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Miserabilism Rides Again

Humanity

By Rod Dreher • January 22, 2013, 1:00 PM

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This is a photo taken in Tehran yesterday. The man in the middle is about to be hanged by the regime for stabbing a man and stealing $20 — an act he claimed he was driven to by poverty. He puts his head on his executioner’s shoulder, and his executioner stretches out his arm for comfort. The moment of humanity between the killer and he who is to be killed is something terrible to think about. As Walter Russell Mead puts it, this is what the Islamic regime in Iran is about: making a victim even of its executioners. May the Iranian people free themselves from these tyrants.

Posted in UK/Europe. Tagged execution, Iran, Islamic.

74 Responses to Humanity

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John E_o says:

January 22, 2013 at 10:16 pm

John E_o, I don’t think those men got a quick hanging. They were lifted by cranes.

Ewww, in that case, I’d go for the lethal injection even without the hug.
Pensans says:

January 23, 2013 at 5:02 am

Actually, Travis, that’s not true. There is a difference between the intentional, the negligent and the accidental. Society is guilty when it errs from intent or negligence, but true accidents do not create guilt. I suppose you are a pacificist too because we cannot infallibly determine which countries we may justifiably make war against nor infallibly guarantee that no civilians will be killed.

You, Travis, have been childishly deceived.
Fran Macadam says:

January 23, 2013 at 8:11 am

We often mask our own law enforcement now, and we routinely hood and shackle our accused, once presumed innocent. There’s no answer to the charge we are 5% of the world’s population, but incarcerate 25% of the world’s prison population. We not only torture, but we are proud of the practice. We share with Iran the distinction of being among the few remaining death penalty nations. Moral equivalence, once unthinkable, is now simply how we and our enemies conduct our rivalries.
Thomas Andrews says:

January 23, 2013 at 9:34 am

Travis wrote:

“Mercy for murder makes society guilty of blood.”

Our thoroughly-human justice system is fundamentally incapable of infallibly determining who is and is not guilty of murder.

Even one wrongful execution is a murder for which society itself is guilty.
end

I agree with Travis, completely. Even if I didn’t oppose the death penalty on the grounds that for Christians, killing another is only permitted as the last recourse of self-defense, the death penalty in our country simply puts too much power into the hands of those in power.

The horrendous number of innocent people put to death despite their innocence of a capital crime is something we will answer for before God.
Andrea says:

January 23, 2013 at 9:49 am

The death penalty is a great evil wherever it is practiced and a blight on human morality.
sdb says:

January 23, 2013 at 10:38 am

“It is ignorance or worse to claim that Christendom’s justification for th death penalty was incapacitation. It was retribution. Every murderer who is permitted to live is a governmental statement to the victim’s family and society as a whole that blood does not need to be answered. Mercy for murder makes society guilty of blood.”

What a remarkably anti-Christian stance. While Christians have certainly disagreed about the extent to which the state should punish evil-doers and and the length she should go to restrain evil, it is not at all clear that the NT teaches that retribution is the necessary response to murder. First we have several clear instances of murderers who were shown mercy with perhaps the Apostle Paul being the most noteworthy. Christians believe that the shedding of an innocent’s blood was answered by Christ’s and Christians are explicitly forbidden from seeking personal vengeance (or seeking personal retribution). Mercy for murder is explicitly what the church is called to offer. This isn’t an argument against the state’s application of the death penalty as the state isn’t the church, but it sure does suggest that the death penalty is not necessary.
EliteCommInc. says:

January 23, 2013 at 4:34 pm

I was moved by the photo given the story’s details. As former ‘nuk’em till they glow advocate. And frankly, wondered in if in some manner that gesture of comfort — is Camus, Rudyard kipling or Christ. Perhaps, I over reach . . .

Criminal justice in the US is so rife with error, that no one should ever have to face the possibility of death from government hands — ever.

But I have to exercise a great deal of caution before critiquing any other nation’s practice based on the history and practice of the United States, which based it’s system on the premise that, ” . . . all men are created equal . . .”

And the principle of trying children as adults, seems bizzarre even for this old codger conservative. Rules out a critique, save, we should advocate to end the practice.

In sympathy with several others who noted it’s impact.
EliteCommInc. says:

January 23, 2013 at 4:35 pm

and end all ’round.
EliteCommInc. says:

January 23, 2013 at 5:09 pm

I am going to go a step further, no conservative advocates the use of governmeent in this manner. At every turn conservatives seek to limit the far leas than ‘all seeing eye’ of government in every aspect of US citizens lives. How a policy of capital punishment came to a standard for conservative orthodoxy is beyond me.

