believe! I have seen once in my life the kind of jigsaw puzzle I am comparing the Bible to: one with identically shaped pieces. In the puzzle I saw, they were all squares. Now, it was a daunting enough task to put the puzzle together that I saw with the original box and the picture on it. Try doing an identically shaped pieces jigsaw puzzle sometime! But what if there were rival box cover pictures, and debate about which was the authentic one?
I am suggesting that the biblical data is precisely like that kind of jigsaw puzzle with identically shaped pieces. I’m suggesting further that we would have no hope of putting it together at all were it not for the face of Jesus we discover in the New Testament revelation, which becomes for us the ultimate picture of the face of God. I am suggesting that all other box covers than that of Jesus as seen in the New Testament revelation, are inadequate or wrong. But I’m suggesting further that it is nonetheless difficult to see the face of Jesus properly. For some they “see”, but all that is seen are dark blotches. And I think that one in that case does not really “see”. Piece together the jigsaw puzzle when one only sees dark blotches, and one’s picture of God will turn out entirely differently from doing it with the face of Jesus seen aright!
What do the biblical texts say:?
I Jn 1:1-7
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched-- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
4 We write this to make our joy complete.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (NIV)
The biblical text allows that we may in fact only see dark blotches - “walk in darkness” - even when we profess Christ.
John 1:1-5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. (NIV)
Again, however, we may look, but only see darkness, dark blotches.
.......
John 1:14-18
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’“
16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.
17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. (NIV)
Jesus is the face of God to us.
Heb 1:1-3
1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways,
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. (NIV)
God spoke in various ways once, but definitively in Jesus.
Heb 12:1-2
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (NIV)
Jesus is the Centre of our faith. No one, nothing, else!
What do all these texts say? A few key points:
1. Faith is all about “seeing” Jesus aright. No dark blotches on white, for we are called out of darkness into the light.
2. The Ultimate Picture of God is none other than the face of Jesus. To fill that out: when Jesus teaches something, exemplifies it in the Gospel texts, then at least one New Testament writer seems to reflect that theological understanding (remember, theology is all about a word-picture of God), we ought to sit up, take notice, and work on living out the truth of it. Now I was raised that way, as were many of you. And I still am trying to live out my Christian life according to that understanding.
3. If Jesus is the final, the ultimate picture of God, we need to be especially attentive to how that picture appears. We also need to be prepared to put the highly complex biblical jigsaw picture together according to the picture of Jesus as he teaches us about the picture of God. For that is what the whole enterprise of Bible interpretation is finally about: seeing the face of God. That’s what we want to see emerge everytime we approach our Bibles. And, (Matt 5:8) “ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” (NIV)
But what then if we put the pieces together incorrectly? How are we to know? By looking again at the face of Jesus. And what if in our dealing with all the data of the Bible we see at times other pictures of God seemingly in tension, perhaps in contradiction of the picture of God in Jesus, what are we to do? We are to look again at the face of Jesus. And what if, in putting that jigsaw puzzle together, we discover that the image of God emerging challenges our long-held beliefs - even Christian beliefs - about how God is, and how we are to act in light of how we think God is? We are to look again at the face of Jesus, and still follow him, even when no one else will, and we perhaps walk alone/
For we are Christians, not mosaic lawyers. We are Christians of the New Covenant, not God’s people of the Old Covenant. We are Christians, who take our cue from following Jesus when he said repeatedly in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard it said... but I say unto you.”, and of whom our text says: “The Law was given through Moses, grace and truth through Jesus Christ (John 1:17)”.
My dad was a lay preacher in our Plymouth Brethren tradition and a longstanding elder in our home assembly. Do you know what his favourite Bible verse was? It was of course in the King James version, and it went like this:
1 Sam 15:22
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (KJV)
In the New International version, it reads:
1 Sam 15:22
To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. (NIV)
Do you know what the context of that favourite verse is? It comes from I Samuel chapter 15. Samuel, the man of God, the prophet of Israel, says to King Saul in verses two and three:
1 Sam 15:2-3
2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. [One could add, several centuries earlier!]
