We, the comrades of
Unit 1012: The VFFDP, give our utmost and Godly thanks to Brother John Ellis for
refuting Shane Claiborne’s article: "Christians
Are Why the Death Penalty Lives On,". We will now present his article:
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Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but
inwardly they are ravening wolves. – Matthew 7:15 (KJV)
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Condemning
the Death Penalty Requires Condemning God
By John Ellis
August 13, 2018
Over at Religion News Service, Shane Claiborne
pointed his finger at Christians and blamed them for the continued presence of
the death penalty. As a word of caution, Claiborne should be careful about
assigning blame for the death penalty. In doing so, his finger of blame points
at God, too.
His
willingness to stand as judge and jury over God doesn't surprise me since Shane
Claiborne adheres to Red Letter "Christianity." In a nutshell, that
means that he picks and chooses which parts of the Bible are authoritative and
which parts he dismisses.
My insistence
that progressive “Christianity” does not reflect the Bible’s definition of
Christianity is met with more pushback from acquaintances than almost anything
else I write. “You’re being ungracious, John,” friends assert. “You’re
judging.”
Why, yes, I
am judging, and I'm happy to be judged by the same standards. You see, unlike
progressive "Christians," I believe the Bible to be the
authoritative, inspired, Word of God. This means that when God reveals
something in His Word, I take it seriously and pray for the grace to not allow
shifting social trends to hold my response to God's Word hostage.
Claiborne's
article about the death penalty is a tragic demonstration of his low view of
God's Word versus conservative Christians' high view of God's Word.
Wherever Christians are most concentrated in America is where the most executions have taken place. While we Christians have prided ourselves on being pro-life on the issue of abortion, too often we have proven ourselves to be anti-life when it comes to capital punishment. The truth is that the death penalty has survived not in spite of Christians but because of them.
I have little
reason to doubt Claiborne's claim. It's his tone of judgment that I find
troubling. Blaming Christians for the use of the death penalty is like blaming
Christians for society's insistence that stealing is wrong, or that adultery is
wrong. When society adheres to God's ethics, then I'm not going to be surprised
if Christians are to blame.
The bigger
problem with Claiborne's argument is that he denies that the death penalty
adheres to God's ethics. However, in doing so, he must rebel against God's
direct Words in Genesis 9:6 that clearly command the death penalty:
"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made
man in his own image."
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[PHOTO SOURCE: https://twitter.com/williamtstew/status/1026272804201811968]
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Taking his
judgment of God up a notch, Claiborne goes on to compare defending the death
penalty to defending chattel slavery:
It does not take courage to say that slavery is wrong a generation after we have ended it. It takes courage to say that slavery is wrong when it is still legal and socially acceptable. So it is with the death penalty. I believe we will look back at the death penalty a generation from now just like we look back at slavery: with horror and shame, wondering how we ever thought it was OK and how we used the Bible to justify it.
Christians
use the Bible to call for (justify) the death penalty because in the Bible God
explicitly commands it. The rejoinder, of course, by Claiborne and his fellow
Red Letter "Christians" is along the lines of "Jesus taught love
and mercy."
Of course,
Jesus did. But Jesus also taught God's wrath and judgment for those who refuse
to conform to His loving and merciful plan. Integral to that is the requirement
that sin be punished, ultimately through eternal death under God's wrath. This
is why Jesus had to die on the cross; the sin of God's people had to be atoned
for.
God's command
that those who murder other humans be put to death is part and parcel of His
holiness and His requirement that sin be punished. To deny the justness of the
death penalty is to deny the character of God and to slander His very Words.
About John Ellis -
Having spent the first two decades of his adult life as a theatre artist
throughout the Southeast, John now lives in the DC area with his wife and two
kids. Besides writing, he works on the staff at his church. Prior to writing
for PJ Media, he was a columnist for No Depression. https://pjmedia.com/columnist/john-ellis/
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"If the truth offends, then let it offend.
People have been living their whole lives in offense to God; let them be
offended for a little while." - Dr. John MacArthur
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| [PHOTO SOURCE: http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2015/04/in-loving-memory-of-chuck-colson.html] |
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INTERNET SOURCE:
https://www.facebook.com/VictimsFamiliesForTheDeathPenalty/posts/1681906628597963
......... https://pjmedia.com/faith/condemning-the-death-penalty-requires-condemning-god/
Truth.. like article
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