I had the incredible honor of hearing Sister Helen Prejean (known by most through Susan Sarandon’s portrayal of her in Dead Man Walking) speak. While already inspired by her life’s work, it was also amazing to me how she could weave in and out of humor and what is obviously an incredibly somber subject.

And so, it seemed fitting to address the matter of the death penalty as my next blog topic. While anyone following the subject knows of the incredible racial and economic disparities inherent in the judicial system, Sister Helen pushed this point even further, asserting that it epitomizes our different wounds — racism, prejudice, and reliance on violence to solve problems we fear.

And so the question for me as a Christian has always been, “When is murder justified?” Never mind the many innocents the state has put to death…even in the case of guilt, how is it that “Thou shall not kill” applies to the individual, but not to the state? How is it we believe as a society that we can stop murder and violence by practicing murder and violence?

Christian proponents of the death penalty (who ironically tend to be “pro-life,” but clearly not in any kind of consistent manner) inevitably invoke Old Testament instances of God commanding humans to be his agents of justice through what would be deemed a death penalty. I am not one to throw out the Old Testament, as I believe the Word of God is just that and in its entirety. I would argue, however, that those instances were within a theocracy directly under the control of God Himself. I think it is safe to say that such is not the kind of society in which we live today.

And we now see lines blurring. We see Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. We see memos designed to circumvent the Geneva Conventions. Some 140 nations have outlawed the death penalty altogether, with another 30+ having a de facto ban, while the United States continues to keep not-so-great company in the 70 countries that still allow the death penalty (only one other of which is considered a ‘first-world’ country). [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html]

Amazingly, Sister Helen recounted an exchange in which she was told that God was in favor of the death penalty, not having stopped it in the case of His Son! Clearly, no one is gaining salvation or redemption through the murder of anyone not the Son of God, and the system cannot even offer the peace and comfort so often promised for victims. Instead, it is a system that continues to perpetuate the worst in our society, dehumanizing those created in the image of God (for yes, even the vilest offender is created in the image of God) and giving state sanction to violence, cruelty, inhuman treatment…and the very murder is seeks to condemn.

Do more…