This episode navigates the complex religious and secular arguments surrounding the sanctity of human life and the death penalty. Delving deep into biblical laws and societal standards, Ron Dart challenges conventional perspectives, inviting listeners to reevaluate the role of vengeance and governmental authority in executing justice. The discussion is enriched by an analysis of mistaken convictions and the moral conundrums faced by religious communities in reconciling faith with legal practices.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
SPEAKER 02 :
There is something that is puzzling me about our society. Maybe you have the answer. When the time comes to execute a murderer, and all the television crews are out filming all the demonstrators with their signs, you know, let’s stop the killing, stop the killing, stop the killing. When they’re interviewing the talking heads for and against the death penalty, why is it that they hardly ever tell us or give us any of the details about what the murderer did? Now, why don’t they show us a dead body lying in a convenience store with a bullet in his forehead? This is what the man did that they’re going to execute in here today. Why don’t they show us the little old lady in her house that’s been killed and cut to death with a butcher knife by some guy who came into her apartment, stole her Social Security check, and killed her in the process, and now they’re going to kill him? Why is it they don’t show us that? Why don’t they at least tell us about this? In fact, I was shocked recently to see that Fox did that. Fox News Channel did that. I almost fell out of my chair. It was the first time I could recall, and I don’t know when, in all the coverage of these death penalty things, that somebody actually took the time. to bring in a victim who had been actually beaten up and shot by this person, who had later killed another person, who actually took the time to describe for us, to demonstrate, to show us what the man did. Why is it that the execution of a criminal is so much more important also in a state where the governor is running for president? Why is it more important there than it would be if it was somewhere else? And why is the governor of the state more important than the victims of a criminal rampage? You know, it’s incredible to me how some people can muster so much sympathy for the murderer and forget altogether the victim and his or her family. Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s a terrible thing to take anyone’s life. I cannot conceive of anyone taking pleasure in the execution of an axe murderer. God certainly doesn’t take pleasure in this. He spoke to Ezekiel in the 33rd chapter, verse 7, and said, So, son of man, I have set you a watchman to the house of Israel. Hear the word at my mouth, and you warn them for me. When I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die. If you don’t speak to warn the wicked from his way, that man will die in his iniquity, but I’m going to hold you responsible. Something you should notice there. God says the wicked man is going to die. Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he doesn’t turn from it, he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul. Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel. Say this, if our transgressions and our sins be upon us and we pine away in them, how shall we then live? Say unto them, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. but that the wicked would turn from his ways and live. Turn from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? I suppose it is a measure of our society that we might ask, well, if there’s no pleasure in the death of the wicked, why kill him? It’s a fatuous argument against the death penalty, but the question still remains. Why kill him? Isn’t human life sacred? Isn’t it just as wrong to execute a murder as it was for the murderer to kill in the first place? Now, this is a curious argument from two points of view, and I’m always fascinated when I hear it advanced. First, what does it mean to declare that something is sacred? To be sacred is to be dedicated or devoted to the deity. The argument from the sacredness of human life, then, is a religious argument. What business does a secular society that won’t allow Bibles in the classroom or any talk about God in their schools, what business do we have raising a religious argument against the death penalty? If I understand school policy, a teacher who tried to tell his students that human life is sacred should soon be out of a job. No one seems to have tumbled to this yet, but sooner or later they’re going to have to. You can’t have a Bible in school, although you can read Harry Potter stories, by the way, to the kids, but you can’t read the story of David and Goliath. Did anybody realize that Wicca, which is one of the big subjects of the Harry Potter series, is a religion? The stories are all about religion? How come we can have Wicca in the schools and can’t have the Bible? Never mind. Let’s go back to our subject. Only religious people have any right to argue the sanctity of life. But even religious people are on shaky ground here. Presumably, when religious people argue that we cannot take a life because life is sacred, they are appealing to divine authority. The problem is that the oldest authorities all recognize that the death penalty is a legitimate punishment for murder. The law of Moses is explicit. You’ll find it in Exodus 21. He that smites a man so that he die shall surely be put to death. But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor to slay him with guile, first degree murder, you shall take him from my altar