Additionally, loving your neighbour means calling on God's mercy which is willing the Good of the other (the definition of "what is good?" is answered differently in Christianity).
Finally, not everyone is your neighbour (Jesus also acknowledged his enemies in Luke 19:27).
Indeed, but for this you need to let the person in question time to realise their errors and repent, which is impossible if you kill them.
> Additionally, loving your neighbour means calling on God's mercy which is willing the Good of the other (the definition of "what is good?" is answered differently in Christianity).
Calling on God’s mercy does not imply playing god ourselves and disposing of the lives of others.
> Finally, not everyone is your neighbour (Jesus also acknowledged his enemies in Luke 19:27).
It is not really relevant in this case, though. Murderers can be Christian as well and accept his “reign”. But yeah I take your point: the bible has a lot of inconsistencies.
“Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed,For in the image of God He made man." https://nasb.literalword.com/?q=Genesis+9%3A6
Romans 13:1-7 is a controversial section of Paul’s letters, because it implicitly contradicts the teachings of Christ if you stop in verse 1. If you look at the whole context of the passage, he seems to be placing conditions on verse 1 that would exclude pretty much every government in history.
As usual, it’s best to refer to Christ’s words in the gospels when you’re trying to understand his teachings. He preached nonviolent resistance, turning the other cheek, forbade oath-taking.
He did not say capital punishment is cool.
“Protestants” are not a monolith and can have very different ideas. And no, I was not thinking of good works, it’s more general than that. The New Testament is all about being merciful, letting go of hate and not seeking retribution. How we are supposed to act on those ideals is not always clear, but that is a recurring theme in the foundational book of all Christian denominations (the big ones anyway).
Anyway, that was mostly rhetorical. The actual reason is that religion is just a way of making a point without having to support it, the ultimate appeal to authority. These people are happy claiming that Jesus loves people, except for some scapegoats, whom he hates. It’s pathetic, really. I have a lot of respect for people who actually live in accordance with their principles, even if I don’t agree with them. None of the Christian I know who are like that support the death penalty.
I don't think you can deduce much about someone's character just because they go to church or call themselves religious.
Not to mention often times convicted but actually innocent criminals, which must mean straight to hell (although murder of guilty also is straight to hell).
But point taken and people do and read into things whatever fits them.
That's not to say that there isn't room for mercy when called for. Also, prudence should be exercised to the highest possible standard and then some.
No one has broken a Commandment by executing Ted Bundy for example, by defending from a hostile Army, nor by defending their own life from imminent murder by a criminal aggressor.
He explicitly forbade violence in all forms, with no exceptions for retaliation. And he went further to say you should respond to violence with nonviolent love and submission.
Christ would not endorse capital punishment of Bundy, soldiers in any army, or “stand your ground” style killings.
Christianity is not about allowing society be destroyed by its internal enemies such as criminals and their syndicates, nor about blanket injustice for victims, nor about allowing foreign armies to overtake it (often destroying Christianity). How ridiculous. Although that would be a convenient misinterpretation for wayward Christians, anti-Christians and society's enemies.
Imagine giving your statement to virtually any historical Christian Society of any significant size. Such flirtation with this type of interpretation has always been fringe at best or outright secular (from Christianity's enemies), and always incorrect.
I interpret Christianity to be following the teachings of Christ, rather than following post-Christ dogma that is frequently in open contradictions to Christ's teachings.
I encourage you to (re-)read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7, particularly relevant to violence are verses 38-48) and reflect on how those words might be compatible with state-sanctioned violence of any form?
I agree with you that this interpretation is historically one that has been fringe since the Council of Nicaea. That does not mean that it is incorrect.
Do you think Christ, who commanded "Do not swear an oath", "Do not resist an evil person", and "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (the word for 'enemy' here carried a nationalistic tone), would endorse any of the earlier-quoted uses of violence?
As someone who is very comfortable professing Christian ideas, I don't understand how you could present his commandments as anti-Christian. It is literally how he tells us to live.
