Sunday, March 01, 2009
Another interesting review of Jesus on Death Row...
by Michael Spencer over at iMonk. Read it here.
It's become interesting to me how many comments on the book go around to the abortion/capital punishment comparison, which I don't really deal with in the book itself.
It's become interesting to me how many comments on the book go around to the abortion/capital punishment comparison, which I don't really deal with in the book itself.
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I really, really need to be finishing a brief. But I am happy I learned about the Nee-Bono connection. Very unexpected.
On the comments to your book - - one thing I found interesting is that in all the posturing about abortion and the created order and what have you, there is a tacit assumption that our basic system of punishment has always been - varying lengths of incarceration for most offenses, with death reserved for certain kinds of heinous murders. And people appeal to our widely held community belief that those people "should" die.
But anyone who's read any theological literature on the death penalty knows it's not even nearly that simple. Sure, Noah preceded Moses, but Cain preceded Noah. What in the world do they say about Cain?
Also, I don't think it's fair to use the Bible to vindicate one's own feelings of retributive anger. Sure, most of us are angry at murderers and think the worst should die, but what about adulterers, adulteresses, and parent-disrespecters? The fact is, our deepest feelings about the appropriate punishments for heinous murder are not generated by the Bible. We find some confirmation in the Bible, but unless we have some principled way to decide how to pick-and-choose, then it would be more honest to say "it's just how I feel."
That's just how I feel.
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On the comments to your book - - one thing I found interesting is that in all the posturing about abortion and the created order and what have you, there is a tacit assumption that our basic system of punishment has always been - varying lengths of incarceration for most offenses, with death reserved for certain kinds of heinous murders. And people appeal to our widely held community belief that those people "should" die.
But anyone who's read any theological literature on the death penalty knows it's not even nearly that simple. Sure, Noah preceded Moses, but Cain preceded Noah. What in the world do they say about Cain?
Also, I don't think it's fair to use the Bible to vindicate one's own feelings of retributive anger. Sure, most of us are angry at murderers and think the worst should die, but what about adulterers, adulteresses, and parent-disrespecters? The fact is, our deepest feelings about the appropriate punishments for heinous murder are not generated by the Bible. We find some confirmation in the Bible, but unless we have some principled way to decide how to pick-and-choose, then it would be more honest to say "it's just how I feel."
That's just how I feel.
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