Government is not to be trusted in any shape or form, most particularly in the life of it’s citiizens.
Pensans says:

January 23, 2013 at 8:58 pm

Sbd, it is neither Christian nor anti-Christian to observe that Christendom’s justification for the death penalty was retributive, not incapacitation or deterrence. It is simple fact. There is no historical foundation for interpreting the Old and New Testaments’ prohibition on private revenge as a prohibition on the ruler’s duty to answer blood with blood.

The fact that the Church has a different duty than the state is exactly no argument that the state lacks the duty. Husbands have different duties than the church toward their wives. What impliction?

The OT clearly teaches in the Noachide and Mosaic covenants that mankind has a universal duty of justice to execute murderers. There is no suggestion anywhere in the New Testament that this is ended by Christ’s death. There is similarly no suggestion that the Christian’s duty to lay aside civil claims and endure wrongs means that the state should not enforce tort law.

You are a victim of sentimentality.
Hector_St_Clare says:

January 23, 2013 at 9:47 pm

Re: The OT clearly teaches in the Noachide and Mosaic covenants that mankind has a universal duty of justice to execute murderers. There is no suggestion anywhere in the New Testament that this is ended by Christ’s death.

I don’t think that’s true. The New Testament does *permit* the use of the death penalty, but it doesn’t *require* it. In at least one instance (John 8:1-11) the text argues against the application of the death penalty. There are other passages which acknowledge the legitimacy of the death penalty, but they were specifically in the context of executions for treason or rebellion (Jesus, Paul, the two thieves at the crucifixion), not for murder.

Revelation 13:10 suggests that ‘blood calls for blood’, but it’s unclear whether that’s referring to the death penalty, to war or revolution, or to something else entirely.

I think the abolitionists are wrong and that both natural justice and Christian morality *allow* the death penalty (most clearly, for treason and related crimes), but I don’t think they *require* it, particularly not for murder.

It deserves repeating, again, that abolitionism (whether you agree with it or not, and I don’t) isn’t a modern idea, it’s a very ancient one. Orthodox Christianity generally opposed the death penalty for three centuries, until it became the state religion of Rome.
Pensans says:

January 24, 2013 at 7:21 am

No, the early Church did not favor the state’s abolition of the death penalty. Some favored Christians abstaining from any legal participation in killing, including lethal self-defense, military service, or any public office requiring execution. But they never ever objected to the state’s public duty to execute as a wrong. The key distintion is between the duty of the state and the duty of Christians. The Roman Church’s sudden revolution in political theology is not a restoration of the early Church’s position, which would require abstinence from self-defense and military service and public office holding.

The OT does not permit the death penalty. It mandates it and explictly forbids excepting civil penalty in the place of execution. Nowhere does anyone suggest that this provision of the Mosaic and Noachide covenants was unjust or that its absolute mandate is dissolved.
Douglas says:

January 24, 2013 at 3:34 pm

This whole discussion has made me angry. In general, if a man is justified in resisting an attack with deadly force the State is justified in punishing his attacker with deadly force. Mercy or prudential considerations might temper punishment but the State has an obligation , insisted that old murderer(!!!!?) St. Paul , to wield the sword and punish the guilty. Death was in Christian times very often the punishment for armed robbery and other crimes of violence. In Victorian ( post Christian ) Britain the punishment was commonly penal servitude for life. Do the participants here not understand that the arguments about “irreversible ” punishments apply to all punishments ? That the unjust conviction of the innocent in no way nullifies the justice of punishment ? And why pile on to Iran, civilized when our ancestors lived under sticks. To do so is to aid ,disgracefully, the Zionists that made her the most powerful country in the region.
JonF says:

January 24, 2013 at 5:51 pm

Re: f a man is justified in resisting an attack with deadly force the State is justified in punishing his attacker with deadly force.

One is only justified in using deadly force to meet an immediate threat. The state can certainly do so too to protect its citizens– but again the threat must be present and immediate (otherwise we’d have carte blanche for any war we cared to wage, a la Bush and Cheney, and for preventative execution of any person who might someday be a threat, whether they had done anything wrong or not). Once an attacker is disarmed and the threat removed no such justification-by-necessity exists. And beware, for here be demons: a necessary evil remains evil and though the weight of the universe impels such a course, the evil is not one whit less.

