Christianity Today has a regular feature, "The Village Green," in which three distinguished thinkers offer their perspectives on important issues in Christian life.  In the February 2012 issue, the feature offered three perspectives on whether it is consistent for pro-life evangelicals to support capital punishment.  

• David Gushee (a professor at Mercer) argued that while the death penalty has Biblical support, opposing it is more consistent with Christ’s loving and graceful nature.
• Richard Land (then the head of the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm) argued that capital punishment is just and Biblical, though he warned that evangelicals should be more attentive to the unjust use of the death penalty in America.  
• Finally, Glenn Stassen (then a professor at Fuller, now deceased) argued that evangelicals should not support capital punishment because it is vengeful, does not deter crime, is inconsistently applied and is contrary to many Scriptures against killing.  

While I respect these perspectives, I believe they are overlooking a key theological issue of overwhelming importance for this issue.

THE INJUSTICE OF UNDER-PUNISHMENT

In plain language, these authors fail to acknowledge that imposing the 'right' amount of punishment matters not just to the criminal, but also to the victim.  The punishment of the criminal renders justice not just to the criminal but also for the victim.  As Proverbs 21:15 tell us, “When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.”  The justice God promises us salves the pain of the victim.  This cannot be overlooked in discussions of penal reform.

In broad terms, seeking justice for the victim is one way we can work to fulfill the kingdom of God on earth – man’s highest calling.  In the words of Psalm 89:14, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of [the Lord’s] throne.”  Seeking justice is a way to render service to God and to our fellow-man; it is a way of showing victims (and potential future victims, the general public) the love and concern that God has for them.

Of course that does not mean that we must work for more punishment – more punishment obviously does not necessarily equate to more justice.  But crucially, it does not necessarily equate to less punishment either, because both too much and too little punishment are injustices.  While too much punishment is unjust to the criminal, too little punishment is unjust to the victim.  We feel the injustice when a brutal criminal receives only a ‘slap on the wrist’ for his crimes; is justice satisfied when a deposed tyrant enjoys his retirement on the Riviera?

Or in more relevant terms: is justice satisfied when a cold-blooded murderer spends the rest of his life in prison?  Prison can be dangerous and tedious, and it is certainly not a place anyone wants to be.  But American prisons include such features as free food, medical care, reading material, television, etc., and some prisoners may eventually even feel ‘at home’ there.  Is that sufficient justice to the victim?  Sometimes – but not always.

Consider the brutal criminals in the Petit family murders in Connecticut, where two evil men engaged in the prolonged torture, violent rape and multiple murders of a randomly-selected family, with no motive but to enjoy the suffering of others.  Injustice cries so loudly there… it screams through our prayers, through our reasoning, through our moral intuitions.  What should we do with these sadists?  Do they not deserve something worse than Bernie Madoff?  

This is the key question in the death penalty debate.  In cases of the worst evil, our hearts cry out for the justice of the most severe punishment.  To have sufficient  moral standing to justify eliminating the death penalty, ethicists like Messrs. Gushee and Stassen must explain how their reforms satisfy the victim's demand for justice.  They must provide us with a penal resource to satisfy our hunger for justice in the face of such evil, before we should consider eliminating the death penalty.  Life imprisonment is simply inadequate.  

THE RISK OF OVER-PUNISHMENT

While ignoring the injustice of under-punishment, all three commentators are acutely sensitive to the risk of over-punishment, particularly in light of the demographic evidence suggesting that racism taints our system.  Their conclusions are premised on numerous unspoken assumptions that bear further investigation elsewhere.  For now let us assume that their fears are justified given man’s history of racial antagonism – and in any event, whether or not racism per se accounts for these racial disparities, there are other endemic problems in the criminal justice system… all the problems endemic to humans, who operate that system.  We should assume that our judicial system is an inadequate instrument of God’s vision of justice.

But does the possibility of injustice in the application of the death penalty (whether caused by racism, laziness, greed, or any other human failing) mean we should prohibit it altogether?   It is often said that ten guilty men should escape rather than let one innocent man be punished.  But that truism ignores the dangers of under-punishment: when ten guilty men escape, ten hurting victims are denied justice.  There is injustice in punishing the undeserving too much and in punishing the deserving too little.  Neither is acceptable, but knowing that we must err on one side or the other, which side should we choose?

If we are considering that question from a Christian perspective, we should look to Scripture for guidance.  Interestingly, God explicitly commanded the ancient Israelites to impose the death penalty – in cases that now seem much too severe to our moral intuitions, and of course despite the fact that the Israelites were just as fallible and imperfect in their administration of justice as we are.  While there are obvious dangers in extrapolating from the law of ancient Israel to our current social conditions, there is nevertheless clearly something for us in God’s Word to the Israelites – something about God's attitude to the risks and dangers of the death penalty.  

It seems that God abhorred the injustice of inadequate punishment enough to direct fallen man to use the death penalty despite the fact that sometimes someone may be executed who deserves lesser or no punishment.  This suggests that God weighs the risk of under-punishment quite heavily when he balances it against the risk of over-punishment.  God's concern for the victim is more profound than we acknowledge.  While there is a real chance of injustice in the application of the death penalty, to wholly abandon it leaves some victims without justice.  How should we Christians understand the risk of injustice that seems to lie on both sides here?  

THE THEOLOGY OF INJUSTICE

That leads to the most significant omission among Christianity Today's commentators. How can any Christian discussion of the death penalty fail to mention the fact that the salvation of the world hangs on an unjust execution?  This fact, this uncomfortable but world-changing fact, demands recognition in this debate.  It makes our thoughts run wild… what would our theology look like if the Romans had abolished capital punishment?  What if they had sentenced Christ not to the cross but to life in prison?

This is a most uncomfortable thought experiment, and exploring it is beyond the scope of this comment.  We can simply say that the Cross resonates so loudly here, and rings the same tune it always does.  The Cross tells us that God's grace turns the injustices of this world (like a wrongful execution or an under-punished crime) into causes of redemption, healing and new birth.  The Cross argues neither for nor against capital punishment, but it reminds us that God can renew every unlikely and painful corner of human failing — no matter which side of the political aisle it falls on.

Despite our individual and collective failings, God commands us to seek justice – and then works redemption out of our failure to achieve it.  Knowing that eternal justice is in God's hands, here on earth we can only pursue worldly justice as best we can.  God affirms capital punishment in Scripture despite the imperfection of the fallen humans whom he commanded to use it.  When our reasoned and prayerful moral intuitions say that more punishment is required in the most heinous cases, the death penalty is appropriately among the options we should consider.

If you wish to discuss this post with me, I'd welcome receiving an email from you.  Please email me at language.on.holiday@gmail.com.