IN THEORY
Q: Before he was executed this week, many argued that Stanley Tookie Williams had been rehabilitated. Others argued that his lack of contrition and the nature of his crimes justifiably doomed him to execution. Do you agree? Is the death penalty a morally acceptable form of punishment?
A:
By the time this article is printed,
talk of Tookie will be at a minimum, if there is a murmur about
him at all. The greatest tragedy associated with the death
penalty is that it desensitizes us to death and therefore life.
We begin to think that justice can be delivered as a commodity -
an eye-for-an-eye - rather than a response which warrants
sensitivity, especially for the victims!
Today a great injustice is happening in Darfur. Tens of
thousands of people are being murdered just as they were being
killed in Rwanda a decade ago. It's not that we don't care; it's
just that we've become so immune to killings and violence that
we understand life as numbers rather than flesh, blood and
souls. And when the State executes someone, we receive a booster
shot to our immune system. So four days later we've forgotten
about Tookie, subsequently, we close our eyes to mass murder
such as Genocide.
Stan Tookie Williams died. Four others died because he shot
them. Hundreds of others have been and are being killed by gang
violence. Over a 2000 of our troops have died in Iraq. And on
the "other" side, 30,000 Iraqis have died since the start of the
war. Add to that the 29,000 kids who die each day because of
hunger and the statistics and numerical values of life and death
become overwhelming to the point of desensitization. So when we
hear that 1.5 million Armenian were murdered in the Genocide of
1915, we accept it as a statistic to history, rather than a call
to action against injustice in the world.
It all begins when we tune-out the value of the life of one man,
even if he be a criminal. John Donne described it so eloquently,
"No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of
the continent, a part of the main... Any man's death diminishes
me because I am involved in mankind; therefore never send to
know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
The Death Penalty does not bring about justice. It only punishes
us, those who remain to see another injustice.
FR. VAZKEN MOVSESIAN
Armenian Church
Youth Ministries
In Context
Before he was executed this week, many argued that Stanley Tookie Williams had been rehabilitated. Others argued that his lack of contrition and the nature of his crimes justifiably doomed him to execution. Do you agree? Is the death penalty a morally acceptable form of punishment?
Is the death penalty moral? If anyone can speak with authority about morality it is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ".
When God reestablished society after the flood, He told Noah, "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man." (Genesis 9:6).
When God gave His law to Israel, His words to Moses were clear: "He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death." (Exodus 21:12).
Note that in these verses God distinguishes between murder and execution, something death penalty opponents fail to do. Elsewhere in Scripture God distinguishes between murder and the killing of enemies during war, which anyone who values our national freedom must do.
In His law God also distinguished between premeditated murder and accidental manslaughter. The person guilty of the latter was allowed to live, though confined in one of six cities of refuge in Israel.
When Jesus came upon the crowd about to stone the adulterous woman, His dispute with them was about the legality of the proceedings, not about the intended punishment prescribed by the Mosaic Law.
Times may have changed since God spoke to Noah and to Moses, since Jesus' encounter with the adulteress. But God hasn't changed. Neither has humanity. And neither has morality.
JON BARTA
Valley Baptist Church
Burbank
Morality is not determined by man, but by God. If that were not the case then it's feasible that people, left without His spiritual compass, may one day vote that murder and drug-dealing are no longer criminal, and that robbery and rape should be left "to each his own." In this day of moral relativity, people are very limp-wristed when it comes to judging wrong from right.
Tookie Williams "took" four people's lives at different times with a shotgun. These are only the ones we know about and for which he was actually caught and convicted, but what sort of person crosses the line from misdemeanor to murder? The same sort that founded the Crips, the most crooked, crack-dispensing, cutthroat band of street thugs with which this country has ever had to deal. To join Tookie's "fraternity," one needs only commit a crime or submit to gang-rape. Real salt-of-the-earth, these folks!
Those that believe the man had reformed his ways would have much to prove beyond the fact that he eventually regretted the lifestyle that earned him a concluding residence at San Quentin.
They'd have to show us that sitting in his cell writing kiddie books was absolute evidence of his rehabilitation.
Then they would have to explain why Tookie was still reportedly involved in acts of assault and battery while he was sitting on death row.
Even if the bleeding hearts could show that inmate C29300 had truly repented, it wouldn't be to society's advantage to forgo his penalty.
Jesus, the author of all Scripture said, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man" (Genesis 9:6). God will receive the truly converted, but man must remove the truly convicted.
This is morally right.
THE REV. BRYAN GRIEM
Senior Pastor
Light On The Corner
Montrose
The Biblical quote, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay" is the
first thing that pops into my mind when the subject of execution comes up. So I am against the death penalty, period. And I am probably in the minority, both in the country and in my church. Still, how can one human being kill
another, whether it be by shotgun blast or by lethal injection?
And what about the concept of rehabilitation? Don't we Christians believe in that possibility?
And does anybody really "deserve" to die? How can we possibly play God in this situation and pass the judgment that So-and-So "deserves"
death?
I am a patriotic American, but I must side with the Europeans on this one: the death penalty is barbaric.
On a deeper level I believe we keep alive the cycle of violence in our society when we tell an offender, "Killing is wrong.
And to show you how wrong it is, on such and such a day at such and such an hour, we law-abiding members of the state are going to kill you."
How cold and calculating to set a date for the execution of a citizen, and then prepare the "death chamber" and brief the "execution team" for what they must do!
We say we're against cold-blooded murder, but isn't that what happens
every time the state plans and carries out an execution?
I understand the need for justice, but I believe the death penalty is retribution. And every time we insist on an eye for an eye, we are the poorer for it.
THE REV. C. L. "SKIP" LINDEMAN
Congregational Church of the Lighted Window
United Church of Christ
La Cañada Flintridge