Defiant, but hanged
There has been a lot of comment over the last couple of days about the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Some of it has even penetrated the busyness of the season to resonate a little. I have been reflecting a little on a photo that was on the age website (which I now cannot find). It was a side on picture of Hussein, his head lowered with the noose around his neck. And for some reason I thought that I had seen a very similar image before recently. Or that the image was evoking reactions in me that had stirred in relation to something similar. For the life of me I couldn’t figure it out.
It came to me in the end. The image was evoking for me the photos of the Abu Graib torture. The last time I saw such a high profile image of someone with a noose around their neck, it was damning evidence of torture. I haven’t read much commentary so I don’t know how original this response was, and maybe it is entirely appropriate that a known torturer die with these sorts of images echoing in my head.
But I can’t really believe that. I don’t remember very much about the victims of the Abu Graib torture. Because it was irrelevant what crimes the victims may have been guilty of. I do remember a fair bit about the people in those photos who were putting nooses around necks. When talking about outrageous and obscene acts such as torture, the perpetrators commit a crime against humanity itself, not just against the individual victim. Such acts diminish the human race.
I am pretty comfortable calling Hussein evil. He was certainly a man worthy of criminal punishment. But in hanging him, and in condoning or accepting or allowing or refusing to condemn that action, we are smaller and less just and just less.
January 13th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Interesting.
You wrote: ““It is mine to avenge”… we are to trust God’s righteous judgment for the long haul… not only in this life, but in the final Judgment… rather than attempting to exact justice by our own hands. We are to “forgive those who trespass against us” trusting in the ultimate righteousness and justice of our God. It is an act of faith.”
I agree with this. I have suffered often (longsuffering at that!) at times because it was not the Lord’s will for me to throw off the unrighteous judgment of others, but rather to endure it in patience, letting my Light so shine among men. No problems there.
However, I am Spirit-led. When God gets done with it, so am I! The point being, if we continue in repentance, our souls grow ever more sanctified and therefore our natural lives ever more conformed to the standards of Christ. As He teaches us more and more about not only His nature but His character, that naturally begins to manifest through us: as Paul said, “It is not I who live but Christ who liveth in me.”
If I am Spirit-led, I will know when to rebuke, when to call to accountability, when to seek justice, and when to suffer all injustice silently, as Christ did before Pilate. There is a time and season to every thing.
God does not tempt us to sin, and the civil laws which are based upon the precepts established in His holy scriptures are not carnal (although they may be imperfect imitations and/or imperfectly enforced): I think your point is that we should not respond in the flesh to a situation, but rather follow the leading of the Spirit.
I have no clue where you stand on the death penalty for example. Here’s a few thoughts, however:
If I see a man abusing a child, should I stop the swinging of the man’s hand or allow the abuse? If you say, “Stop the abuse,” you are practicing earthly judgment. If you say, “Let his hand swing; God will exact justice from him in due time,” you are likewise practicing earthly judgment.
I argue that the first judgment (stop the man) is not a condemning judgment in which we esteem ourselves greater than the abuser, but a discerning judgment which balances the need for wrath or mercy in a given situation.
Obviously, you are for hindering the work of evil, but not repaying evil for evil. What I would argue (and I’ve thought otherwise before) is that, while it is true that Christ’s love and mercy overcame (satisfied) the Father’s wrath: our God is a just God, and justice demands payment.
I wouldn’t personally kill a child rapist and murderer; but I wouldn’t bat an eye about the abuser being put to death by the state. Because I am angry, bitter, or unjust? No. Because the offense is worthy of the crime, in my opinion. And here’s why:
It is just as much sin not to temper human mercy with holy wrath, as it is not to temper human wrath with holy mercy: but saints often neglect to consider that.
God must lead.
But we are free to come into agreement with His judgments–not by exacting personal vengance–but by seeking justice in a manner that is consistent with His own character.
Of course, we may disagree about what God is showing us in our hearts: for an entire host and array of reasons, which serve to elevate neither of us!
…. but continue to argue your position ….
…. what is your position, by the way?
January 13th, 2007 at 9:06 am
It was stated in post 41. I am opposed to the death penalty. Not because there is a proof text that simply solves the issue for us, but because it means society sanctions an action that we claim is wrong (taking life). This seems hypocritical. Because it’s a “right to life” issue… I think issues of life and death are God’s business, and we’re on a slippery slope when we start judging what is a life worth living. Because of redemptive possibilities. Because so many people who had already been executed were found to be innocent when they started doing retrospective DNA testing in the States. Because the legal system isn’t perfect and sometimes innocent people are found guilty… there’s no second chance when a person has already been executed. Because God is not willing that any perish, but that all should come to repentance. Because of the “treat others as you would have them treat you” principle.