3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’“ (NIV)
We have two words for that policy today: “genocide” and “scorched earth”. Now the text throughout I Samuel makes it very clear that Samuel is the prophet of God, and as such, speaks the word of God to the people of Israel. There is no hint in this text that there is any problem with Samuel’s repeated declarations, “This is what the LORD Almighty says:...”
So the text goes on with the story:
1 Sam 15:8-11
8 [Saul] took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.
9 But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs-- everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.
10 Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel:
11 “I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the LORD all that night. (NIV)
Now listen to the dénouement of the rest of the story:
1 Sam 15:13-35
13 When Samuel reached him, Saul said, “The LORD bless you! I have carried out the LORD’s instructions.”
14 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?”
15 Saul answered, “The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.”
16 “Stop!” Samuel said to Saul. “Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.” “Tell me,” Saul replied.
17 Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel.
18 And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’
19 Why did you not obey the LORD? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?”
20 “But I did obey the LORD,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king.
21 The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal.”
22 But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.”
24 Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the LORD’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them.
25 Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD.”
26 But Samuel said to him, “I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you as king over Israel!”
27 As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the hem of his robe, and it tore.
28 Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors-- to one better than you.
29 He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind.”
30 Saul replied, “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD your God.”
31 So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshiped the LORD.
32 Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.” Agag came to him confidently, thinking, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.”
33 But Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel put Agag to death before the LORD at Gilgal.
34 Then Samuel left for Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul.
35 Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. And the LORD was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel. (NIV)
The NIV text says: “And Samuel put Agag to death before the LORD at Gilgal.” Those translators were a bit squeamish. The KJV rightly reflects the Hebrew verb used here when it reads: (1 Sam 15:33) “And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal.”
So the context for my father’s favourite verse about how important it is to obey the LORD at all costs is a story of genocide, unforgiveness (of Saul and King Agag), pure revenge of the kind Lamech boasted about in Gen. 4 when he said: (Gen 4:23-24): “... listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.” (NIV) - all in the name of the LORD, and a savage slaughter of a King, when Samuel, the man of God, hacks Agag into little bits, gloating over him as he does about avenging for all the mothers Agag has rendered childless.
A simple question: Does the picture of God that emerges here or in other parts of the books of Samuel jive with the picture of God in Jesus, who wept over a whole people for their sinning, who said: “Father forgive them” about the people killing him wrongly, who absolutely forbade all revenge, and who healed the ear of a servant helping to arrest and kill him when a sword hacked that body piece off!? So what do you do with this text and many other, what one author dubs “texts of terror”, throughout the Old Testament?
Now I ask: when my father read that favourite verse in context, what kind of scissors-and-paste exercise do you suppose he was going through to square that text with his Christian understanding? For my father was a forgiving, caring, compassionate man, who believed he was that way out of allegiance to Jesus.
I suggest that my father had, all through his life, the right intuitive sense about putting the revelation of Jesus first, while he had an inadequate theology of revelation that treated the Bible as a flat book into which one could dip anywhere, and come up with an accurate picture of God. Whatever else, I suggest to you that the picture of God in I Samuel is a flawed picture, though no less part of God’s revelation. And I suggest that Jesus alone can supply the corrective to all images of God that are incomplete, flawed, or are simply dark blotches against the white of the full revelation of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What does the Apostle Paul say about our seeing Jesus’ face properly?:
2 Cor 4:4-6
4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (NIV)
I suggest then, that there is only one way to see “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God”, and that is “in the face of Christ.” While I affirm that (2 Tim 3:16-17) “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”, we also must know how to “[handle correctly] the word of truth (II Tim. 2:15)”. How to do that, I am suggesting, is for us so to gaze into the face of Jesus (the text says in Heb 12:2 “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”), that we will ultimately see God the clearest we can ever hope to see this side of death.