I'm sure believers have jumped through the hoops required to justify it but from the outside, one would expect a country that is majority christian to oppose executions.
It's not the christianity per se that makes them bloodthirsty. Contemporary american evangelical christianity is a novel social-political-religious movement and in some theologically significant ways has broken with near-universal christian tradition. Trying to understand it purely as a religion is too incomplete.
We really should call them "dysangelical" when they bring death like this (as opposed to warning of death, which is in scope of euangel when there's also a way to avoid it).
There's also testimony of Jesus disrupting an instance of capital punishment (John 8:3–11). There may have been procedural issues in that case, of course – for example, no accusers are said to have claimed witness to the crime itself, which was legally required for an execution – but Jesus points this out after the mob has dispersed, not before, and many Christians interpret that verdict more generally.
In modern legal theory, we have a similar distinction, which you may know from Legally Blonde: malum in se (that which is inherently wrong) and malum prohibitum (that which is wrong because a lawful authority prohibits it). Example: endangering the safety of others by driving too fast is wrong in itself, while breaking the speed limit is wrong because the town said so.
The former type (moral, and in se) doesn't depend on the existence of a government or system of laws and justice. The latter type certainly does, and the wrongness of those things 1) is changeable at the will of the governing authority, 2) applies only to those properly under the authority, and 3) expires when the governing structure expires.
Christians believe the ten commandments are moral law, whereas when we get into the ins and outs of the ancient Israel system of justice, described at length in Leviticus, eg, we are seeing one civilization's implementation of that moral law into civil law, coupled with religious law and ceremonies that symbolized and pointed to deeper realities.
When Jesus says he does not abolish but fulfills the law (and he means all of the law, not just some laws), he can't mean you are now free to murder. He means if you murdered someone, you may yet receive eternal life and not eternal death, because he can pay the penalty on your behalf. He means he lived a perfectly moral life and can impute that to you. That's fulfillment of moral law.
It also doesn't mean eating pork was immoral and now it's moral. That dietary restriction was a malum prohibitum component of the ceremonial cleanness symbolism that was meant to point the Israelites to the reality of what happens to a soul that consumes unholy things. It was never immoral, only prohibited. But the law is fulfilled in that the symbol is no longer required. Jesus institutes a new symbol that fixates on his own holiness and cleanness imputed to us as if by eating it (the Lord's Supper). The early Christian movement quickly incorporated non-Jews who had no heritage of living under the authority of the Israelite state, which was, by this time, already expired/expiring, many times over through successive conquests and occupations by various other governments. Neither the non-Jewish Christians nor the Jewish Christians needed to abide by those laws, though many did for a time, as it was an integral part of cultural and religious custom.
Though, Jesus was subject to capital punishment, despite the original prosecutor (Pontius Pilate) claiming no lawful basis for the execution (Luke 22:66–23:25). This was presented as unjust, despite Jesus' insistence that it had to happen. This is a bit muddled as an analogy, but I see how some people might take "capital punishment is wrong" from it.
Anybody who professes to be a Christian or follower of Christ’s teachings who supports violence in any form is in fact living in contradiction.
You shall not kill!
What I don't understand. It is my impression that most of the US states that still have the death penalty, strongly oppose abortion. I find this a contradiction. And also these are the states that oppose abortion, at the same time are strictly against any kind of welfare "not our problem!".
I think it’s a question of agency. If you’re an adult that makes their own choices (crime, bad financial decisions, etc.), then you know what the consequences are.
If you’re an unborn child, you’re don’t have agency.
For some there’s probably deeper religious belief in good things (birth) being the work of God and bad things (crime, vice, death) being the work of Satan.
To your point there are plenty of competing religious teachings that could lead some to be pro-choice, pro-welfare and anti-death penalty.
The problem with your assertion is that you don't understand the rule book ( Murder is not the same as capital punishment.), and you have nothing for contempt for the said rulebook.