that he may die. Now, what does that mean? Well, taking hold of the horns of the altar in Israel was the ultimate appeal. It was a sanctuary. One could be safe there until his case was heard by the judges. What he’s saying is there is no sanctuary for the cold-blooded, deliberate killer. So what do you mean when you say life is sacred? Because here is a law in the Bible, which is the thing that tells us what sanctity is, that says if a man kills another man, his life is forfeit. Listen to another Old Testament law, Leviticus 24, 17. He that kills any man shall surely be put to death, and he that kills a beast shall make it good. Beast for beast. Now, it’s interesting that the killing of a beast, either by accident or in anger, did not require the restoration of two beasts as theft did. In other words, if you stole a man’s animal, you had to restore two for the man, for the one that was lost. So restitution, then, is not solely intended to compensate the victim for his trouble. That’s not the whole point. The difference is that the man who killed the beast was not trying to gain economically from his act, which a thief did. Now think about this. In our society, there is a net flow of wealth from the honest segment of society into the society of thieves, right? In other words, the money and all that stuff and all the goods go into the society of thieves, discounted in sales through fences. But there is a net flow of money from society to thieves. The law of God intended to reverse the cash flow and to create a flow of wealth from thieves to the righteous. Thieves should be poor, while honest labor should be rewarded. So the law said, you steal this, you’ve got to restore double. You steal under these circumstances, you’ve got to restore fivefold. And the whole idea was to move money from the unlawful people to the lawful people. They didn’t have any money. They put him on the auction block and sold him. So it’s still the whole idea, move the money from the thieves to society. There was a clear difference between killing a man and a beast. The scales had to be balanced for justice to be served. A man had to die for a man. A beast had to be made good. But there is more. In Genesis 9, verse 6, it says this, Whoso sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. Why? For in the image of God made he man. The value of a man is established by the fact that man is made in the image of God, and perhaps it is here that we come the closest to establishing that human life is sacred. Man is not just another animal. You can kill animals. That’s all what’s one thing. But if you kill a man, that’s another thing altogether. Man is not just an animal. He is made in the image of God. But to declare a man’s life sacred… is merely to declare it devoted to God. If human life is devoted to God, then God has the right to decide that, in certain cases, life is forfeit. He did exactly that when he mandated the death penalty for murderers. It was left to the civil authority to carry it out. God said, “‘By man will his blood be shed.'” So if you come from the Judeo-Christian tradition, you cannot argue successfully against the death penalty by appealing to the sacredness of human life. The very fact that a human life is devoted to God mandates that those who take a human life must forfeit their own. Now take the question from a secular point of view. Since we can’t claim that human life is sacred if we’re not religious… Is it just as wrong to execute a murderer as it is to commit murder? Are we indeed no better than the killers on the street when we take a life? Now, if our protester is not religious, then the sacredness of life argument is useless. Perhaps he can use evolution for his argument. But wait. If a man is the product of evolution, then evolution mandates the disappearance of unfit life. We think nothing of destroying germs that threaten the body. Why not destroy the human germs that threaten society? Some human life forms are not fit to survive. Why not kill them off? Now, mind you, this is not my argument. This is the only argument I can see coming from evolution, that some human forms are not fit to survive. Kill them off. Improve the gene pool. Maybe the early Texans had the right idea. When they hanged a horse thief, they did more than make a statement about the severity of the crime. They improved the genetic code by weeding out those who were unfit to survive. If society doesn’t do it, maybe the criminals will kill one another off. It seems to be happening in some parts of the country. But, you know, the danger here is that the weaker criminals will be killed off, slowly creating an ever-stronger criminal class, which is what we’re doing with some antibiotics and some bacteria. Meanwhile, the upright people of society seem bent on preserving every life form in existence, no matter how weak, no matter how crippled. Nothing should perish, we think. The result? We weaken the herd. The criminals strengthen the herd. In the long run, who’s going to win and who’s going to lose? That’s where the evolutionary argument would take us on the death penalty. So here’s a world where the criminal class gets ever stronger while the upright class gets weaker. This description seems uncomfortably close to what’s happening in our society right now. It seems to me if you adopt an evolutionist’s point of view, we should be killing off the criminal class and preserving the honest class. But the world has gone crazy. In our crazy society, we have religious people arguing for the death penalty against secular humanists who tell us that life is sacred. Go figure. When I come back, we’ll talk about the problem of hanging an innocent man.
