Christians shouldn’t support capital punishment (nor should anyone)
While this essay is aimed at pro-capital punishment Christians, I invite you to read it if you’re neither. This is part 1 and is addressed to them, since many people I know are part of this group.
Why didn’t you turn the other cheek?
Despite the fairly straightforward (or is it instead a tu quoque?) sixth commandment “thou shalt not kill”, a large portion of Christian adults - 75% of white Evangelicals and Protestants, as well as 61% of Hispanic Catholics- favour capital punishment.
In Singapore where it is still legalised, 87% of adults support the death penalty. However, this data includes non-denominational groups and Singaporean protestant christians were 2.3 times less likely to be in its favour than taoists and buddhists, catholics even less.
As I read this article by the late Charles Colson, I questioned if government-sanctioned electric chairs and lethal injections are seriously what will bring humanity to purification like he said, “by way of suffering”. He claims it will for our Christian brothers who wait indeath row, through preparing them to meet their maker.
Does the commandment apply more to a person who has disobeyed it (multiple times even) than to the one who seeks to deliver the consequences to them doing so?
To begin, some proponents cite from the old testament Genesis 9:6
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his image”.
As many christians say (or at least when the situation calls for them to agree with this), the bible should not be taken literally, the same way what Jesus later states “all who draw the sword will die by the sword” surely could not be true in reality. It only aims to illustrate to us how violence begets violence naturally. In fact, God himself doesn’t apply this either, sparing Cain in Genesis 4 after he murders Abel.
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In a famous example from the New testament, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38–39), Jesus says
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”
Here, instead of seeking justice he teaches followers to offer the other cheek and love their enemies. Lesser known, he also interrupts a legally sanctioned execution of a woman caught in adultery (john 8).
Why do so many Christians continue to support the death penalty nonetheless?
One possibility: Maybe, they take the commandment seriously and to them murder is the gravest crime. From this perspective they subconsciously seek proportional justice (Lex Talionis, as Colson explained about in the article I mentioned). So to them Exodus 21:23–24 objectively applies to legal standards and the degree of punishment should match the severity of the crime committed. Otherwise, it would mean an unfair balance of justice and morality on earth.
This is a majorly flawed justification for the death penalty. The justice system would be extremely hypocritical for only applying this murder. Unless you’re still stuck in c. 1750 BCE, (which for the matter they never went that far) the state never rapes rapists or burn down arsonists’ homes, to put it simply. Clearly it’s unacceptable to employ an agent to commit these abhorrent and criminal acts, but I suppose for them it’s not when it comes to murder. For good reason, not just ethical and to preserve state legitimacy, incarceration is the standardised punishment. Logical society must have realised something, since it was popularised in the 18th-century Enlightenment by legal theorists like Cesare Beccaria who argued that a just legal system relies on certainty of punishment on those who merit it, and not on inflicting cruelty or barbarity on them.
I digress but from a practical point of view, would retributive punishment truly be proportional to the severity? How would we commit mass muder on a single mass murderer? From a personal point of view, prolonged incarceration and the loss of all autonomy — especially solitary confinement — would cause much greater mental suffering than spending the same years dead (although I agree that foreknowledge of the end or distress over appeals can cause much anguish and psychological harm, albeit a different kind).
The majority of christians who support the death penalty also do so for other reasons including deference to government authority and accountability.
Those who unquestioningly give the government authority to execute people should be reminded of a vital part of Christianity, because Jesus himself was failed by the state and sentenced to capital punishment. According to my devout catholic uncle, no one should hold the power of life and death but God himself. Perhaps he makes a good point for the christians: the bible presents the state as corrupt and vulnerable to political pressure. In fact, all early christian martyrs were killed by the state. By supporting capital punishment, they are supporting the very establishment that put Christ and his apostles to death. Furthermore, if it were not obvious, the death penalty is irreversible and hence requires infallible judgment which only God exclusively has. How could they trust that the state, led by humans, does so if christian theology posits that all humans are fallen and all infected by sin? (Romans 3:23)
Christianity is built on the premises of grace and repenting. It spreads the message that as long as a person is alive, God is capable of redeeming them. (Consider Moses who murdered an Egyptian and King David who orchestrated Uriah’s murder). If one of them, or perhaps saul who executed christians, were sentenced to the death penalty, they would never have fulfilled their roles and fates in the bible. When someone is executed, the window to repent and for salvation disappears permanently and they’ll never have the chance for redemption.
So dear pro-capital punishment Christians, please reconsider letting the state play god with a real person’s life. If you truly believe in God’s infallibility and that no soul is beyond saving, you would protect them to their last breath and trust that their final verdict belongs to God.
