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Christianity
produces a system of laws and justice that puts a high premium on both personal
moral responsibility and the sanctity of human life. For this reason, the punishment
of murderers has been taken with great seriousness. Those who take a human life
with premeditation were understood to forfeit their own. - R. Albert Mohler Jr.
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[The Post-Christian Condition –
Anders Breivik and the Limitations of Justice Fri, Apr. 20, 2012
Posted: 10:13 AM EDT] [PHOTO SOURCE: https://quozio.com/quote/8zh58xvsz6bv/1295/christianity-produces-a-system-of-laws-and-justice-that] |
We stand
with Theologian R. Albert Mohler, Jr. with his endorsement for the death
penalty for the Boston Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. We know that the God of the Holy
Bible, is not anti-capital punishment but he commands that the state executes murderers.
We will post a quote from different Christians in this
article:
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And Jesus said this to
Peter. Matthew 26:52, "Put your sword back in its place. For all those who
take up the sword shall perish by the sword". What was Jesus saying? If
you take that mans' life, you have to give your life. You can't use that sword
to kill somebody with impunity. You take his life, they have a right to take
your life. Jesus said all those who take up the sword are gonna die by the
sword. All who kill will themselves die. And thus did Jesus uphold the law of
capital punishment.
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- John F. MacArthur [PHOTO SOURCE: https://quozio.com/quote/xthdn2rmx7ks/1004/and-jesus-said-this-to-peter-matthew-2652-put-your-sword] |
The death penalty and the American
conscience
R. Albert Mohler, Jr. | The Biden
administration contradicts itself on capital punishment
The death penalty is back in the headlines and back before the Supreme Court.
It is the issue that erupts again and again, revealing a basic moral fault line
that runs right through the American people—and perhaps through the American
heart. The situation is also very confusing, and the confusion starts in the
Oval Office.
President Joe Biden seems to believe that the death penalty is a very bad idea,
except when it isn’t. He ran for president on a pledge to end federal
executions, tweeting: “Because we can’t ensure that we get these cases right
every time, we must eliminate the death penalty.”
Soon after his election, his spokesperson T.J. Ducklo said Biden “opposes the death penalty now and in the future.” In June, under increased pressure from opponents of the death penalty, Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced a moratorium on federal executions.
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The church tradition
does not condemn or refuse the death penalty, Christ Himself was crucified, He
went through the death penalty, but He has never said that criminals shouldn't
be executed and holy fathers don't say it either. Rejection of the death
penalty is not the result of Christian tradition, but the result of a new
liberal philosophic idea that appeared in West European space. - Patriarch
Kirill of Moscow
And yet, earlier this month the Biden administration went before the Supreme Court to argue for the reinstatement of the federal death penalty in the case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. With his older brother, Tamerlan, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev planned and carried out the deadly 2013 bombings. Tamerlan was later killed in a shootout with police, after the brothers had murdered a police officer in the wake of the bombing.
Captured after a massive manhunt, Dzhokhar was arrested, tried, and convicted of 30 crimes, including murder and using a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection on six capital counts. Tsarnaev later appealed the death penalty sentence, and the U. S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned his death penalty sentence, largely based on charges that evidence had been wrongly excluded from Tsarnaev’s trial.
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For in this case a prince and lord must remember
that according to Romans 13 [:4] he is God’s minister and the servant of his
wrath and that the sword has been given him to use against such people. If he
does not fulfil the duties of his office by punishing some and protecting others,
he commits as great a sin before God as when someone who has not been given
the sword commits murder. If he is able to punish and does not do it—even
though he would have had to kill someone or shed blood—he becomes guilty of
all the murder and evil that these people commit. For by deliberately
disregarding God’s command he permits such rascals to go about their wicked
business, even though he was able to prevent it and it was his duty to do so.
This is not a time to sleep. And there is no place for patience or mercy. This
is the time of the sword, not the day of grace.
The Trump Administration had asked the Supreme Court to reinstate Tsarnaev’s death sentence. But the really interesting development came when the Biden Administration continued to make the same case to the Court. President Biden said he was against the death penalty, his attorney general announced a stop to federal executions, and yet attorneys for the same administration recently went before the Supreme Court to argue for the reinstatement of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence? That’s exactly what happened.
