Throughout human history the ultimate punishment for criminal offending has been death, and it has usually been afforded religious sanction. In penal codes, the death penalty is unique in being able to claim direct biblical or divine sanction. Over the past fifty years, however, more and more countries have been abolishing the death penalty, although it still remains on the law books of around half the countries of the world. Not infrequently, capital punishment is part of a larger apparatus of state-sponsored oppression. According to Amnesty International, "The negative correlation between execution policy and governmental respect for human rights throughout the world can be demonstrated over and over again."

Many Christians do not know how to respond to this situation. They feel caught in the tension between what they perceive to be the demands of justice on the one hand and the way of compassion and forgiveness taught by Jesus on the other. They might agree that Scripture should be the primary determinant of their ethical position, yet they come to opposite conclusions about what Scripture requires on this matter.

Arriving at an informed and authentically Christian position on the death penalty requires us to weigh a number of factors. There is the exegetical question of what a particular passage of Scripture means. There is the hermeneutical question of whether Old Testament teaching supersedes New Testament teaching on the issue. There is the theological question of whether a picture of God as Law-Giver OR a picture of God as Liberator-Redeemer should serve as the controlling paradigm? There is the pragmatic question of determining whether capital punishment is beneficial or harmful to society? And there is also the philosophical question of how we understand the nature and function of justice. Justice, after all, is a relative concept; no absolute yardstick exists for determining what constitutes a "just" penalty for a crime.

We have to decide whether our Christian view of criminal justice is conceptualized in retributive terms, with a leading concern being to "let the punishment fit the crime", or in restorative terms, with the key question being whether or not execution serves to restore the well-being of society and promote healing in the lives and relationships of those involved. Equally important is how we understand the relationship between justice and love, and the government's role in dispensing each.

At issue is whether Scripture prescribes capital punishment as a universal, timeless principle of social life, or whether its sanction in biblical times is best understood as a temporary arrangement employed by the people of God under certain historical circumstances but now superseded by a fuller Christian ethic.

Let us not argue on this issue, as on the issue of war, that two completely different norms apply to church and state. It is not morally defensible to do so. If we reach the conclusion that capital punishment is consistent with a Biblical-Christian ethic, then Christians must be prepared to participate in its enforcement. If we decide that capital punishment is contrary to such an ethic, then Christians should work toward its abolition in countries that still employ it and oppose all attempts to reintroduce it in countries that have dispensed with it.

In our view, we must concede that capital punishment is given divine sanction by Old Testament writers and that it played a significant role in the social order of ancient Israel. Its function, however, was not primarily to bolster notions of retributive justice but to express and preserve the holiness of God's people. Certain behaviours were seen as a source of contamination or pollution that could not be removed only by ritual expiation. In some cases this involved the destruction of the agent of pollution through death.

In the New Testament, it is the death of Christ that figuratively destroys the uncleanness of sin. This renders redundant all other means of religious atonement and paves the way for the forgiveness and restoration of even the worst of offenders. To appeal to the death penalty in Old Testament times and then to justify its use in penal systems of modern secular societies is therefore anachronistic. More importantly, the example, teaching, and saving work of Jesus Christ marks a significant shift in salvation history that summons a new way of responding to enemies.

The New Testament presupposes the existence of capital punishment (like slavery) in the wider community and provides no unambiguous warrant for its abolition. But the underlying redemptive ethic of Christian revelation runs counter to it, and it does so even more clearly than it does with respect to slavery. The way of love taught and embodied by Jesus does not overturn all political and judicial organs of social control. But it does challenge the practice of lethal retribution against wrongdoers, especially when it is done in the name of a divine justice that has vindicated itself in the criminal execution of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

We are aware that this position may challenge some Christians who would claim that abolitionism rests on nothing less than a fundamental misunderstanding of the holiness, righteousness and justice of God. For those, the Bible does not merely permit capital punishment; it enjoins it as a moral necessity. But one wonders what has become in all of this of the redemptive concerns of the Christian gospel, a gospel that proclaims God's saving justice toward all, even the worst of criminal offenders, even those who murdered Jesus Christ, the image of God par excellence.

Capital punishment is incompatible with a gospel of redemption and reconciliation. This is not to deny the seriousness of sin, the moral repugnance of homicide, the culpability of criminals or the validity of penal sanctions as such. But the moral order of God's universe is grounded in and preserved by something more profound than the need to balance rewards and punishments on earth.

Put positively, Christians should be the first to clamour for true justice, for redemptive justice, a justice that fosters healing and renewal, a justice informed by the spirit of Christ and not the letter of the law. Restorative justice cannot, of course restore the life and relationships of murder victims. But nor can retributive justice, for only God can restore life to the dead.

Restorative justice can however, bring as much good out of evil as possible. It is the restoration of peace and renewal of hope that manifests God's redemptive work of making all things new. That is the justice that is consistent with the core aims and intent of Prison Fellowship New Zealand and of the Rethinking Crime and Punishment Project.

1 Comments

1. Ross makes this comment

   Monday 30 November, 2009

   What to do with the person that is so dangerous they can not be relied upon to not create carnage in society.So dangerous they are a danger to those around them and a danger to those charged with their keeping as a custodian.A cocky doesn't tolerate a sheep killer dog. If the dog refuses to rehabilitate, it is in danger of losing it's life. Become a prison officer,see the change in those that truly make a commitment to Jesus. Note those that refuse to change, hopefully it's not your family they create havoc in.