I suggest that the longer we gaze at Jesus, the better we will understand all Scripture, “and so, somehow, ... attain to the resurrection from the dead (Phil 3:11) .” - somehow learn to see God aright. What does Jesus say?: (Matt 5:8) “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” How do we achieve purity of heart? By staring into the face of Jesus. What does that mean, “gazing at Jesus”? Paul offers a succinct distillation of how to “gaze at Jesus” in the ethical section of his letter to the Romans when he says:
Rom 12:9-21
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
13 Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.
16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Now beware in reading this text! There is a centuries old view that we can somehow take Jesus seriously on the personal level, and for instance, not seek revenge, but then there is another level, that of the state, where we may do so after all! Let me say with all the force I can muster:
That is not a biblical view! There is simply nowhere in the teachings of Jesus where a signal ever is given that there is one ethic for the individual and another for the state! Nowhere! Nor for that matter, will such a differentiation be found anywhere in the Old Testament. The view is, nonetheless a pernicious, persistent, and heretical (meaning a “false choice”) notion that the Church has had for centuries which has no warrant anywhere in the Bible whatsoever! It is as much a non-Biblical notion as the idea that what Eve actually ate was an apple, or that the central view of justice (more to the point) of the Bible is “an eye for an eye”, tit-for-tat retaliatory justice. Yet there is a widespread notion that the Genesis story tells of Eve’s eating an apple, and theologians for centuries indicated that “eye for eye” was the central biblical view of justice. Nonsense!
You do know, do you not, that no specific fruit is mentioned that Eve ate? You do know, do you not, that “eye for eye” is found only four times in the biblical texts, and then only with reference to physical injury, and then only with the meaning of compensation: the value of an eye for an eye, etc.? Put bluntly: nowhere does the Old Testament text call us to an exercise in retaliatory dentistry! You do know that alternatively, the word shalom and related words, meaning peacemaking, restoration, wholeness is associated with a response to wrongdoing over 300 times in the Old Testament, and that Jesus specifically contradicted the “eye for eye” interpretation in the Sermon on the Mount? We’ll get to that later.
So why is it that such a non-Biblical view should have been foisted on the churches and for centuries? Because the Church has always found it too difficult, as have most humans who have ever lived, to live out a consistent ethic of enemy love. So it has chosen a classic sleight-of-hand hermeneutical trick worthy of the best of magicians, enabling it to reintsitute for the state to do what Jesus definitively said was not to be done: any kind of retaliation towards the enemy. So John Stott can say that a Judge whose wife is murdered may legitimately do what the Judge as a private citizen is disallowed to do: sentence the murderer to death - i.e. bring down revenge upon the murderer’s head. And I say, balderdash! That is casuistry! Casuistry is defined as: “false application of principles esp. with regard to morals or law”. This is, to use the analogy, to say one is gazing intently at the face of Jesus, when after all, all one is doing is looking at a bunch of ugly blotches on the page! And there is nothing uglier than deliberately doing an end-run around Jesus’ breathtaking teaching of love of enemies to allow us to do through the state after all what Jesus has disallowed us to do categorically: destroy our enemies. For as the Rom. 13:10 text says tersely (after most interpret it a few verses earlier to be a call or a permission to destroy the enemy): “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” And Jesus taught nothing if he did not teach that love of enemies is the specific extreme test case of love of neighbour. Now that succinct summary, in 15 English words, of the law dismantles all legitimization of the death penalty.
So in light of the case I’m presenting about how we are to interpret our Bibles, how can one justify beginning anywhere other than with Jesus? How can we begin, for instance, with any portion of mosaic Law, or with Genesis 9, or any other portion of the Bible that is before the revelation of Christ? That is not where we will find God’s face most fully shown.
