Capital Punishment Essay - Christians and the Death Penalty

Christians and the Death Penalty

Almost all societies have dispensed with the principle of "an eye for an eye," and considered it a step toward more enlightened civilization. Christians who cite "an eye for an eye" in their defense of the death penalty are usually unaware of the strict criteria that God imposed before it could be used to take human life. The Old Testament also allowed the death penalty for crimes that today we consider less than misdemeanors -- clearly, the Old Testament law is archaic. Finally, Jesus himself argued against the principle of "an eye for an eye."

Most societies dispensed with the "eye for an eye" principle of punishment centuries ago; indeed, it is considered one of the great advances of civilization and criminal justice. We do not punish rapists by raping them, or arsonists by burning their houses down, or sadists by torturing them. Instead they are imprisoned, isolated from society where they can no longer do harm. There are three main reasons for doing so:

1. Any criminal justice system is inherently imperfect, and the human beings within it are inevitably fallible. Courts have a rich history of mistaken convictions; the Stanford Law Review has uncovered 350 cases this century where clearly innocent people were sentenced to death, 75 of them since 1970. Only God or an omniscient being would truly know what another person "deserves." And that would apply not only to questions of guilt, but questions of justness of punishment. Imprisoning people allows us to reverse mistaken convictions with the minimum of damage. For those inmates not sentenced to life, it allows them to re-enter society without being bent on a terrible vengeance.

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...Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them." (Matthew 5:17)

What Jesus meant by this is the subject of vigorous debate. However, what is obvious is that many laws changed under the New Covenant; Christians were freed from many of the ancient Jewish laws on circumcision, Sabbath-observance and temple sacrifices. So it is not a question of whether the Talmudic laws were changed or dropped; the only question is how many were. If some Christians maintain that at least the civil and criminal laws of the Talmud are still valid in their entirety, then we should expect that they actually subscribe to all of them. This would include the commandment requiring two or three eye-witnesses for a capital conviction, and the initiation of the death penalty in all the above instances. Needless to say, no Christian would ever agree to such a legal code.