Capital Punishment: A Personal Statement (Chuck Colson)

Prison Fellowship By Charles W. Colson Chuck Colson's spiritual pilgrimage reaches yet another point of significant change

As we Christians grow and cultivate the disciplines of reading and study, we sometimes alter our views. Sometimes these views even change dramatically. No one knows this better than I, having been dramatically converted to Christ and, subsequently, having my entire worldview turned upside-down.

There was a time, for example, when I thought John Locke's understanding of social contract was the ultimate theory of government. I now see that government draws its authority less from the consent of the governed than from a sovereign God. I have come to another of those points in my spiritual pilgrimage in which my views have undergone significant change.

I owe it to those who have followed my work and to the constituency of Prison Fellowship to give the reasons. For as long as I can remember, I have opposed capital punishment. As a lawyer I observed how flawed the legal system is, and I concluded, as Justice Learned Hand once remarked, that it was better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be executed. I was also influenced by very libertarian views of government; I distrusted government too much to give power to take a human life to the judicial system.

Then as I became a Christian, I was confronted with the reality of Jesus' payment of the debt of human sin. I discovered that the operation of God's marvelous grace in our lives has profound implications for the way we live. Naturally, as I came to deal increasingly with ethical issues, I found myself seriously questioning whether the death penalty was an effective deterrent. My views were very much influenced by Deuteronomy 17 and the need for two eye-witnesses. I questioned whether the circumstantial evidence on which most are sentenced today in fact measures up to this standard of proof. I still have grave reservations about the way in which capital punishment is administered in the U.S., and I still do question whether it is a deterrent. (In fact, I remain convinced it is not a general deterrent.)

But I must say that my views have changed and that I now favor capital punishment, at least in principle, but only in extreme cases when no other punishment can satisfy the demands of justice.

The reason for this is quite simple. Justice in God's eyes requires that the response to an offense - whether against God or against humanity - be proportionate. The lex talionis, the "law of the talion," served as a restraint, a limitation, that punishment would be no greater than the crime. Yet, implied therein is a standard that the punishment should be at least as great as the crime. One frequently finds among Christians the belief that Jesus' so-called "love-ethic" sets aside the "law of of the talion." To the contrary, Jesus affirms the divine basis of Old Testament ethics. Nowhere does Jesus set aside the requirements of civil law.

Furthermore, it leads to a perversion of legal justice to confuse the sphere of private relations with that of civil law. While the thief on the cross found pardon in the sight of God ("Today you will be with me in Paradise"), that pardon did not extend to eliminating the consequences of his crime ("We are being justly punished, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds").[1]

What about mercy? someone is inclined to ask. My response is simple. There can be no mercy where justice is not satisfied. Justice entails receiving what we in fact deserve; we did in fact know better. Mercy is not receiving what we in truth deserve. To be punished, however severely, because we indeed deserve it, as C.S. Lewis observed, is to be treated with dignity as human beings created in the image of God. Conversely, to abandon the criteria of righteous and just punishment, as Lewis also pointed out, is to abandon all criteria for punishment.[2]

Indeed, I am coming to see that mercy extended to offenders whose guilt is certain yet simply ignored creates a moral travesty which, over time, helps pave the way for collapse of the entire social order.[3] This is essentially the argument of Romans 13. Romans 12 concludes with an apostolic proscription of personal retribution, yet St. Paul immediately follows this with a divinely instituted prescription for punishing moral evil. It is for eminently social reasons that "the authorities" are to wield the sword, the ius gladii: due to human depravity and the need for moral-social order the civil magistrate punishes criminal behavior. The implication of Romans 13 is that by not punishing moral evil the authorities are not performing their God-appointed responsibility in society.

Paul's teaching in Romans 13 squares with his personal experience. Testifying before Festus, the Apostle certifies: "If...I am guilty of doing anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die."[4]

Perhaps the emotional event that pushed me over the (philosophical) edge was the John Wayne Gacy case some years ago. I visited him on death row. During our hour-long conversation he was totally unrepentant; in fact, he was arrogant. He insisted that he was a Christian, that he believed in Christ, yet he showed not a hint of remorse. The testimony in the trial, of course, was overwhelming. I don't think anybody could possibly believe that he did not commit those crimes, and the crimes were unspeakably barbaric. What I realized in the days prior to Gacy's execution was that there was simply no other appropriate response than execution if justice was to be served.