January 13th, 2007 at 9:06 am
You missed the option three, if a man is beating a child, you can step between them and take the beating yourself. You are excercising judgement, but you are not killing someone, you are protecting, without participating in violence. Though I may lack the character to pull this off, I do believe Jesus showed us a different way. A way that calls us to lay down our own lives, for the lives of others.
I as a Christian do not see how I can love my enemy while I am killing them. I do not see how I can participate in a system that kills people for their crimes, when the example set by my Lord is to die for their crimes, not kill for them. I would suggest by the very definition of state, empire, or kingdom, any government puts themselves in defiance of the true King, and any attempt to make “Godly” laws, is a farce.
rev
January 13th, 2007 at 9:52 am
In Genesis God doesn’t talk about revenge etal but merely outlines the reason why a murderer should be put to death.
What are people saying here we forgive murders the crime of murder?
rev states what Jesus did for us.
He took out punishment but it IS our punishment.
The punishment fitting the crime of sin is to be without God eternally.
No-one here has yet come to terms of why God gave capital punishment his tick in the first place and why murder is unique in terms of crime.
Such a pity
January 13th, 2007 at 10:22 am
capital punishment was also given for sexual immorality Homer. But do you believe we should still put people to death for adultery? Fornication? Homosexuality?
When Jesus was confronted with the sin of adultery, he showed us a new way of living that is not about punishment, or violence, but about grace. Pity you would rather just kill people than follow Jesus example of grace.
rev
January 13th, 2007 at 10:50 am
I always supported the death penalty because it is about protecting life. If you think that is contradictary, so is fighting for peace. Which means we should have not fought Hitler, but let him go on his merry way killing millions.
January 13th, 2007 at 11:13 am
How is killing someone about protecting life? They have found that the death penalty has no significant effect on would be murderers, the death penalty does not stop anyone from killing. In addition, the protection of others does not require the killing of someone, and in the states the death penalty with all of its appeals processes and such actually costs way more than life imprisonment. The entire criminal justice system needs to be rethought, and redeveloped. It should be much more relational, and communal.
And Hitler could have been stopped without war if he would have been dealt with right at the beginning, after he had taken over half of Europe it was a bit late to let more diplomatic solutions win the day. And if you really research things the way the world dealt with the aftermath of the first world war, we almost set up a perfect garden for the nazi weeds to grow in.
rev
rev
January 13th, 2007 at 11:27 am
rev just loves to mix up levitical law with societal law.
it then gets so easy to mix up everything.
Jesus may well have done that because levitcal law did not apply.
why was it introduced and it of course never applied to the church which he was starting to create.
That analogy is sillier than using the sermon on the mount.
it has to do with killing a person made in the image of God.
Nothing more nothing less.
What is the person saying about God and society?
January 13th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I completely agree that Nazism was a direct result of the humiliation of Versailles, but the point is, by 1939 it was too late. What should have been done then? Shall we just roll over and let the Final Solution rumble on? What about Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway? etc etc.
My point is, I see a time and a place for lethal force, and I don’t understand why some people don’t…especially Christians. We have the OT to clearly show us God is not scared of lethal force.
In regards to the death penalty, I don’t support a Texan approach. I believe it should be saved for only the worst offences, such as serial rapist/murderers. I believe in lengthy delays, at least 10 years after conviction, with every possible chance for the conviction to be overturned if rehibilitation is progressing well.
I think the toothless tiger approach is helping us be soft namby-pambies.
January 13th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
So homer, please give me the authoritative list of which laws are which. I am guessing they qualified by your whim, maybe you should write an addendum to the bible so all of us ignorant folks can understand when it is okay to kill people and when not to. Funny Cain killed Abel and God said he would protect Cain from being killed for it. And Homer, what exactly about us is made in the image of God? Is it our bodies? Or is it our soul? And if someone murders someon, and then you put them to death for destroying someone made in God’s image, aren’t you then destroying someone made in God’s image? Yes I know read fourth Collosians.
I will be a soft namby pamby like Gandhi and Jesus, oh wait, maybe it actually takes more guts to be hurt or even killed for what you believe than it does to support other people killing someone for you. The question is: would Jesus flip the switch? And I don’t believe he would, and therefore I will not, nor will I support any power structure that does.
rev
January 13th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
gee whiz rev we do not need either the food laws, over-ruled by God nor the specific laws that applied to Israel because they were a covenant nation made so they would a royal priesthood and all that.
We can see the punishments are different now because of 1 Cor 5 indeed it allows us to interpret the levitical laws better.
God can do a lot of things rev because he is the creator and we owe him.
When a person murders some-one well that is a statement made about God as Genesis says .
you seem to forget that Jesus had the power to change things if he wished or even say the two other people being put to death did not need to be but he didn’t.
