This section is entitled "Punishing Christians: A Pacifist Approach to the Issue of Capital Punishment" by Stanley Hauerwas. As this is an essay about Christian pacifism, Hauer referenced Yoder, "Yoder rightly thought those committed to Christian nonviolence cannot avoid providing an account -- or even more important, alternative practices -- of and for punishment" (Hauerwas 58). Many think that Christian pacifism cannot provide a space for punishment but Hauerwas disagrees. The author is not found of the most popular theories of punishment and especially capitol punishment such as rehabilitation or protection from society. He writes that they only obscure what is really happening unless those theories are grounded in Christian theology. The most compelling aspects of that theology are the ideas of forgiveness and hope. Hauerwas believes those ideas can be transformative and their absence destructive, "Absence of hope and forgiveness means 'prisons become human warehouses and both offenders and those who operate the criminal justice system have great difficulty in seeing their experience and their work as significant and meaningful" (Hauerwas 61). Keeping this in mind, we can understand the proper role of punishment in society and the church. Hauerwas brings up the position of Oliver O'Donovan on Pope John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae to show that humanistic ideologies are the wrong reason to abolish the death penalty. O'Donovan believes that the death penalty should remain because the crucifixion exemplified the linkage between judgement on sin and death. Hauerwas disagrees saying that the end of punishment has been transformed by Jesus's crucifixion. He writes, "Christian punishment is properly understood to be excommunication, or binding and loosing...To be excommunicated is not to be 'thrown out' but rather to be told that we are already 'outside'" (Hauerwas 71). This is how the author believes we can form a Christian community in the world that can punish in a way appropriate, "for a people who believe that we have been freed" (Hauerwas 72).
I really appreciated O'Donovan's thoughtful and theologically based position on the death penalty although like Hauerwas, I still oppose the death penalty. Most of the "biblical" justifications for the application of the death penalty have involved Old Testament references or 1 Peter 2:13. O'Donovan was the first justification I have heard that was not a superficial reading of the Bible. Hauerwas writes about O'Donovan, "All Christians have to say that death is not part of God's 'original created order. Death is not just death, but judgement on sin. Without such a view on the linkage between judgement and death Christ becomes another victim of injustice rather than one that bore our sins and suffered our death" (Hauerwas 67). This is a very thoughtful interpretation although I have to agree with the author when he noted that the crucifixion transformed punishment and death, it was not a static symbol for sin and judgement. I also think the ideas of integrating hope and reconciliation into our prison systems can be very effective. Without such ideas, there is not bridge between prison and life after prison. A prisoner cannot enter back into a community in a positive way without hope of a better life and reconciliation with its members.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Jewish and Protestant Tradition
In this section, David Novak and Gilbert Meilaender discuss the Jewish and Protestant tradition respectively in regards to its approach to the topic of the death penalty.
In "Can Capital Punishment Ever Be Justified in the Jewish Tradition?" David Novak uses the Torah and the Talmud to support his beliefs on the Jewish approach to capital punishment. One of the first points he made was a precaution to the reader before taking any sides of the debate, "In the process of becoming more normatively focused, such specific judgements only tentative and suggestive at present, should still have some direct relevance to a particular situation or case of deep moral concern" (32). Novak is advising the reader to make sure their position on capital punishment is not abstract but can make logical sense within the context in the world. He cites the examples of Osama Bin Laden and Adolf Eichmann as references. Novak goes on to make a distinction between private crimes and public crimes. In private crimes, in which one person murders another person, one can only be sentenced to death on the principle of hatra'ah, or forewarning. The murderer must have been warned before committing the crime of what he/she was doing and the consequences by witnesses to the murder. This makes capital punishment very rare. In public crimes, which is when someone orders another to kill, the principle of forewarning is addressed differently. The person who ordered the crime is thought to have already known the consequences and therefore is subject to capital punishment.
In "The Death Penality: A Protestant Perspective," Gilbert Meilaender attempts to lay out the Protestant perspective on capital punishment. Meilaender is quick to note that there is no uniquely Protestant position on every issue unlike Catholicism. In Protestant Christianity, certain concerns (i.e. death penalty) are not forbidden or required but rather permitted. Meilaender defends the death penalty as public retribution referencing Genesis 9:6. He says that murder is private and demeaning to God's image but capital punishment is not also demeaning to God's image because it is a public and state act. This state act is on behalf of us all according to Meilaender. The author also agrees with Reinhold Niebuhr who distinguished between the equality of sin under God versus the inequality of guilt in the world. Meilaender says the the only reason we can execute someone is because our public order has been wronged, and not as a deterrent. He does not believe that the execution should be made public as it is making the death of the person a means to an end. Meilaender concludes his essay by reiterating Albert Camus that capital punishment would be least problematic in a genuinely religious society. He explains thus, "We would know that our earthly verdict could be overturned at the ultimate tribunal. in such a society it would make good sense, having sentenced a convict to death, to add, 'may God have mercy on your soul'" (55). Meilaender is stating that not only does Protestantism permit the death penalty, but in fact capital punishment is most appropriate in such a society due to the possibility of the correcting power of God's perfect justice.