There are some cases like this - the Oklahoma bombing a case in point - when no other response is appropriate, no other punishment sufficient for the deliberate savagery of the crime. The issue in my mind boils down ultimately to just deserts. Indeed, just punishment is a thread running throughout the whole of biblical revelation. Moreover, there is divinely instituted tension that exists between mercy and justice - a tension that, ethically speaking, may not be eradicated. Mercy without justice makes a mockery of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. It ignores the fundamental truth of biblical anthropology: the soul that sins must die; sin incurs a debt that must be paid. Punitive dealings provide a necessary atonement and restore the moral balance that has been disturbed by sin.

Purification, one of the most central of biblical themes, reveals to us both the temporal and eternal perspectives on mankind. Purification comes by way of suffering; it prepares the individual to meet His Maker. God's redemptive response to the sin dilemma did not - and does not - eradicate the need to bear the consequences of our actions.

Which leads me to a second observation. The death penalty ultimately confronts us with the issue of moral accountability in the present life.

Contemporary society seems totally unwilling to assign moral responsibility to anyone. Everything imaginable is due to a dysfunctional family or to having had our knuckles rapped while we were in grade-school. Ours is a day in which "abuse excuses" have proliferated beyond our wildest dreams. We really have reached a point where the Menendez brothers plead for mercy - and get it! - because they are orphans, after acknowledging that they made themselves orphans by killing their parents.

Non-Christians and Christians alike are not absolved from the consequences of their behavior. Whether or not faith is professed, penalties for everything from speeding to strangulation apply to all. In American society today, people are literally getting away with murder, and the moral stupor that has descended over our culture reflects a decay, an utter erosion, of time-tested moral norms - norms that have guarded generation after generation. Can anyone really wonder why evidence of a moral dry-rot is everywhere?

I come to this view with something of a heavy heart, as some of the most blessed brothers I've known in my Christian walk were on death row. I think of Richard Moore in particular and, of course, Rusty Woomer, about whom I've written in The Body. I think of Bob Williams in Nebraska and Johnny Cockrum in Texas.

I have a heavy heart as well because I do not believe the system administers criminal justice fairly. It is merely symbolic justice to execute twenty-five people a year when 2,000 are sentenced. (Obviously, the system needs to be thoroughly revamped. Nevertheless, revamping the system, in order that punishment be both swift and proportionate, would accord with biblical guidelines and demands the Christian's engagement.)

But in spite of the flaws of the system, I have come to believe that God in fact requires capital justice, at least in the case of premeditated murder where there is no doubt of the offender's guilt. This is, after all, the one crime in the Bible for which no restitution was possible.[5] Lest we believe the Old Testament was characterized by indiscriminate capital justice, Old Testament law painstakingly distinguished between premeditated murder and involuntary manslaughter; hence, the function of the cities of refuge. Israel's elders, we can be assured, would have adjudicated well at the gate. In the case of involuntary manslaughter, deliverance out of the hand of the avenger occurred. In the case of murder, the convicted criminal was put to death.

Personally, I still doubt that the death penalty is a general deterrent - and strong evidence exists that it is not likely to be a deterrent when it is so seldom invoked. But I have a hard time escaping the attitude of the biblical writers, that judgment - both temporal and eschatological - is a certain reality for those who disobey or reject God's authority. We'll never know how many potential murderers are deterred by the threat of a death penalty, just as we will never know how many lives may be saved by it. But at the bare minimum, it may deter a convict sentenced to life from killing a prison guard or another convict. (In such a case no other punishment is appropriate because all lesser punishments have been exhausted.) And it will certainly prevent a convicted murderer from murdering again. In this regard, I find wisdom in the words of John Stuart Mill:

So in spite of my misgivings, I've come to see capital punishment as an essential element of justice. On the whole, the full range of biblical data weighs in its favor. Society should not execute capital offenders merely for the sake of revenge, rather to balance the scales of moral justice which have been disturbed.

