Ethics & Religion
Column #2,058
Jan. 19, 2021
End The Death Penalty?
By Mike McManus
Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. If still alive, he'd be
celebrating his 92nd birthday.
A day earlier, on Sunday, his son, Martin Luther King III said his
father recognized "the severity and inequality" of the death penalty. He
spoke out against the disproportionate execution of young black men,
often barely older than children at the time of their crimes.
For 17 years there were no federal executions. However, President Trump
ordered a dozen executions in the past seven months - a "barrage of
executions," a "bloodbath which exceeded the executions of all states
combined in 2020," King asserted.
The Old Testament clearly condones and even commands capital punishment
for such crimes as homicide, striking one's parents, kidnapping.
However, the New Testament has a different view. The Sermon on the Mount
rejects "an eye for an eye." John 8:3-11 mentions a woman caught in
adultery being brought before Jesus for judgment. Jesus said, "Let the
one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."
They went away, one by one.
Jesus said to her, "Go (and) from now on, do not sin anymore.'"
I lived in Montgomery, Alabama as a teenager when Dr. King was pastor of
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, from which he led a boycott of the city's
buses to force an end to racially segregated seating. Although I
delivered the local newspaper, which I read daily, the paper did not
report upon King's leadership. But I remember seeing black maids walking
from their homes to work - rather than ride the bus.
At the time, at age 28, King wrote an article for the Christian Century,
asking, "How is the struggle against the forces of injustice to be
waged? There are two possible answers. One is to resort to the all too
prevalent method of physical violence and corroding hatred. The danger
of this method is its futility. Violence solves no social problems; it
merely creates new and more complicated ones."
King offered an alternative strategy he called "nonviolent resistance."
He cited the work of Mohandas Gandhi, who pursued Indian independence
with nonviolence which "is not a method for cowards; it does resist."
King wrote, "The nonviolent resister is just as strongly opposed to the
evil against which he protests as is the person who uses violence."
How does nonviolence get its force if there is not pain, fear and
intimidation that violence offers? King wrote, "Nonviolent resistance
does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his
friendship and understanding." He argued that "at the center of
nonviolence stands the principle of love."
Love, King believed, can be muscular, unsentimental and transforming. He
trusted because he believed that "the universe is on the side of
justice."
King was assassinated less than a dozen years later. However, King had a
dream that we remember today. It is worth recalling his exact words that
were spoken during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on
August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial:
He said he had a dream that is "deeply rooted in the American dream. I
have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: `We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal.'
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit
down together at the table of brotherhood..."
"I have a dream that my four little children will live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of
their character.
"I have a dream today."
In 1957 Martin Luther King Jr. was asked if God approves of the death
penalty. He replied, "I do not think God approves the death penalty for
any crime." He explained that "capital punishment is against the better
judgment of modern criminality and, above all, against the highest
expression of love in the nature of God."
I am grateful that his son is still pursuing his father's dream of an
end to capital punishment. I pray he will be successful.
_________________________
Copyright (c)2021 Michael J. McManus, President of Marriage Savers and
a syndicated columnist. To read past columns, go to
www.ethicsandreligion.com. Hit
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