It appears that belief in an afterlife may be an important source of justification for death penalty....
***** ...Everyone must die. If we really believe in the afterlife, what is the problem? A death penalty is no more final than a lingering illness, or a traffic accident.
As it happens, the New Testament provides us the best type of incident, a lesson in the whys and wherefores of the death penalty.
Take the two thieves crucified together with Jesus Christ. One of them whined, ''You say you are the Son of God; why do you not free yourself and us with you, from this cruel death?''
He is immediately rebuked by the ''Good Thief'' -- "You know that we are here on account of our own crimes; and this man has done no wrong. We deserve what is coming to us. He is innocent of any evil.'' Whereupon, he turns to the Lord and says humbly,''Lord, remember me when You come unto your kingdom.''
Our Lord could have done exactly as the first thief advised. Instead of correcting the Good Thief, He promised him -- ''This day YOU shall be with me in Paradise.''
I find that very instructive.
-- Eugene Chavez (rechavez at popmail.ucsd.edu), June 08, 2000.
<http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003IER> *****
***** ...Albert Camus, a good agnostic guy who wrote "Reflections on the Guillotine" in 1957, said that people who have religious beliefs and believe in an afterlife, it's easier for them to support the death penalty than people who don't. I think that's interesting. And he adds, "Because the death is only a temporary punishment, and hopefully it saves people from the eternal punishment in hell."...
(Sister Helen Prejean, "Keynote Address" at the 1st National Meeting on Care of the Dying in Prisons and Jails, available at <http://www.soros.org/death/sisterhelentxt4.htm>) *****
Perhaps there is a hint of change even among the evangelicals, however:
***** Religions rethinking the death penalty
Sunday, August 8, 1999
By DAVID GIBSON Religion Writer
With the road to the death chamber finally paved for killer John Martini, there is a widespread sense that New Jersey is just now catching up to the rest of the country.
Thirty-eight states have reinstituted the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it in 1976, and New Jersey, which hasn't put a murderer to death since 1963, was among dwindling company in its refusal to execute any of its death-row residents. Only seven other states with death-penalty statutes have not executed a murderer.
Yet, just as the Garden State prepares to execute Martini -- on Sept. 22 by lethal injection, if all goes according to plans -- there are signs that the rest of the nation is undergoing an examination of conscience on capital punishment that could once again leave New Jersey out of step.
Experts say there are several reasons for this reconsideration. For one thing, the public's satisfaction with a robust economy and a sharply lower crime rate have softened attitudes, a change that is beginning to register in opinion polls. Although support for capital punishment remains quite strong, it is at its lowest point in more than two decades.
In addition, a spate of releases -- 76 death-row inmates have been found to have been wrongfully convicted, thanks primarily to new DNA technology -- has reinforced the chilling scenario of the government executing an innocent person.
But the most intriguing, and novel, factor in the renewed debate is the growing voice of Christian communities in opposing the death penalty.
"I can't help but think it is going to have an effect," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based group critical of how capital punishment is applied. "If it is a trend and if it starts to be affected by religious leaders speaking out on the issue, then we could see a change at the grass roots."
Anecdotal and statistical evidence both suggest the change is already under way.
This year, at least 11 states have weighed bills to halt or abolish capital punishment, and in February, the governor of Arkansas spared a death-row inmate for the first time since 1970. Also, four states have rejected bills that would have established capital punishment.
Of course, politicians rarely act in isolation, so it is no surprise that surveys show fewer Americans back the death penalty today than at any time in nearly 20 years.
In February, for example, a Gallup Poll pegged support for executions at 71 percent, down from a high of 80 percent in 1994. The poll also showed that an all-time high of 38 percent of Americans now favor life without parole as a substitute for the death penalty. (New Jersey does not offer the mandatory life option except in cases involving the killing of a police officer or the murder of a child during a sex crime.)
And data from the General Social Surveys, the most comprehensive picture of American attitudes, show that support for the death penalty has been sliding in recent years, down to 68.2 percent last year, the lowest level since 1978.
Moreover, the surveys' data show that opposition to capital punishment is at 24.7 percent, a high matched only once since 1980. And the number of those who say they are undecided about the issue -- 7.1 percent -- is the highest since the survey started in the early 1970s.
Clearly, a strong majority still wants at least some provision for capital punishment on the books. And the United States remains on pace to top 100 executions this year, the most since 1976.
But if the erosion in public support for executions is not yet dramatic or definitive, pollsters say it indicates a growing ambivalence toward the death penalty, and perhaps the leading edge of a trend that could presage a return to the attitudes of the early 1960s.