The death penalty is warranted and should be implemented only in those cases where evidence is certain, in accordance with the biblical standard and where no other punishment can satisfy the demands of justice. In the public debate over the death penalty, we are dealing with values of the highest order: respect for the sacredness of human life and its protection, the preservation of order in society, and the attainment of justice through law. The function of biblical sanctions against a heinous crime such as murder is to discourage the wanton destruction of innocent life. Undergirding the biblical sanctions against murder[7] is the utter sacred character of human life.

The shedding of blood in ancient Israel polluted the land - a pollution for which there was no substitute - and thus required the death penalty. This is the significance of the sanctions in Genesis 9 against those who would shed the blood of another. It is because humans are created in the image of God that capital punishment for premeditated murder was to be a perpetual obligation. To kill a person was tantamount to killing God in effigy.[8]

The Noahic covenant recorded in Genesis 9 antedates Israel and the Mosaic code; it transcends Old Testament law per se and mirrors ethical legislation that is binding for all cultures and eras. The sanctity of human life is rooted in the universal creation ethic and thus retains its force in society. Any culture that fails to distinguish between the criminal and the punitive act, in my opinion, is a culture that cannot survive. In this way, then, my own ethical thinking has evolved.

I'm well aware that sincere Christians stand on both sides of this issue. One's views on the death penalty are by no means a test of fellowship. While we take no pleasure in defining the contours of this difficult ethical issue, the Christian community nevertheless is called upon to articulate standards of biblical justice, even when this may be unpopular. Capital justice, I have come to believe, is part of that non-negotiable standard. A moral obligation requires civil government to punish crime, and consequently, to enforce capital punishment, albeit under highly restricted conditions.

Fallible humans will continue to work for justice. But fallible as the system might be, part of the Christian's task is to remind surrounding culture that actions indeed have consequences - in this life and the life to come.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1]Luke 23:39-43. (back) [2]"The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment," God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 287-94. (back) [3]Carl Henry states the matter with characteristic clarity: "Where the state considers the life of a deliberate murderer to have greater value than the life of an innocent victim, it demeans the imago Dei in mankind and weakens the supports of social justice" (Carl F.H. Henry, "Perspectives on Capital Punishment," in Twilight of a Great Civilization [Westchester: Crossway, 1988] 71). (back) [4]Acts 25:11. (back) [5]Num. 35:31,33. (back) [6]J.S. Mill, Hansard's Parliamentary Debate (3rd Series; London, April 21, 1868). (back) [7]The prohibition against murder applied to premeditated murder, self-murder, accomplices to murder, and to those who possessed legal authority to punish murderers. (back) [8]W.C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward Old Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983) 91. (back)

Yes, in other cases they are 6 times more likely to get off death row, for example, constantly changing state laws.

The point for me is a biblical point:

a. does the total bible, to include the NT, require the death penalty

b. does it all the death penalty

c. does it ban the death penalty.

Biblically, "b" is the answer. Therefore, you are able to hold your position and still be biblical. It would be wrong for you, however, to tell a death penalty advocate that they were biblically in error.

You could tell them that given current circumstances they aren't making the best choice.

I read recently that there are those who have been sent to death row who should have been sentenced to a lesser murder charge, and that that is the only way people conclude that we have placed convicts on death row in error.

No one disputes their being murderers.

I would not tell someone who supports the death penalty that it was unBiblical. The problem isn't the Bible, it is all the corrupt prosecutors and judges who are willing to try and convict those whom they may actually believe may be innocent, even if they have to ignore the rule of law in doing so. to to many prosecutors, it is not about justice; it's about winning; and that is wrong.

Good.

You have your reasons. You have the experiences to have those kinds of reasons.

All I require is absolute certainty that the murderer is the one being executed. If that cannot be absolutely guaranteed, then I don't support the execution. When it can absolutely be guaranteed, then I have no problem with the execution.

If there was substantial physical evidence combined with sufficient circumstantial evidence supported by physical evidence, I would not have a problem sentencing someone to death. If the only evidence was eyewitness accounts, I would not sentence anyone to death, and would be very suspicious about the absence of any physical evidence, especially if the witnesses did not personally know the accused.

A larger problem is with prosecutors threatening more serious criminal charges than warranted only to get a defendant to plead guilty to a lesser crime even if the evidence of the lesser crime is weak at best.

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