NAACP Urges Clemency for Gang-Founding Murderer
CNSNews.com - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has launched a two-week "crusade" in California to show its opposition to the pending execution of gang founder and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Full Story
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For the most part the Catholic church is against the use of the death penalty except in the most extreme cases.
I do not know if the current pope has commented on this case.
I used to be pro-death penalty, but to be honest, I can't find a NT passage that condones it. So, after much soul searching, I have pretty much come up against it.
Insead, I think people like Williams should be spending their nights in solitary confinement, and their days breaking big rocks into little rocks with no chance of parole.
I have to admit I struggle with this one.
It clear in the OT that death is prescribed not only for murder, but also for an exceptionally wide variety of actions.
Romans 13:1-3 gives authority to government. Since, therefore, capital punishment is the law of the land in the US, it follows, if we take it literally, that the law is in place by God's authority, and hence that the Christian is obliged to accept it.
The problem is that also implies that every government is established by God, and hence that one ought not ever to resist the policies of any government.
Jesus never explicitly denounces the death penalty per se, and indeed remains silent at opportune moments. For example, the repentant thief on the cross with Jesus asserts that his punishment is just, and Jesus does not correct him.
I'm just glad that I have never had to decide if someone is to live or die.
Romans 13:1-3 does not override God's laws, as many Christians in early 1940's Germany found out. Currently abortion is the law of the land. That doesn't make it right.
I personally prefer the hard labor, that way punishment is still given out, but we don't have to worry about the moral ambiguity of the death penalty.
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