What explains this apparent contradiction? We should note that Tsarnaev’s trial
was moved to the federal court so that the death penalty could be applied.
Massachusetts does not have a death penalty, but the crimes of the Tsarnaev
brothers were so heinous that the public rightly demanded the death sentence.
That death sentence was sought by the Department of Justice while Barack Obama
was president of the United States and Eric Holder was his attorney general.
Both had been very critical of the death penalty but allowed federal
prosecutors to seek the death sentence in this case. Now, the Biden
Administration seems to be asking for the reinstatement of a death sentence it
will not carry out?
At the high court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted the contradiction in the
administration’s argument. “I’m wondering what the government’s endgame is
here,” the justice wondered aloud. The American people must be wondering as
well.
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"If a man
is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some
wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the
common good is to be commended. Only the public authority, not private
persons, may licitly execute malefactors by public judgment. Men shall be
sentenced to death for crimes of irreparable harm or which are particularly
perverted."
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St. Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologica, 11; 65-2; 66-6. [PHOTO SOURCE: http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2016/01/saint-thomas-aquinas-on-death-penalty.html] |
Why would the Biden Administration make apparently contradictory arguments on a matter of life and death? The clearest explanation is that the president knows that a clear majority of the American people believe in the death penalty for premeditated murder, especially mass murder. Like President Obama, President Biden is not about to deny that the death penalty fits the crime in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The bare political truth is that the American people know by moral conscience that at least some crimes demand the ultimate punishment by law.
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‘Pope Francis is dead
wrong about capital punishment. God has commanded government to use the death
penalty to demonstrate the seriousness of murder: “Whoever sheds man’s blood,
by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis
9:6).’ - Pastor Robert Jeffress versus Pope Francis
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[PHOTO SOURCE: https://twitter.com/williamtstew/status/1026272804201811968] |
This is not evidence of bloodlust or revenge, but of the basic hunger for justice that can only be explained by the fact that God made us in his image as moral creatures. Furthermore, the Noahic Covenant, found in Genesis chapter 9, demands the death penalty for a willful act of murder, precisely because murder is the intentional killing of a fellow image-bearer.
Nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more
than disregard for the sanctity of human life. And it is this same atrophy of
moral fiber that appears in the plea for the abolition of the death penalty. It
is the sanctity of life that validates the death penalty for the crime of
murder. It is the sense of this sanctity that constrains the demand for the
infliction of this penalty. The deeper our regard for life the firmer will be
our hold upon the penal sanction which the violation of that sanctity merit. (Page 122 of Principles of Conduct) - John Murray
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[http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2014/05/john-murray-on-sanctity-of-life.html] |
If you accept that the death penalty is demanded by any crime, you are not categorically opposed to the death penalty. A responsible society reforms the criminal justice process in order to improve the justice of the entire system, and that includes the death penalty. But we need political leaders who speak consistently, and avoid saying one thing on the campaign trail and another thing when before the Supreme Court.
The crimes of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev cry out for the death penalty, and the American people know it. It’s high time for an honest conversation about the death penalty and the future, and the American people deserve a straight answer on the issue, right from the Oval Office.
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The evangelical
commandment of "non-resistance to evil" teaches humility and
generosity in personal matters, and not limpness of will, not cowardice, not
treachery and not obedience to evildoers. – Ivan Ilyin
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[PHOTO SOURCE: https://quozio.com/quote/hd3vsqqs2jj3/1174/the-evangelical-commandment-of-nonresistance-to-evil] |
R. Albert Mohler Jr. - Albert Mohler is president of The Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary and Boyce College and editor of WORLD Opinions. He is also
president of the Evangelical Theological Society and host of The
Briefing and Thinking in Public. He is the author of several books,
including The Gathering Storm: Secularism, Culture, and the Church. He is
the seminary’s Centennial Professor of Christian Thought and a minister, having
served as pastor and staff minister of several Southern Baptist churches.
OTHER LINKS:
https://answersingenesis.org/sanctity-of-life/capital-punishment-today/
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT EXPLAINED
https://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-sixth-commandment-explained.html
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