Bad argument
L'Osservatore Romano has- rather ineptly, both from the political and the theological points of view- compared the murder of Terri Schaivo with capital punishment.
While I share some of the Vatican's practical reservations about capital punishment- mistakes are sometimes made, and it's irreversible; besides, it is meted out disproportionately to the poor and to people of color- both Testaments of the Bible and Jesus personally endorsed, in the abstract, the right of the State to take the life of felons. Attempts on the basis of anecdotal opposition to capital punishment on the part of early Christian theologians to attempt to portray Christianity as originally opposed to the practice are as disingenous as attempts by the same method to sell the falsehood that early Christianity was, in the main, pacifistic.
One may well object to capital punishment on practical grounds. I have no quarrel with that; in fact, I'm inclined in that direction myself. But there can be no question that Christianity has historically endorsed the practice- and that Scripture does so. There is simply no comparision between a practice which admittedly may result in an innocent person being put to death by occasional accident, and one which deliberately aims at that outcome simply because that person's life is inconvenient.
While I share some of the Vatican's practical reservations about capital punishment- mistakes are sometimes made, and it's irreversible; besides, it is meted out disproportionately to the poor and to people of color- both Testaments of the Bible and Jesus personally endorsed, in the abstract, the right of the State to take the life of felons. Attempts on the basis of anecdotal opposition to capital punishment on the part of early Christian theologians to attempt to portray Christianity as originally opposed to the practice are as disingenous as attempts by the same method to sell the falsehood that early Christianity was, in the main, pacifistic.
One may well object to capital punishment on practical grounds. I have no quarrel with that; in fact, I'm inclined in that direction myself. But there can be no question that Christianity has historically endorsed the practice- and that Scripture does so. There is simply no comparision between a practice which admittedly may result in an innocent person being put to death by occasional accident, and one which deliberately aims at that outcome simply because that person's life is inconvenient.
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