Pensans, I will be blunt: you are preaching a foreign gospel.
First off, Scripture knows no “Noachide laws”. That’s an invention of medieval rabbis to try to explain the relationship of Christians and Muslims to Judaism without accepting either Christ’s divinity or Mohammed’s prophethood. As for the Mosaic law, the traditional position (both Christian and Jewish) is that it was mandatory for the Jews alone, but may contain items of profit for the rest of us. Moreover moral doubt over the death penalty is hardly a new thing at all. John Paul II did not invent it! We are aghast when we read that the Byzantines blinded their malefactors, but they did so in order to disable criminals and even traitors without having to kill them. And the Kievan Rus abolished capital punishment outright– a thousand years ago. The desire for revenge is NEVER a Christian desire. As an American poet once said of slavery: “Some being wise tamed [it] to mercy, but could not make it feed where the beasts of mercy feed, nor starve the tiger from its eyes”*. Such is the death penalty too.

* Stephen Vincent Benet, “John Brown’s Body”
Pensans says:

January 24, 2013 at 9:43 pm

Douglas, they understand neither the Scriptures nor the role that they teach for the ruler as an agent of the wrath of God. They believe in an false ethos of passivity and sentimentality. So too, they cannot understand why Christ will come as a judge to approve and condemn. The justice of condemnation has no place in their theology; they worship a demi-Christ who has a demi-justice.

Indeed, if retribution against wrong doing is unjust, one wonders why Christ needed to bear the cost of our sin at all by dying on the cross? If Christ’s dying paid for all the worldly consequences set in man’s law, one wonders why they don’t oppose all punishments whatsoever?
Siarlys Jenkins says:

January 24, 2013 at 11:32 pm

Pensans, was George III an exemplar of “the ruler as an agent of the wrath of God”? How about Emperor Nero, a contemporary of Paul’s? Henry VIII? Generalissimo Francisco Franco? Adolf Hitler? Benito Mussolini? Where do you draw the line? When does passivity in the face of evil become a sin rather than a virtue?
JonF says:

January 25, 2013 at 5:30 am

Re: if retribution against wrong doing is unjust, one wonders why Christ needed to bear the cost of our sin at all by dying on the cross?

In the theology of my Church that’s not how it was at all. Rather Christ ransomed us from the Devil who had taken us hostage and imprisoned us in Sin and Death as a result of Original Sin polluting our human nature. By dying Christ entered the realm of Death and Sin, but Death and Sin cannot hold God and so burst asunder with what they had taken, allowing all who will take Christ’s hand and depart that realm to do so.
Pensans says:

January 25, 2013 at 12:12 pm

Jenkins, your question is irrelevant except tomsay that the line is not the use of the death penalty.

JonF, that is an excellent summary of Gnosticism. Are you a second century Egyptian?
Pensans says:

January 25, 2013 at 6:15 pm

JonF, you err in each statement concerning the Scriptures and tradition. The Noachide laws are patent in Scripture: Genesis 9:1-11. The Mosaic law in Christian tradition has been regularly cited by theologians and liturgists as a source of universal ethical knowledge, e.g. Augustine and Aquinas use of the Decalogue. Your opposition to the death penalty is based on ignorance of Scripture and tradition.

To oppose retribution is to oppose Christ. He will judge the world. To call retribution revenge and despise it, is to judge Christ who answers the martyr’s cry for retribution with the reward od a white robe, Rev. 6.
EliteCommInc. says:

January 26, 2013 at 2:02 pm

I am always stunned by people claiming christianity as their faith and practice advocating the death penalty. Always an enigma to me.

Unfortunately, the most Christian utterance outside of the new Testament on capital punsihment comes from Camus, I think he was an atheist.

When confronted with matter, he simply noted God’s response to the murder of Abel by Cain. God the almighty to whom so many say thet pledge allegiance: chose not to kill Able but to bansish him. Camus says, I will follow his example.

Christ and God as I understand this faith and practice are one. So why then did they permit or command death for certain acts? So an act which God himself did not enact against the first murderer he permits throughout human history amongst his first choice to be his messengers, his light upon the hill to all nations.

But when God walks upon the earth as Christ, he rejects every legal justified application of death, against those for whom the penalty was just.

And here is where I really get a kick out of Christ and God . . . he neither quiblles about the law or the behavior, but in a funnt twist says, (paraphrased) “oki doki, sure let’s do this thing, whoever, has no sin, go ahead throw the first stone.” One cannot help but laugh and be moved by this shrewed response. I think Christians would be well served to follow this example. As Christ seems to be reflecting that first response to behavior worthy of death.

