There’s an interesting essay by Joseph Bottum in this month’s First Things titled Christians and the Death Penalty, in which he reflects on the recent execution of Michael Ross. Bottom does an excellent job, I think, personalizing the loss felt by those whose loved were murdered by Ross, without giving in to the impulse for revenge.
In fact, the main point of Bottum’s piece is that our civil tort laws are designed to mitigate the human instinct for revenge. Civil justice replaces blood feuds with judicial procedures and damage claims. The criminal laws, in contrast, are designed to punish and deter crime, and to protect the public from criminals. One difficulty with the death penalty is that it’s often portrayed as a means of brining “closure” to the victims’ families. This was certainly the case with the Ross execution — one of the family members even taunted Ross as the lethal injection needle pierced his vein.
I don’t blame that family member at all. If my wife or children were murdered or hurt by someone like Ross, I’d want to stick the needle in myself, and worse. But this is where Bottom has it exactly right: the law should act to restrain that urge, no matter how justified it seems. And, whatever position we as Christians take on the death penalty generally, we must be careful not to portray it as a means of private justice.
Without the private justice rationale, Bottum questions whether there is any justification for the death penalty in a democratic society. When nations were governed by dictators who professed the divine right of Kings, those in power carried out capital punishment directly in the name of God. In a democratic society that purports to be governed by the people, the power to exact revenge, according to Bottum, is more tenuous. If a democratic state can protect itself without taking a life, for example by lifetime imprisionment, the rationale for capital punishment, absent mere revenge, dissipates.
Here, I think, Bottum’s argument falters a bit. Bottum acknowledges that Romans 13 is often cited by Christians who are death penalty proponents, including most on the Evangelical Religious Right. Bottum interprets Romans 13 to mean that the state can use force to defend itself, as when a police officer uses force to stop a crime in progress or a soldier uses force in a just war. However, Romans 13 refers to the rule as “an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” The agency given the state in Romans 13, then, is broader than only one of protection. It is an agency of punishment as well.
This doesn’t, in my view, suggest that the death penalty is a mandatory component of any civil state, or even that the death penalty is always a permissible component of the state’s punitive agency. The “sword” referred to in Romans 13 seems pretty clearly to be a broad term for force. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the distinction between civil and criminal justice, while helpful to the death penalty discussion, doesn’t settle it.
2 replies on “Christians and the Death Penalty”
Two questions:
The OT law does not require “blood feuds” but it does seem to give the family of victims a proper role in executing justice upon murderers. How do you understand the role of the family in biblical law? Is this unacceptable “private justice” or does a special familial interest? To me, it seems to be consistent with the OT for a family to take a special interest in seeing justice done.
Assuming that Christians should neither desire revenge nor retribution for those who have murdered (and the latter seems less obvious), why should that be the rule for pluralistic societies? The grounds for Christian forgiveness of murderers, i.e. the example of our Savior, is not shared by non-Christian society. As a matter of natural justice, the Noachide covenant (at Genesis 9:5-6) seems to base the requirement of capital punishment on man’s nature. Accordingly, unless man’s nature has changed since the days of Noah, it would seem that this order remains.
Pensans,
As to your first question, I don’t think it’s inappropriate for the family to be involved at all. We very appropriately give the victim’s family members an opportunity to address the court during the sentencing phase, for example. I think Bottum’s point is more about how we view the death penalty generally. I think he’s right that in some ways the death penalty is inappropriately portrayed as something therapeutic for the family, or as a way for individual family members to vindicate their own private greivances.
As to your second question, there’s alot there. I’m not convinced that Gen. 9:5-6 establishes capital punishment as a normative requirement. Verse 6 seems to be more along the lines of a proverbial statement than a command. Verse 5 is ambiguous in that it refers to “an accounting from every animal.” While the Noachic covenant (and many other places in scripture) confirm the unique value of human life, I don’t see a clear principle that every murder must result in the death penalty in every society and at every time in history.