Wayne Northey: The article highlighted below is very disturbing for followers of the one Mark Lewis Taylor dubs The Executed God (book review here, with the subtitle: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America).
I stand in perpetual amazement at how the New Testament Jesus is read to be the Ultimate Violent Crusader, or in a particularly odious depiction by a U.S. military chaplain: Jesus Was an Airborne Ranger: Find Your Purpose Following the Warrior Christ. Yikes! I think I’ll take a pass . . .
I shall cite from a paper (here) you may read fully as well. It is yet another illustration of the tragedy this highlighted article describes–in addition to toxic Christian nationalism.
In 1986 I was invited to a public forum on Capital Punishment at Fraser Valley College (since University of the Fraser Valley), to give a Christian view of the death penalty. I spoke against it. It was to be voted on the next year in Parliament, and Prime Minister Mulroney had freed MPs to vote their conscience.
When the question time came, a man stood up right away with a question for Mr. Northey. He began by quoting Matt. 23:23 in the KJV: “… ye… have omitted the weightier matters of the law, JUDGMENT!!!” He thundered out that last word with all the gusto he could muster–reminiscent of preachers who come to a point in their sermon notes where is inserted: “Weak point. Thump pulpit loudly now!”
Then he proceeded with a diatribe against me and my kind for having neglected the law precisely in this way in my opposing the death penalty. If “Christian expletive” is not an oxymoron, he unleashed precisely that kind of violent vituperative invective upon me and my ilk for the next several minutes. His strongest accusation was that I was not, as I had claimed, an evangelical, rather a Liberal of the worst kind, who could not see or accept the plain teaching of Scripture. He proceeded to call down judgment upon me, and issued a warning of dire consequences for the safety of our nation if Canada continued in its lawlessness by refusing to reinstate the death penalty.
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