An in another amazing ironic twist, Christ, who scripture and christians seem with say, Christ was innocent of any crime, not just innocent of any crime, but any sin — at all — Yet he suffers one the times worst means of capital punishment —

Even after all of that brutality, pain and blood, this christ whom christains say the follow, at not during or after smite his false accusers or those who carried out the deed. But it is my understanding that he calls those who believe in him — to follow him . . . hard task master this Jesus.

Christians are awlways pointing to the bible on this matter one of their favorites, “for God giveth the sword unto kings and rulers of kingdoms to meet out justice . ..”

Well, for the beleiver if you claim yourself one, this is a dillemma indeed . . . so it appears. But upon pima facie evaluation it would appear – not. The state is neither just, nor fair — as it demonstrated every day. In the US no one in good conscience could lable the country fair or just in it’s dealings and certainly not immune from error. So while they may have the sword, they are no more free from sin as the next — so it is but impossible for me to lend my permission to the state to throw the first stone as I could members of the faith . . . there’s the milk of the law — and there’s the meat of Christ in conjunction with the law.

I guess it’s a matter of whom you choose to follow.
EliteCommInc. says:

January 26, 2013 at 2:02 pm

. . . or maybe what vs whom . . . the law alone or Christ.
Pensans says:

January 26, 2013 at 8:04 pm

EliteCommie, since you cannot even quote the Scriptures correctly, why don’t you abstain from interpreting them? You misquote Romans 13 which never limits the power of the sword to utopian societies, but rather acknowledges that even the imperfect Roman government was a valid agent of God’s wrath.

Since you know Camus so much better than the Bible, I suggest that you consider the story of the flood in addition to Cain and Able. When mankind turned its heart to evil and became full of violence, God destroyed man, except for one righteous family. And, when that man emerged from the flood, God declared to him that because man is made in God’s image, whoever sheds man’s blood shall have his blood shed by man.

Not knowing the Scriptures, of course, you do not know Christ. He never denied the authority and need of the state to keep the wickedness of men in check by fulfilling the universal law given to Noah. He called men into His Kingdom, but never suggested that the existIng duty of the state to justice, to kill murdrers, or protect inheritance should be abolished. It is true that he pointed out the irregularities under Jewish law when he was asked to order the illegal stoning of an adulteress. But he also declined to judge an inheritance dispute. Does that mean Christians should oppose inheritance and property rights?

Your Jesus is truly as you say Camus’s idol, an atheist creation. Jesus did not call us away from justice or society, but to surpass them. Certainly, the Christian may abstain from killing and holding property, but he does not oppose society’s doing these things.
EliteCommInc. says:

January 27, 2013 at 3:58 am

Pensas, I have no idea where you live. But in the United States, the sword rests in the hands of the government and should the peeople so choose they could actually end the practice of capital punishment.

Given your response, I understand that scripture accurately. I never said the Roman Government was not an agent of God — and I want to be careful here again — because I make no claims about my faith and practice. But Rome is to dispense justice in a just manner and obviously it did not —- there is a huge difference in being appointed to a task and fulfilling the task. And since justice is inbedded in this imperfect vessels, I think I must side with prudence when dispensing the ultimate punishment, unless ypou are suggesting that Government as agents of justice perform their duty with the perfection of God — to wit I could only say —- quite an imperfect God. But I don’t believe that. I believe God’s agents are quite imperfect and when they are in matters of justice I am no less inclined to stand against it as Christ himself.

So to be clear:

You make an argument I do not. I do not say that government is not an agent of God. I do say that government performs that duty quite unjustly, agents of God or not. Scripture in my limitted understanding is very tricky . . . So I stand with Paul when he says, governments are appointed to dispense justice, so tread carefully. I absolutely oppose the notion that government carry out the justice of God as you seem to suggest and in the United States I am well within my mandate to oppose said injustice. Further, as I understand Christian practice, government is the last place one looks for justice or anything else of God — but again, tread lightly on the matter — but your analysis based:

1. something I did not say
2. and a misreading of te scripture: appointment is quite different from fulfillment and I point to the trial and execution of Christ himself. As at numerous times in the process numerous religious and secular court authorities had ample opportunity to adjudicate justly — and chose, apparently as prophsied, not to do so. As I understand it God’s purpose was fulfilled inspite of the injustice — that in no way, exonerates those who knowing engaged in a amliscious and convenient prosecution. Rome was injust in this act and process as were the jewish authorities. And I don’t think the execution of jesus was a part of God’s wrath — but each is entitled to their own view.