SPEAKER 01 :
Can a Christian serve a jury in a capital punishment case? If we kill a killer, do we make ourselves know better than he? Is it wrong to take a life for a life? To request a free booklet entitled Capital Punishment, A Christian Dilemma, Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 02 :
As I do this program, the big argument in the public square these days is about the problem of hanging an innocent man. They point to the fact that several men have been released over the past months from death row because they were turned out they were innocent, that they actually did not commit the crime. They were tried in court, they were convicted by a jury, and then DNA evidence or something else showed that they actually could not possibly have done it, and they were turned loose. There is no doubt at all that innocent men have been convicted of crimes, and it’s entirely possible that innocent men have gone to their deaths. How does that sort of thing happen? It usually happens because of careless or fraudulent police work, or because of prosecuting attorneys who are more concerned about getting a conviction than getting at the truth. Our system of justice is political, and there’s probably no way of getting away from that. And it rewards a man who gets a lot of convictions if he’s a district attorney. But people who are involved in prosecuting a crime really should be rewarded for finding the truth, not just for the number of convictions. The law of God addressed this question in a very severe way and had contained a powerful deterrent against fraudulent prosecution. Here’s how it reads. One witness shall not rise up against man for any iniquity or for any sin. In any sin that he sins at the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established. If a false witness rises up against any man to testify against him on that which is wrong, then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days, and the judges shall make inquisition. This is a serious matter now. A man has risen up to bear witness, and there’s reason to believe his witness may be false. You think about this, you harken back to the question in the mind of the jury in the O.J. Simpson murder case. People on that jury were apparently prepared to believe that a policeman actually dropped a bloody glove at O.J. Simpson’s home in order to make prosecution of the case easier. Whether he did or not, some people apparently believed that. The scripture goes on to say, “…behold, if it turns out that the witness is a false witness and has testified against his brother…” Then you shall do unto him as he thought to have done to his brother. So shall you put away evil from among you. I dare say. In other words, if you actually go out of your way to provide false witness with an end in mind of convicting a man of first-degree murder and sending him to his death, and if it turns out you did that, you go to death yourself. I would think that would kill a lot of bad ideas a-borning. And that which remains shall hear and fear and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity, though. Life must go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot. It’s a tough law. But what it means is that if the police and the prosecutor conspired to fraudulently convict a man, they will suffer whatever penalty they were trying to inflict on the innocent man. If a police officer gave false testimony or offered falsified evidence in a capital murder trial, he should hang for it. You don’t need to worry. If that were the law of the land, you would never have to hang a policeman. Will this make it more difficult to convict the guilty? Yes, it probably will. But is it better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be hanged? Isn’t it enough to hang the murderers we know are guilty? We don’t have to run up the numbers. After all, in our system, you’re supposed to let the man go if his guilt is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt. And this man recently who was executed had been 19 years on death row while they went through every possible angle of trying to determine whether he should die or whether he should live. Then there is this other argument about the death penalty. Some people will come along and say, well, all you’re doing, you’re just trying to get vengeance on this man. You know, it’s difficult to imagine the effect of a violent murder on the surviving family. The execution of a murderer, while it does nothing to bring back the dead, does have value in resolving the matter for those who loved the victim and survived him. Did the victim’s life have any value? Just what was it worth? Was it worth less than a life? A life sentence without parole might be an alternative to the death penalty, but in practice, life sentences sometimes end in parole in just a few years. You see, we really don’t look at life sentences in terms of balancing the books. We look at it in terms of punishment or the protection of society and the possible rehabilitation of the murderer, which may sometimes occur. But does the rehabilitation of a violent criminal balance the books for the family of the deceased? I can already hear the objection, why, what you’re talking about is nothing more than vengeance. That’s true. When all the other arguments are dismissed, we are left with nothing but pure vengeance. What’s astonishing about this is that no one even attempts to show that vengeance is wrong. They just take it for granted that vengeance is wrong. And even those who believe in the death penalty shy away from the subject. They consistently retreat into statistics and deterrence. But the truth is that vengeance is the most powerful argument that anyone can advance for the death penalty. Vengeance is the one clean rationale that stands against every argument. Why, then, do Christian people feel so guilty about vengeance? Most modern Christians feel that vengeance is an unworthy motive. That it’s wrong to exact vengeance. They base these beliefs on scriptures like Romans 12, 19, which says this, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves. They assume it’s a Christian teaching that the man of God should not seek vengeance. In the Old Testament, they think vengeance was allowed, but Christian is to turn the other cheek. Take another scripture, for example. You shall not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of your people. You shall love your neighbor like yourself. That reads like good New Testament doctrine, doesn’t it? It’s not. That verse is found in the Old Testament in Leviticus 19, verse 18. The Old Testament teaching is the same as the New Testament. How then can the death penalty be legitimate in the Old Testament where vengeance is not allowed and then at the same time be wrong in the New Testament? The best way to understand this is to read Paul’s statement in its context. Here’s the passage from Romans 12.19 through Romans 13.4 so that we can understand exactly what it is that Paul is saying here. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. You realize what he just said? He didn’t say vengeance is wrong. He said vengeance is mine. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he thirsts, give him drink. For in so doing, you shall heap coals of fire on his head. Don’t be overcome of evil, overcome evil with good. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. He’s talking about the civil government. So we are to be subject to them. If you resist the power, you resist the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Will you not then be afraid of the power? You do what’s good, and you shall have praise of the same. For he is the servant of God to you for good.” But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he bears not the sword in vain. He is the servant of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Paul is talking about government in principle, government in practice, the way things are supposed to work. It is government that is the avenger, not the private person. Note the passage begins with a statement about vengeance. Why are we not to exact vengeance? It’s no personal vengeance. It’s not because vengeance is wrong, but because vengeance belongs to God. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith God. And then it ends with vengeance. The minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that does evil. Vengeance, according to Paul, is a positive good. It involves repayment and is the very core value of justice. Vengeance, then, cannot be an unworthy motive, the unworthy motive it is usually painted to be. How do we understand this contradiction? Stay with me. On the other side of the break, I’ll explain it.