Let’s turn now to a passage which supplies us with the fuller version of Paul’s teaching in Rom. 12 & 13. Let us look into the face of God when we read:
Matt 5:38-48
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’
39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (NIV)
And again, the Lukan version:
Luke 6:27-38
27 “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
29 If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.
30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.
31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them.
33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that.
34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full.
35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (NIV)
I think we are not human, nor honest, if we do not admit to the temptation to take scissors and paste to these teachings of Jesus! Ouch! we all say. No wonder the Church has hidden for centuries behind a biblically unfounded two-tiered ethics that discerns one ethic for the individual and another for the state. How conveniently an end-run can be done around Jesus to allow us to resort to all the violence we want under the guise of the state! So Jesus himself would say: (Matt 23:23) “But you have neglected the more important matters of the law-- justice, mercy and faithfulness.” (NIV) And again: (Matt 23:31-32) “So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!” (NIV) Pharisaism turns, ultimately, upon a justification of violence. Jesus says no to violence, instructing Peter, for instance to put up his sword, whereby, Church Father Tertullian indicates, Jesus disarmed the Church forever. Except the Church did not accept Jesus’ ethics, and instead it picked up, or at minimum, blessed the sword, and so in the main, an anti-Christian ethic has dominated the Christian Church since the era of Constantine.
Finally, let us see the face of God in the story of the woman caught in adultery, and of the Prodigal (recklessly extravagant) Son which should really be entitled “ The Prodigal Father” - for in the end the father is more recklessly extravagant in his mercy than his son is in his folly. God’s face in Jesus forgives the woman with the challenge to sin no more. God’s face in the Prodigal Father story Jesus tells does not even let the Son get his “I’m sorry” speech out before he is overwhelmingly embraced and welcomed back to the family!
Remember what I said earlier about the rule of thumb that if Jesus taught something, exemplified it, and at least one New Testament author theologized about it, we ought to sit up and take notice?
Alright, here goes:
1. Jesus taught love of enemies in Matt. 5 and Luke 6
2. Jesus stated from the cross: “Father forgive them... (Luke 23:34)”, and Paul universalized this in Romans (3:25-26) thus: “God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished--he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (NIV)
3. Paul in Romans 5:6 - 11 says that God in Christ showed love to us his enemies, offering reconciliation; and again in Ephesians 5:1 & 2 we are told that we are to imitate God by living a life of love as Christ offered himself in love to us his enemies.
Now I will ask you, does the picture on the box of the jigsaw puzzle called God’s Word show the face of a God who in Jesus supports destruction of enemies called murderers, or does the picture on the box called the Bible show the face of a God who reaches out even to the murderers to bring them into his circle of friends?
So when Sister Helen Prejean, foremost Christian advocate against the death penalty, and author of the book, Dead Man Walking (1993), and advisor to the movie by the same title, says: “Most Christians in support of the death penalty have a wrong picture of God. They see him as an angry, punitive Judge, rather than as a loving heavenly Father.”, do you disagree?
If I ask you how many times it was on Jesus’ lips to refer to God as Judge, and how many times he referred to God as (loving, heavenly) Father - the picture of a father Jesus painted in the story of the “Prodigal Father” - do you know the answer? To the first question the answer is: never! To the second question, the answer is: 171 times! - with the idea of God as “daddy”, Abba, or “nurturing mother” like a mother hen, always hovering just in the background.
Can you see why I say that our picture of God in the end determines our view of the death penalty? What loving parent demands the killing of her or his own children and remains a loving parent? If you say that is precisely what God did to his own Son, then I say your picture of God and of the atonement is wrong, and that we must turn to that the next time.
References
Agnew, Mary Barbara. “A Transformation of Sacrifice: An Application of Rene Girard's Theory of Culture and Religion.”, Worship 61 (1987): 493-509.
Bailie, Gil, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads, New York: Crossroad, 1995.
Hamerton-Kelly, Robert G., ed., Violent Origins, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
Prejean, Helen Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States. New York: Random House, 1993.
[NOTE: Please see Part Two.]
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