My Nonbelieving Friend Has a Point
I'm sure this one will spark some comments...
Since I consider myself to be an educated person, I'm quite embarrassed to admit that, until a few months ago, I had never really thought through my stance on capital punishment. I had always just accepted the notion that the death sentence was a legitimate form of punishment for society's worst criminals. After all, most of the Christian community I had been raised with supported the idea of the death penalty.
A few months ago I was in my yard having a conversation with my nonbelieving neighbor. Somehow we started discussing the subject of capital punishment, and he made a statement that stopped me dead in my tracks. Essentially, he said "pro-life Christians" are hypocritical when they oppose abortion with the all-life-is-sacred argument but turn around and support the death penalty in the same breath. His words cut to my heart because I believe he was right--and I had been a hypocrite.
Ironically, that very night I began to think about the life of the apostle Paul, and I was soon convicted of another reason to change my stance on the death penalty. The story of Paul's conversion tells us that no person is unredeemable. While we don't have any Biblical evidence that Paul actually murdered anyone, we do know that he was actively pursuing Christians for the purpose of turning them over for execution. Moreover, we know that Paul was at Stephen's stoning, "giving approval to his death" (Acts 8:1). If not committing murder directly, Paul certainly had a murderous heart.
In today's America, many people would scream "death penalty" at the top of their lungs for anyone who behaved as the pre-converted Paul behaved. Yet Paul was redeemed! He was actively trying to destroy Christians and their faith, but even he was not immune to the saving, loving, life-changing power of Jesus Christ.
I don't know how everyone else at Every Square Inch feels, but I can no longer support the idea of capital punishment. What if Roman society had been different and considered the pre-converted Paul a criminal who was worthy of the death penalty? We'd be missing half of the New Testament. I can't feel comfortable about supporting capital punishment and by implication making the determination that some people have passed a point of redemption. That's just not my call.
Besides, we all deserved the death penalty. Praise God that Jesus paid the price.