Can I Get an Amen?

When I was seventeen, I was living in Sweden, and despite the fact that the year was 1989, Sweden, for some reason, only had the finest American television from 1982. Falcon Crest, Dallas, Hill Street Blues…all of the greats. And I, being even more of a television junkie then than now (especially because there were no commercials on Swedish TV – yay socialism!), watched it all.

I was watching an episode of Hill Street Blues when my entire world changed. In it, a man was condemned to death for murder, and the show followed his last few days and hours, until he was strapped into an electric chair, and he was executed. I had never really thought one way or another about the death penalty up to that point, but for some reason, that moment of television when I was seventeen solidified the fact that, killer or not, deserving or not, just or not, the death penalty is cold-blooded killing.

If you haven’t had, at this point in your life, the opportunity to read all of the studies that show that the death penalty is doled out in a haphazard and racially disproportionate way, a quick trip to Google will give you the information you need. If you haven’t heard that the United States is the only civilized country that executes its citizens, Google will help you there, too. I’m not interested in having that debate. I’m also not interested in explaining to you why it is far more expensive to execute a citizen than to commit him to prison for life, nor will I argue with you about how the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to murder. I am not going to sit here and cite the hundreds of cases in which a person who was sentenced to death was fully exonerated through the use of DNA testing. Seriously, just Google it.

But this is what I will tell you: I am a Christian, and I don’t understand how any Christian can support the death penalty. Take away your bible verses, because you know as well as I do that the Bible says things that are pro-death penalty and anti-death penalty. And you can translate that “eye for an eye” thing in a multitude of different ways, so don’t throw snippets of bible at me out of context as justification. God hates it when you do that.

I just want you to think about religion and Christianity at its deepest form. What is it about? It’s about love. Loving your neighbors. Forgiveness and forgiving others their sin. Living in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, which means showing kindness and mercy. Even when it’s hard. Even when we want to be selfish and spiteful and we thirst for retribution. Even when our hearts cry because an innocent person has died at the hands of someone evil and hateful. It means having the trust in God’s wisdom to decide who lives and who dies, not ours.

You know that I read comments on USAToday.com like crazy, and I am perpetually amazed that, when there are articles about murders, so many of the comments, before the suspect has been tried or even found guilty, emphatically state, “Bring back the firing squad,” or “Put a needle in his arm!” I don’t understand how you can lust for the death of others, and still say that you love God. I don’t understand what it is about killing someone that makes you feel satisfied. Makes you feel like somehow the world has been restored. I don’t understand how you can say that, and sit your ass in church on Sunday, singing along to the words, “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me,” and then run out, seven minutes after church, screaming for the least of your brothers to fry.

I simply don’t think that God would be upset if we allowed those who have sinned to reflect and atone here on earth. I think that God would still be fully capable of making a decision at the gates of St. Peter when the time comes. I think that if we were a society that showed mercy, we might foster mercy in others. I think that bloodlust is a sin against God, and we should work harder on that one. I think it dishonors the victims, by closing the chapter of their murder with a murder of our own. I just don’t think it is what Jesus would do.

If we are really going to try to be Christian – to live in the image of Christ – then we can’t just say we value life when it comes to unborn children. We have to value the life that is here on earth, even when those who stand before us, accused and convicted, do not. If we believe that God judges others, then we must recognize that God judges us as well, and that refusing to show mercy for others, simply because they did not show mercy for their victims, is not going to score us a lot of points with the big guy. If we are Christian, we will not kill.