During those years, experts say, Americans were feeling secure with a low crime rate and a strong economy -- much like today's situation -- and as a result as many people opposed the death penalty as supported it.
"There is reason to believe that the effect we saw in the 1960s would be symmetrical today," said Tom Smith, director of research at the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, which conducts the General Social Surveys. "The fact that the 1996 numbers were down a bit and the 1998 numbers were down even more would be consistent with that trend."
What would be markedly different from the 1960s -- or any other time, for that matter -- is the potential for the Christian churches to turn public opinion against capital punishment.
Ever since the fourth century, when St. Augustine formulated a rationale for the death penalty, Christianity has allowed for the ultimate sanction.
It wasn't until 1956 that the first American denomination, the Methodist Church, formally opposed capital punishment. Although most other mainline denominations followed suit, issues such as the Vietnam War and civil rights displaced capital punishment on the religious agenda in the 1960s and 1970s.
In recent years, however, many Christian leaders have started speaking out against state-sponsored executions, none more prominent than Pope John Paul II.
Pope John Paul now regularly issues appeals on behalf of American death-row inmates. In January, in the wake of his visit to St. Louis, the pope had his first success when Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, a Baptist and a supporter of capital punishment, spared a murderer's life at the pontiff's behest.
"It is very clear that Catholic teaching and the leadership has turned a corner on the death penalty," said James Megivern, author of "The Death Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey," a 1997 publication. "All of this is beginning to get through, even to very conservative Catholics."
Catholic teaching now views the death penalty in terms of the "consistent ethic of life," holding that life is sacred from conception to natural death. The same argument is used by foes of abortion. Until recently, the church believed that governments had a legitimate right to put murderers to death. And until 1969, even Vatican City allowed the death penalty.
While Roman Catholics are the largest single U.S. denomination, with 61 million adherents, a development of equal significance is the nascent reconsideration of the death penalty within the evangelical Christian community.
This loosely defined but large and influential group of conservative believers has been "stalwart behind the death penalty," as one evangelical leader put it, especially in the South, where most executions take place.
Then came the February 1998 execution in Texas of Karla Faye Tucker. Tucker, 38, had been involved in a brutal double murder but became a born-again Christian and a model of rehabilitation during her 14 years on death row.
Although polls show a broad range of Americans recoiled at Tucker's death, her execution affected born-again believers in particular because they saw Tucker as one of their own, and because such prominent conservative evangelicals as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson campaigned vigorously to have her spared.
"I think to execute her is more an act of vengeance than it is appropriate justice," Robertson said.
Such statements prompted many evangelicals to look for the first time at research showing the economic, geographic, and racial disparities in the application of the death penalty, and at the apparent lack of any correlation between the use of the death penalty and lower murder rates.
That left only vengeance -- the "eye-for-an-eye" reasoning many Christians traditionally invoked to support capital punishment -- as a rationale. And that left many evangelicals uneasy.
In the wake of Tucker's execution, the influential evangelical magazine Christianity Today reversed its historical support for capital punishment in an editorial that declared "the death penalty has outlived its usefulness."
The magazine "took advantage of what was said by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson because we thought they opened a door to where people would hear them on this issue for the first time," said David Neff, executive editor of Christianity Today. "Now that the door has been opened, we are just waiting for the next case of an evangelical put to death to really focus people."
Other prominent evangelicals have come out against the death penalty, including John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, the advocacy group of the Christian right that sponsored Paula Jones' lawsuit against President Clinton.
Whitehead said he had always been "queasy" about capital punishment, but in the last two years decided to firmly oppose it on religious grounds. His institute now regularly takes death-row appeals, and he worked on Tucker's behalf. But Whitehead also cautioned that evangelicals have a long way to go.
"I'm one of the few loners barking with any stature saying that we should rethink this," Whitehead said. "It will take a shift in the [evangelical] leadership. The leadership is calling the shots."
And it is not just born-again Christians who are beginning to oppose capital punishment. Polls show almost no difference among followers of the various denominations -- or of other faiths -- whose support for capital punishment mirrors that of the rest of society. The thinking of many believers is that death is the proper -- almost merciful -- punishment for murder, especially if one believes in an afterlife where ultimate justice is dispensed.
Martini himself, who prosecutors say was raised a Catholic, has used this standard model of Christian thinking in seeking his own execution. In 1995, in his first affidavit petitioning the courts to let him be killed, Martini wrote:
"I believe I have a greater chance for religious absolution if I acknowledge my crime and take no further legal action to prevent my death."
<http://www.bergen.com/news/deathdg199908086.htm> *****
What might destroy belief in "an afterlife where ultimate justice is dispensed"?
Yoshie