There are many problems with the logic of Meilaender and his argument. He spends much of his essay quoting Bible passages about punishment as a response to the great harm our sin can bring to others. The author seems to want to treat punishment and the death penalty as one in the same instead of seeing the death penalty as a particular type of punishment that warrants a specific treatment. He spends too much time justifying why punishment is a God-ordained act rather than addressing the serious nature of the death penalty. Meilaender also claims that since the government is acting in everyone's behalf when executing someone, it is not demeaning to the image of God. But is the state really acting on everyone's behalf? What about the ubiquitous outcry surrounding the execution of Troy Davis in the last month whose conviction was founded only on circumstantial evidence? What about the fact that only 61% of Americans support the use of the death penalty in the case of murder? There is no truth to the statement that the government is actin on our behalf. Even if it was, it is logically fallible to say that because a group (the government) murders a person, it is not demeaning to God's image. A person made in God's image (Genesis 9:6) is still killed. How that person was killed does not matter. I also believe that his belief in the appropriateness of capital punishment in a religious society is flawed. It seems that saying our decisions on Earth (such as unjustly executing someone) can be corrected in Heaven by God is trying to cop-out of taking responsibility for our earthly actions. This logic can be extrapolated to justify any mistake we may make out of careless disregard.
In "Can Capital Punishment Ever Be Justified in the Jewish Tradition?" David Novak uses the Torah and the Talmud to support his beliefs on the Jewish approach to capital punishment. One of the first points he made was a precaution to the reader before taking any sides of the debate, "In the process of becoming more normatively focused, such specific judgements only tentative and suggestive at present, should still have some direct relevance to a particular situation or case of deep moral concern" (32). Novak is advising the reader to make sure their position on capital punishment is not abstract but can make logical sense within the context in the world. He cites the examples of Osama Bin Laden and Adolf Eichmann as references. Novak goes on to make a distinction between private crimes and public crimes. In private crimes, in which one person murders another person, one can only be sentenced to death on the principle of hatra'ah, or forewarning. The murderer must have been warned before committing the crime of what he/she was doing and the consequences by witnesses to the murder. This makes capital punishment very rare. In public crimes, which is when someone orders another to kill, the principle of forewarning is addressed differently. The person who ordered the crime is thought to have already known the consequences and therefore is subject to capital punishment.
In "The Death Penality: A Protestant Perspective," Gilbert Meilaender attempts to lay out the Protestant perspective on capital punishment. Meilaender is quick to note that there is no uniquely Protestant position on every issue unlike Catholicism. In Protestant Christianity, certain concerns (i.e. death penalty) are not forbidden or required but rather permitted. Meilaender defends the death penalty as public retribution referencing Genesis 9:6. He says that murder is private and demeaning to God's image but capital punishment is not also demeaning to God's image because it is a public and state act. This state act is on behalf of us all according to Meilaender. The author also agrees with Reinhold Niebuhr who distinguished between the equality of sin under God versus the inequality of guilt in the world. Meilaender says the the only reason we can execute someone is because our public order has been wronged, and not as a deterrent. He does not believe that the execution should be made public as it is making the death of the person a means to an end. Meilaender concludes his essay by reiterating Albert Camus that capital punishment would be least problematic in a genuinely religious society. He explains thus, "We would know that our earthly verdict could be overturned at the ultimate tribunal. in such a society it would make good sense, having sentenced a convict to death, to add, 'may God have mercy on your soul'" (55). Meilaender is stating that not only does Protestantism permit the death penalty, but in fact capital punishment is most appropriate in such a society due to the possibility of the correcting power of God's perfect justice.
There are many problems with the logic of Meilaender and his argument. He spends much of his essay quoting Bible passages about punishment as a response to the great harm our sin can bring to others. The author seems to want to treat punishment and the death penalty as one in the same instead of seeing the death penalty as a particular type of punishment that warrants a specific treatment. He spends too much time justifying why punishment is a God-ordained act rather than addressing the serious nature of the death penalty. Meilaender also claims that since the government is acting in everyone's behalf when executing someone, it is not demeaning to the image of God. But is the state really acting on everyone's behalf? What about the ubiquitous outcry surrounding the execution of Troy Davis in the last month whose conviction was founded only on circumstantial evidence? What about the fact that only 61% of Americans support the use of the death penalty in the case of murder? There is no truth to the statement that the government is actin on our behalf. Even if it was, it is logically fallible to say that because a group (the government) murders a person, it is not demeaning to God's image. A person made in God's image (Genesis 9:6) is still killed. How that person was killed does not matter. I also believe that his belief in the appropriateness of capital punishment in a religious society is flawed. It seems that saying our decisions on Earth (such as unjustly executing someone) can be corrected in Heaven by God is trying to cop-out of taking responsibility for our earthly actions. This logic can be extrapolated to justify any mistake we may make out of careless disregard.
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