He didn’t at any time attempt to stop the switch so to speak
January 13th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
gee wiz homer you again did not say anything different, nor did you clarify which laws are still laws and which aren’t. But hey, might as well just kill people, why not? You would be great mates with W Homer, maybe you should move to America, you would get to play with guns too.
rev
January 13th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
“The question is: would Jesus flip the switch? And I don’t believe he would, and therefore I will not, nor will I support any power structure that does.”
I respect that. I think that’s a good view to hold, albeit not the same as my own. I guess in reality I really hate certain crimes and I think God does too, so the death penalty appeals to my sense of justice and treating evil with utter contempt. That is all.
January 14th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
you two just do not like the bible so you try to change it.
Jesus could have destroyed the switch or at the very least spoken against it but didn’t.
rev if I were you I would merely re-read passages involving the pharisees and see what Jesus said there
January 14th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Homer,
Did or did not Jesus change a lot of things? And does he not tell us to love our enemies and pray for those that abuse us? And how does that square with killing those that abuse us? The fact is Jesus has taught us a new way, perhaps you have heard the term a new covenant? In God’s kingdom it is the meek, the merciful, and the forgiving that are called the strong, rather than the powerful, the vengeful and the hard. Perhaps you should read the sermon on the mount, and the gospel depictions of Jesus, it appears you cannot see the forest because of the trees.
Ofcourse I would expect nothing less from you, you have a strange way of taking the gospel of Jesus and turning it into something ugly, alienating, and hateful. Its a good thing Jesus is more merciful and loving than you, or else he would smash your haughty self like a bug.
rev
January 14th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
You missed the option three, if a man is beating a child, you can step between them and take the beating yourself. You are excercising judgement, but you are not killing someone, you are protecting, without participating in violence. Though I may lack the character to pull this off, I do believe Jesus showed us a different way. A way that calls us to lay down our own lives, for the lives of others.
That is what Jesus did - stepped in and took the punishment for us (although the similarity isn’t exact - one is abuse and we were actually due for what we were owed for our sins but Jeus took that onhimself - God wan’t abusing us so to speak)
emblazoned Gandhi changed te directoin of an entire nati using non-violence, the ANC could have chosen retribution and death for white peopole who had murdered black people in South Africa - but instead chose the way of love and reconciliation - how is it that these non-violent methods have worked and yet you feel lethal force is the only way to sto peopoe like Hitler?
January 14th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Do you honestly believe Gandhi’s methods would work as well against Hitler as it did in a post-ww2 British colony, either India or SA?
That seems an idealistic understanding. I don’t see many periods in history where it would have worked. Post ww2 20th century yes.
January 14th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Why not?
January 15th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Are you serious? Look at the intense social pressure that collaborated to aid Gandhi and SA success, and this social pressure was not garnered purely by peaceful means.
Eg. “Oh no the Vikings are coming! Quick, offer them tea and sandiwches!”
“The Huns are coming! Quick, wave our ‘No War’ placards!”
Yes I am using ‘reducto absurdum’ (correction anyone?) but my point remains. What is actually going to work?
January 15th, 2007 at 8:33 am
well we live post world war II for one thing do we not?
And secondly, is success what we are called to? That sounds very prosperity gospel to me, I thought we were called to faithfulness!
And third, the Roman empire was visciously evil, and Christianity overthrew it by being the example it was called to be, not by fighting against it. Even the direct persecution was not resisted. If the German Christians would have placed themselves in front of the Jews, in defiance of the nazi’s they could have ended the struggle by their example. I believe it would have been very costly, but ultimately they would have turned the hearts of the soldiers and the public.
We are not to follow the convenient path, but Christ calls us to a narrow road, that is much harder, but it is the path to God’s upside down kingdom.
rev
January 15th, 2007 at 9:41 am
sorry rev but when the criminal says he is getting a just punishment ie death for his crimes exactly what was Jesus’s retort.
You can forgive the crime but you must punish people for crimes committed. and gos has given us the punishment for murder for which people will not listen.
Christianity is not a pacifist religion and there is such a thing as a Just war which Christians can fight in.
You need to differentiate between a war and a fight for social justice.
They are completely different things.
What we have here is what punishment fits the crime of murder!
January 15th, 2007 at 10:42 am
If all the people in Germany professing Christianity before the war refused to kill people and participate in the slaughter, carry out the executions and aid the Nazis then there wouldn’t have been a war to start with because the vast majority identified themselves as Christian! The national leaders may have had the will but not the people to carry it out. The truth is that the church has had the words of Christ explained away for the very purpose of getting professing Christians to fight and kill for their country, persecute each other as a duty and accept as justice institutionalised murder.
Churchianity is the result. Jesus core teachings removed from the church or reduced to mostly “not applicable”.
