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Edited on Sun Dec-04-05 07:35 PM by StellaBlue
Today we were watching the Sunday morning politics shows, as usual. The topic turned to Tookie Williams, the ex-Crip and convicted murderer whose fate is currently hanging in the balance as we await a decision from The Governator on whether to grant him clemency or not. So when Cokie Roberts and George Stephanopolous come down on the side of clemency, saying they think the death penalty should be abolished, my stepmother says, in an irate voice, AT the television, 'How would you feel if it was YOUR relative he murdered?!'.
I didn't get into a debate with her, but, rather, ignored her and the ensuing chatter amongst the family. But I started thinking more deeply and more specifically about why this sort of attitude, from someone who regularly harangues me about being a nonbeliever (though she doesn't got to church herself because, as she says, 'You can worship God without going to church') bothers me.
What bothers me is the total disconnect between the words of Jesus Christ and the political beliefs of his purported followers. Her attitude or 'fry em all and let God sort em out' strikes me as not only conventionally unfeeling and shallow, but also as offensively unChristian, even to me, someone who is largely anti-Christianity.
Was not Jesus's message, essentially and transformatively, about forgiveness? Was not Jesus willing to die himself so that others could be brought to the right path, be redeemed? Are we not exhorted by both Bible and pulpit to take up our cross and follow Jesus, to ask 'What Would Jesus Do?' and to be ever-ready to turn the other cheek, err on the side of forgiveness, and pray for the repentance and conversion of others, people just like Tookie Williams?
Surely it is better to allow Tookie to live, especially if he is indeed a changed man, one who has seen the error of his ways. Surely, if you are a Christian, you ought to be willing to give other people the chance to embrace what's right, to change the course of their lives, to seek repentance and atonement, and, ultimately, heaven? To lust after electric chairs and, as my stepmother advocates for Tookie, 'an old-fashioned public hanging', is to turn one's back on the message of Jesus. It is irrelevant whether the victims' families want him to be killed. Some of them surely do; others may not. But, it seems to me, to deny him the chance for transformation and forgiveness, as well as to deny possibly thousands of young boys (and girls) the opportunity to be changed by his anti-gang message, is to be not only hateful and unChristian, but to embody the very faults for which you want Tookie to die. The reason that pro-death-penalty Christians clamor for state-sanctioned murder is because they believe that the men and women on death row deserve to die. Perhaps this is true; that one who willfully takes the life of another might continue to live their own life, and that they might even one day be free and return to society, seems too much of an injustice for our consciences to bear. Gangbangers, child-rapists, serial killers... they all surely do deserve to die. But not only do these pro-death penalty Christians want to end the criminal's life; they want to do so because they believe in punishment in the afterlife. The believe these evildoers will go to hell.
And how Christian is it to call for the killing of another person because you want them to burn for eternity in a fiery pit? Surely, as Christians, they should afford these sinners the chance that Jesus afforded to them: the chance for repentance and conversion and transcendence. In this life.
Personally, I do not think that many of these people can be rehabilitated. Serial killers, child molesters, rapists, etc. - in my opinion they should all receive an automatic life sentence because they are a danger to society and cannot be rehabilitated. However, I am anti-death penalty. I do not want that blood on my hands.
Another thing I would like to point out is that this attitude is not so very different from the often-decried stance of 'fundamentalist' Muslims and 'Islamo-fascists': that all nonMuslims are by definition 'infidels' who deserve death. And, thus, hell.
I think the debate about the death penalty will remain forever unresolved in this backward, medieval country we live in. Most of the people who support the death penalty, I daresay, are people who believe in an afterlife and want to condemn these vile criminals to hell. And since we cannot even have a rational debate in this country about the role of religion in politics and culture, we certainly can't debate that. These Christians are afraid that, by letting the condemned live, they will escape their fate. They might not end up in hell.
But how Christian is that?
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