PeaceSigns - Peace and Justice Support Network E-Zine

Menu

Column: Balancing Acts

Issue: June 21, 2005

Oz and the death penalty
by Tom Beutel
June 21, 2005

Send this article to a friend
Printer friendly format
Respond to this article
Advertise in PeaceSigns
Webmasters: link to us

Tom Beutel In May, our family attended a performance of The Wizard of Oz done by the drama department at the university where I teach. The department typically does a good job with their productions and, like many people, we had seen the Oz movie on television almost every year as children and with our own children. I was looking forward to an evening of familiar enjoyment.

God calls us to action-and that action arises from our worship, where we come to understand that God calls us to both charity and justice:
Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, "Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land." Deuteronomy 15:11
Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:23-24
I was not prepared for my feelings when the Munchkins joyfully burst into "Ding dong, the witch is dead!" My reaction was not one of pleasant familiarity. Rather, I felt sadness and dismay as I realized that what was being celebrated was death, albeit of an "evil" person. Contrast this with God's statement in Ezekiel 33:11:

Say to them, as I live says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live. (NRSV)

As I related this incident in Sunday school the next day, I was gently told, "It's all right, it's only a story. The witch isn't really dead." Well meaning (and true) as this statement was, the fact is that in "real life" we, like the Munchkins of Oz, seek and celebrate the death of evildoers in many ways, including through the death penalty.

Around the same time as the play was being performed, I was part of a conference call for the Ohio Conference Peace, Justice and Service Commission (Mennonite Church USA), during which we discussed how to encourage Ohio Conference to support and act on the Death Penalty Resolution passed by MC USA delegates in Nashville in 2001 (see <http://www.mennoniteusa.org/nashville2001/index.html>). Since I had not really been thinking about this issue before, and since I don't believe in coincidences, I concluded that God must be leading me to learn more about the death penalty and perhaps make it a focus of this column.

As I reread sources I had read before and studied new ones, it was obvious there is a lot of excellent information on the Christian response to the death penalty. Several of the main points and resources for further study are:

Third Way Café/Beyond the News/Capital Punishment, condensed from interviews with people associated with Christian responses to capital punishment, including Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking; see <http://www.thirdway.com/btn/capital_punishment/>.
Mennonite Central Committee/Death Penalty Statement, an explanation of the Anabaptist understanding of the Christian response to the death penalty, reasons for opposing the death penalty and alternatives to the death penalty; see <http://www.mcc.org/us/washington/issues/criminaljustice/deathpenalty.html>.
Peace and Justice Support Network/Death Penalty, PJSN links to information on the death penalty, at <http://peace.mennolink.org/deathpenalty.html>; see in particular "Congregational Follow-up Resources" at <http://peace.mennolink.org/articles/deathpenaltyf.html>.
Death Penalty Information Center, a thorough collection of facts and issues related to the death penalty, primarily in the United States; see <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/>.

As you study these materials, and think and pray about this issue, some of the most compelling points you will encounter are:

The death penalty has not proven to be a deterrent to capital crimes including murder. According to the "Congregational Follow-up Resources for the Death Penalty Resolution" (<http://peace.mennolink.org/articles/deathpenaltyf.html>): "Governments that have enacted the death penalty continue to have higher murder rates than those that have not."
The error rate for capital conviction is significant, making it all too likely that an innocent person will be executed for a crime that they did not commit. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, "Since 1973, over 100 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence."
There appears to be significant racial bias in sentencing and carrying out the death penalty. Again, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, "In 96% of the states where there have been reviews of race and the death penalty, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-offender discrimination, or both."
The death penalty is not commanded, nor consistently followed, by God. One of the verses most used to justify the death penalty, Genesis 9:6, says: "Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind" (NRSV). However, there is convincing evidence that this verse is not to be interpreted as a command but as a sort of wisdom statement, along the lines of "live by the sword, die by the sword," a statement of the natural consequences of a violent life. God does not kill, but rather protects Cain, the first murderer, and neither Moses nor David, both guilty of murder, are subjected to the death penalty, but are instead used by God.
Affirming Jesus as Lord means not retaliating. Glen Stassen and David Gushee, in Kingdom Ethics (Intervarsity Press, 2003), begin their examination of the death penalty not with the effectiveness of deterrence, nor with the error rate of capital convictions or the apparent racial bias, nor even with whether or not the death penalty is commanded by God. They begin by affirming Jesus as Lord and examining his teachings. One of their main points is that, while Jesus talked of the wrongness of murder, he did not prescribe death as the punishment. Jesus consistently calls his disciples to suffer wrong without retaliation and models this himself on the cross. Beyond non-retaliation, Jesus commands us to love and pray for our enemies. From society's point of view, a murderer is certainly an enemy.

There are things each of us can do with respect to this issue of the death penalty.

Pray for victims, offenders and their families.
Write letters to the editor of local newspapers opposing the death penalty or calling for a moratorium, as suggested in the Mennonites' Nashville 2001 Resolution (<http://peace.mennolink.org/articles/resdp.html>).
Take action against the death penalty through Amnesty International at <http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-index-eng>.
Encourage states to declare a moratorium on use of the death penalty at The Moratorium Campaign, the website of Sister Helen Prejean, <http://www.moratoriumcampaign.org/>.