The earliest Christians and early church Fathers did not participate in wars, capital punishment or violence to others. They believed and lived the sayings of Jesus and they were not weak but very brave. They wouldn’t even accuse someone of a crime punishable by death considering it equal with actually doing the killing themselves which they knew Jesus forbade his disciples to do. They were peacemakers who loved their enemies and considered it against the teachings of Christ to take another’s life. Christ’s words are as challenging and humbling now as they were then, as is the way the first Christians lived.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Ummm…comparing wars between nation states and the execution of individuals is a bit of a furphy, don’t you think?
Rev, I know you’re a committed pacifist…can I ask whether you’ve ever been to a country where humanitarian intervention has occurred? Because I have, and while I’m still really dubious about it, it really…well, it shook me up.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:15 am
I guess if we focused on the main game… making disciples of all nations and living out the teachings of Jesus ourselves… there would eventually be little need for police, or armies, or jails… the Kingdom would be at hand.
I’m not a total “dove” however, in these in between times. I think we actually need a legal system, and police, and jails, and armies… sin is actually alive and well and deterrent by force is a necessary evil.
In terms of the comments about Nazi Germany…. I think they are all partly right.
Yes… if all the professing Christians in Germany had followed the teaching of Christ Nazism would never have gained a foothold.
However… if there had been a swift and couragous military response from
England, France etc. when Hitler began “annexing” neighboring countries… rather than endless pontificating and appeasment, the world would not have descended into such prolonged madness. Ditto if the world cared about Japan invading China and unleashing appalling horrors there long before it targeted countries of the British Empire.
Isn’t a country with no army and no allies a sitting duck?
Isn’t a modern country with no functioning police force and no legal system inviting anarchy?
Isn’t sin… and are not evil systems… a present reality?
It behoves us to develop the most ethical and fair and redemptive legal and military and governmental systems that we can… but I’m not yet a Christian anarchist.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Homer, I have read all your posts and am still completely lost as to how you can think that Jesus wasn’t condemning the use of the death penalty for murder. Can you please avoid the use of ‘legal’ language (because it’s confusing me, because you’re not using words with the meaning that I understand them to have) and explain in detail??
Please try and respond to my request rather than resorting to patronising comments about me not being able to read, being a lawyer etc.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Bec, I only you read the bible and believed God the answer would be completely obvious!
January 15th, 2007 at 11:26 am
“However… if there had been a swift and couragous military response from
England, France etc. when Hitler began “annexing” neighboring countries… rather than endless pontificating and appeasment, the world would not have descended into such prolonged madness. Ditto if the world cared about Japan invading China and unleashing appalling horrors there long before it targeted countries of the British Empire.”
Janet, in 2003, I was lucky enough to be among a bunch of students that attended the EU parliament, the international courts etc. I was struck by how much the attitudes of political leaders re: humanitarian intervention had been changed by Rwanda and Bosnia.
Then in 2004 I went to the Solomon Islands. When I went over, I was pretty much in the anti-RAMSI camp. I’m still pretty critical of how RAMSI has occurred, but I guess like EVERY SINGLE SOLOMON ISLANDER I’VE EVER SPOKEN TO, I now believe that armed intervention was the only way the violence was going to cease. Now, I actually agree with Rev’s idea that if everyone behaved in a Christ-like manner, these conflicts would be avoided or they would cease. And I agree that following Christ is costly. But I’ve never been put in a position of having to bear that cost myself, and for me, following Christ also means listening to those on the margins and respecting what they have to say. Who am I to stand back and say, ‘oh no, we can’t send in the troops, that’s not Christlike?’ when the people of an independent nation state are almost unanimously requesting that we send them in? Now, a pacifist might say that I should have gone over there and lead a pacifist resistance, but that too is naive - I was a white kid from Australia who had absolutely no right to be a leader nor any social standing to do so. So what? Do we let the carnage continue in the present Solomon Islands, Rwandas, Bosnias, Sudans??
So…I’m still committed to pacifist ways of doing things, but I’m no longer convinced that it’s always a viable option in large-scale conflicts. Pacifism, the idea of demonstrating an alternative, assumes a level of rationality that I don’t think human beings always have.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Speaking as myself now… you raise an interesting point Bec with humanitarian intervention. If ever there were a good argument for sending in (say) a UN military force it would have been when Rwanda was engaged in genocide.
Impoverished country… no oil… not strategically important to the West… CNN weren’t filming the children being hacked to death with machetes… the tragic fact is we didn’t care that much and did far too little far too late.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:36 am
I posted 118 before reading your comments Bec… but I agree with them completely. It’s good to hear your perspective that the lessons of Rwanda are being taken with a degree of seriousness.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Rev, really keen to hear your views on this stuff.