Issue 032 PDF Version - Christian Ethics Today

The “pro-life” slogan and its political agenda set forth by
the Vatican and adopted in the United States by some
Protestant groups as well as the Catholic bishops, has seldom
been examined as a whole. Abortion, for example, has taken
center stage, and capital punishment has been largely neglected.
My interest is to examine the death penalty in depth after
contrasting it with other aspects of “protecting life” such as
self-defense and war.
The state permits certain forms of self-defense, but actually
engages in the direct killing of convicted killers, apparently
unaware that it is killing people to prove that killing people is
wrong.
The pro-life doctrine, by contrast, permits a person’s selfdefense
and the defense of his family or friends, even if it
results in killing one or more people. It is only women who
have no right to self-defense in a conflict of nascent life with
their existing lives. They are denied the right to use contraceptives
to prevent a pregnancy that would endanger their lives or
health. They may not have an abortion even to preserve their
lives or health if damage to health would lead to an early
death.
Pro-life doctrine does not apply to killing in war, as evident
in Vatican concordats with war-making states. Its agents in
Argentina even gave consent to the killing of civilians suspected
of being Communists or sympathetic to them. (Emilio
Mignone, Witness to the Truth: The Complicity of Church and
Dictatorship in Argentina 1976-1983, Orbis Books)
Although pro-life doctrine is selective, its absolute opposition
to the death penalty has a completely rational and ethical
validity. There is no conflict of life with life in the sentencing
of a person for murder, since the state has the power to isolate
the convicted killer from society and even from other prisoners.
There is no obvious discrimination such as occurs against
women in a patriarchal religious or social system. Men and
women can receive similar sentences and similar treatment in
prison.
An ethical examination of the death penalty should
include a biblical analysis. The Bible provides no clear justification
for capital punishment in spite of statements that an
eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, and life for life are justified. In
practice, society has rejected the first part; we would consider
barbaric the taking of a person’s eye for causing the loss of an
eye, or a tooth for the loss of a tooth.
The Bible also is not consistent in providing a death penalty
for those responsible for the death of others. The book of
Hebrews, for example, praises murderers such as Gideon,
8 • FEBRUARY 2001 • CHRISTIAN ETHICS TODAY
An Eye for an Eye?
By John M. Swomley, Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics
St. Paul School of Theology
Samson, and David as “men of faith.” And in the book of Acts
David is called the “servant of God.”
The Bible, however, not only includes statements excusing
killing, it also describes some important acts against the death
penalty. The first murder in the Bible, of course, is that of
Cain killing Abel. In this instance, God did not kill Cain. His
punishment was to make him a wanderer with a mark on his
forehead so that no one will kill him. To kill in revenge or to
permit killing a murderer would have justified killing as such.
Although David engaged in killing, his punishment from
God was a refusal to let him build the Temple because his
hands were stained with blood. In the scriptures the penalty
for a woman caught in adultery was death, but Jesus rejected
that penalty with the admonition, “Sin no more.”
When Paul was in prison with a runaway slave who could
be killed for such flight, Paul sent him back to his master with
a strong plea to the master to accept him as a brother.
In other words, the penalty of death is not a result of religious
or moral values, but a simple act of vengeance exercised
by government and supported vociferously by some of its citizens.
The chief basis on which any severe punishment can be
morally justified is the encouragement of expiation, or making
amends for wrongdoing. Punishment that does not permit the
possibility of expiation or a change in character or attitude is
inherently wrong. Execution does not permit atonement or
any future action to make amends for the crime committed.
The death sentence automatically precludes earning respect or
commutation of sentence either by working to finance or support
victims of the crime or by performing an extended public
service as a means of public acknowledgment of a changed life.
From the standpoint of society, punishment without a
social effort to reform or educate the prisoner is an acknowledgment
that the general public is unconcerned about the
value of life and the possibility of changed lives. The state, by
taking life in revenge, sets no higher standard than the person
who also kills in an act of anger, hate, or revenge. In effect it
thereby says human life is not inherently valuable or worth
saving, that life is judged by a crime or crimes, not by earlier
good conduct or the possibility of repentance.
Does the state have any responsibility for the social conditions
of poverty, exaltation of power, or a culture that glorifies
violence and makes weapons easily acceptable, a culture that
permits corruption in high places or by wealthy corporations
with little if any punishment?
Emil Brunner, a German theologian, wrote: “In every