And just for the record,

EliteCommInc. is the abbreviation for Elite Communication Inc. It nor I have any affiliation with communism. Though I may take up work in China or N. Korea as a matter of work. My first choice is of course the US, but should they choose not to avail themselves — I would go where the work is available. Now that we have dealt with the name calling.

The flood was an act by God as I understand and not man. I have no issues with the direct of God. And to your specific complaint, I don’t even have issues with capital punishment. I have already stated that it was a practice permitted by God and at times demanded by him. So these references to the flood again misplaced and not a part of any area of disagreement.

I think it very odd that christians make the contention about Christ — no he never denied that the state existed or that it had authority — so what? While he never contended against it he never contebded for it — aside from taxes — I have no clue why you bring the matter up. In no portion of my comments did I suggest that Jesus denounced capital punishment, in fact, I was quite specific. I think Jesus knew full well, that execution was the price for relations outside of marriage — no doubt and absolutely. I didn’t advocate that Jesus opposed anything as to capital punishment. You again are changing my position so that you can argue something I did and am not saying. In fact, as I recall the law, execution was a legal response, I have no idea why you call it illegal. Again, you have missed the point: Jesus path was as to justice. Is my condition such that I could exercise capital punishment? I must admit no, much to my chagrine.

that is quite a leap of issue, murder to inheritance issues. But the request for Christ to arbitrate a matter for which the law was quite clear and the practices known is handled quite differently than the adultry exceution matter. He explicitly says, not my place and instead addressed the matter of greed which I think suggests Christ’s knowledge the man’s actual motive. There did not appear to be a legal issue, but one of sharing outside the bounds of any legal dispute. The question of adultry dealt specifcally with the law. And by the way, Jesus participated fully in the matter on the table. He even went so far as to say, ‘ . . . throw the first stone . . .’ So there is no question as to his knowledge of the law.

My Camus reference has nothing to do with any form of Idolatry, though on the matter of Capital punsihment, I am forced to concede Camus shrewed response to use the very first example in scripture where God banishes as opposed to killing cain. The irony of an aetheist using scripture in such a manner — is funny.

As to your last point, I think I must take issue as I understand the christion scriptural position, you know doubt will correct me if you think I am wrong. the christain as I have heard expressed is called away from society as one of it. In it but not of it’s nature. Several of the Apostles give the church a licking for engaging outside legal agencies in Church disputes. While the christian participates in the world, the christian does so from a completely different perspective — that of Christ. The model is christ, not as a social worker, but as the ‘son of god’ if I understand what christians say about themselves and him. So in the matter of capital punishment, Christ’s example was to suggest anyone without sin — is invited to perform an execution. Neither the state nor a state composed of men is without sin — so I like his example. And justice, while I don’t think I am suggesting that christians turn away from matters of justice, but given the son of God’s example, I find it veryb hard that people who claim to follow the son of god could be advocates for the death penalty — especially in full knowledge that as an agent of God to dispense justice they fail justice on numerous occassions, such that a penalty so severe, warrants restraint. I am not discussing it’s legality or permissibility — I think scriptural model is quite clear.

I leave you with this word,

the state is eventually going to turn against believers and will do so in no uncertain terms as to motive and goal. The powers that christians hand over to government are the very tools that will be used in their destruction. Christians would be well advised to be very prudent in empowering government. But as I say, this is what I glean from christian belief. Maybe government is as you seem to believe such a perfect agent of God as to bend to their purposes.

As for me, I will follow Camus who seems to be following Cod, who accirdiung to christians sent his son to die an unjust death and fulfill the promise that for the believer the law is dead . . .

. . .maybe that’s just a rumor.
EliteCommInc. says:

January 27, 2013 at 4:07 am

The hallmark, of the conservative stance, is not to trust government. That for the government to seize anyone’s freedom, in these United States, hence the principle, that all men are innocent until proven guilty.

Our judicial system was designed to establish a high bar. The grand jury and trial by jury system were designed to act as hurdles for the government as opposed to the rubber stamp process that exists today.

The principle of rule of law was not for government — but rather for the citizens and that rule in the United States is generally about protecting freedoms, not empowering government.

That civil liberty protection has been given to the hands of liberals is frightening.

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