SPEAKER 01 :
If you would like to share this program with friends and others, write or call this week only and request your free copy of The Death Penalty. Write to Born to Win, P.O. Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44. And please tell us the call letters of this radio station.
SPEAKER 02 :
What do we do about this contradiction between the prohibition of seeking vengeance on the one hand and saying, well, God’s going to do it on the other hand? The answer is really clear enough in the passage we just read. It’s not vengeance that is wrong. It’s personal vengeance that’s not allowed. Vengeance is explicitly promised by God, quoting the Old Testament. He affirms, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. So vengeance is the central value of justice. Without vengeance, you don’t get justice. Now, what’s wrong with the personal pursuit of vengeance? Well, the exaction of personal vengeance will only lead to retaliation, counter-retaliation, and still more vengeance. And the result is blood feuds extending over several generations of the families that are involved in it. And it’s probably in this light that Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount should be understood. When Jesus told his disciples to turn the other cheek, was that taken to mean that they could not defend themselves and their families against a thug who was about to assault them? Here’s what he said. Now, many Christian pacifists down through the years have believed that if a man is raping your wife, you should do nothing violent to stop him. If you and your children are assaulted on the street, you can offer no defense. But if you’ll notice verse 38, you will see this is not about self-defense. It’s about vengeance. Jesus is essentially saying the same thing as the old proverb, quote, “‘Say not, I will do to him as he has done to me. I will render to the man according to his work.'” No, no. The reference to turning the other cheek is significant in another way. His audience did not know it at the time, but this was a reference to his own suffering, prophesied of old. He was talking about corporal punishment while in custody. in subordination, in court, was punished by a slap in the face. And when you got that, you had better turn the other cheek. Resisting or retaliating against official punishment will bring you nothing but grief. This is what Jesus meant when he said, if a man compels you to walk a mile with him, walk two. Turning the other cheek is not required while you are being assaulted by a man with a knife. But when the assault is over and the man is under no immediate threat, you may not retaliate. In denying us the right to exact our own vengeance, God promises that he will avenge our wrong. Now here’s where we come to the crucial point in any society. If you’re going to prohibit people from exacting their own vengeance, they have to be assured that vengeance will be exacted for them. How did God do that? He said in the passage we read earlier, the higher powers, rulers, government, the state, these are the instrument that God authorizes to exact vengeance on the behalf of the oppressed. Here’s what Paul said one more time. Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. There is no authority except from God, and those that exist are established by God. Therefore, he who resists the authority has opposed the ordinance of God. Legitimate governmental authority, Paul tells us, is derived from God. And we’re further told that the government is a servant of God to you for good. You know, this passage is troubling because of the endemic corruption we encounter in government. But you know, that only makes the case stronger. If we’re entrusted with the responsibility for administering justice, we must administer justice. Failure in this area will lead to a collapse of society. It will lead directly to the situation we find ourselves in today, where people will go out and try to take their own justice. The woman who some time ago walked into a courtroom and shot and killed the man who molested her son did so because she had lost confidence in the justice system. The system did manage, however, to put her in jail. If the state fails to execute vengeance upon evildoers, This absence of authority leads men to administer their own justice, that is to take the law into their own hands. They fall back on family and racial solidarity and the resulting blood feuds and private wars. If the government fails to exact vengeance, it opens the door for a vendetta. We’ve seen some of that in the modern world. Any Christian who accepts the responsibility of government, including jury duty, must faithfully execute those duties on behalf of the oppressed. If we don’t do it, who will? The Christian really has no dilemma when it comes to capital punishment. To be sure, the execution of justice can be an unpleasant business. But we can’t shirk responsibility because it’s unpleasant. Would you rather leave this responsibility in the hands of people who relish it? One reason we are where we are is because Christian people have been squeamish about their responsibility under the law. When righteous men fail to execute judgment, then good people go in fear, while evil men swagger in the streets. Does this sound like any place you know?
SPEAKER 01 :
Until next time, I’m Ronald Dart, and you were born to judge. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560 White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.
