Editor’s note: The death penalty is a controversial issue, but it is important, especially given the situation of violence in our country, for you to think about it, we bring you two articles, one for and one against, were written in The American Context, but the arguments seek to be rooted in the scriptures. Whatever your position, it’s always good to look at the argument on the other side. We hope the reading builds or challenges you.
The death penalty has been part of human society for millennia, considered the ultimate punishment for the most serious crimes, but should Christians support the death penalty today, especially in light of recent controversies surrounding it?
- It’s not just a matter of yes or no.
- On the one hand.
- The Bible clearly refers to the death penalty in cases of intentional murder.
- In Genesis 9.
- 6.
- God told Noah that the punishment for intentional murder would be death: “If someone sheds the blood of man.
- His will shall be shed by man; Why did God make man in his image?The death penalty is explicitly based on the fact that God created every human being individually in his own image and.
- Therefore.
- An act Intentional murder is an attack on human dignity and God’s own image.
- Anyone who intentionally commits suicide for murder loses the right to their own lives.
In the New Testament, in relation to authority (those who govern us), the Apostle Paul tells Christians that he “does not without reason bring the sword”. In fact, in this case, the magistrate is God’s vengeful minister. to punish those who do evil (Romans 13. 4).
On the other hand, the Bible states that there must be a high level of evidence to impose the death penalty, the act of murder must be confirmed and corroborated by the testimony of the accusers’ eyewitnesses, and society must take all reasonable precautions to ensure that no one is unfairly punished.
If the death penalty is permitted and even ordered in some cases, the Bible also reveals that all those who are guilty or complicit in murder should not be executed, just remember the biblical accounts of Moses and David.
Christian reflection on the death penalty must begin with the fact that the Bible establishes a society in which the death penalty for murder is sometimes necessary, but must be extremely rare.
The Bible also states that the death penalty, applied appropriately and appropriately, will have a powerful deterrent effect. In a world of violence, the death penalty can be considered a “firewall. “”Necessary against the growth of more deadly violence.
Viewed from this perspective, the problem we face today is not the death penalty itself, but society at large. American society [i] is rapidly adapting to the secular worldview and to the clear sense of good and evil that was Christianity’s gift to Western civilization is being replaced by much more ambiguous morality. Have we lost the cultural capacity to report a homicide, including a mass murder?It’s worth the death penalty. We have also stolen their deterrent power from the death penalty by allowing death penalty cases to weaken the legal system for years, through appeals often based on irrationality and irrelevance.
Moreover, Christians must be outraged by the unfair way in which the death penalty is often applied. Although the law itself is not affected, the application of the death penalty is often affected. For example, a rich killer is unlikely to be executed. However, there is a much higher chance that a bad killer will be executed. Because the rich can afford extremely expensive teams of defense attorneys who can exhaust the prosecution’s ability to get a death sentence even when the defendant is clearly guilty, this is a scandal and no Christian should endure such a disparity, as the Bible warns. , people should not be able to buy justice on their own terms.
There is also the broadest cultural context. We must recognize that our cultural loss of trust in human dignity and the secularization of human identity have made murder a less heinous crime in the minds of many Americans. Most do not accept this inferior moral assessment of the murder, but our legal system shows that this also takes into account that while most Americans say that the death penalty should be supported, there is a great variation in the way Americans in different states and regions see the problem, underlining this trend toward secularization.
We are also facing a frontal attack on the death penalty by legal activists and others determined to end legal executions in the United States. His intention is to make the death penalty so horrific in public opinion that support for executions disappears. execution with “cruel and unusual punishment”, although the Constitution itself authorizes the death penalty. It is a testament to the moral madness that managed to divert attention from the heinous crimes of a murderer and bring the death penalty to justice.
I believe that Christians should hope, pray and fight for a society in which the death penalty, correctly and rarely applied, has a moral sense, is a society in which all the rights of the accused are protected and with any guarantee that It would not be the social status of the murderer that would determine the sentence for the crime.
Christians must work to ensure that there is no reasonable doubt that the accused is truly guilty of the crime. We must pray for a society in which the motivation for capital punishment is justice and not just revenge. We must work for a society that honors all human beings at all stages of development and of all races and ethnicities made in the image of God, we must expect a society that supports and demands the application of justice to protect the very existence of that society. a society that correctly tempers justice with mercy.
Should Christians support the death penalty today?I think we should, but with the above detailed considerations.
Christians should help their fellow citizens by making them understand the problems. God told Noah that, because of human dignity, the murder penalty would be the death penalty. Our job is to make that clear to our colleagues.
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[i] N. E. : This text was published by the author taking into account the American context and the present day, but we, from Let’s Go to the Gospel, think that his general teaching is also important to our context.
At this year’s Conference of Pastors and Faithful Leaders, we want to invite mature pastors, leaders and Christians to consider the Apostle Paul’s call to renew our minds, living as people transformed by the Holy Spirit, in a comprehensive way consistent with our faith and referenced by the Word of God and thus demonstrating the superiority of Christianity over all the many other world visions that exist and are able to respond to the great questions and anxieties of the people around us, like light and salt in this world.
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