[PRISONACT] DP: Some Churches Discover Human Decency
Chipn...@aol.com
in on the kind of social justice issue Jesus would take on. Please do note
that Jesus was a *victim of the death penalty.* Does anyone really think HE'D
support it? Note at end. --Clara
NJ: Reduction in Support for Executions
Religions rethinking the death penalty
Bergen County [NJ] Record Online Sunday, August 8, 1999
By DAVID GIBSON Religion Writer
With the road to the death chamber finally paved for killer John Martini,
there is a widespread sense that New Jersey is just now catching up to the
rest of the country.
Thirty-eight states have reinstituted the death penalty since the U.S.
Supreme Court allowed it in 1976, and New Jersey, which hasn't put a murderer
to death since 1963, was among dwindling company in its refusal to execute
any of its death-row residents. Only seven other states with death-penalty
statutes have not executed a murderer.
Yet, just as the Garden State prepares to execute Martini -- on Sept. 22 by
lethal injection, if all goes according to plans -- there are signs that the
rest of the nation is undergoing an examination of conscience on capital
punishment that could once again leave New Jersey out of step.
Experts say there are several reasons for this reconsideration. For one
thing, the public's satisfaction with a robust economy and a sharply lower
crime rate have softened attitudes, a change that is beginning to register in
opinion polls. Although support for capital punishment remains quite strong,
it is at its lowest point in more than two decades.
In addition, a spate of releases -- 76 death-row inmates have been found to
have been wrongfully convicted, thanks primarily to new DNA technology -- has
reinforced the chilling scenario of the government executing an innocent
person.
But the most intriguing, and novel, factor in the renewed debate is the
growing voice of Christian communities in opposing the death penalty.
"I can't help but think it is going to have an effect," said Richard Dieter,
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a
Washington-based group critical of how capital punishment is applied. "If it
is a trend and if it starts to be affected by religious leaders speaking out
on the issue, then we could see a change at the grass roots."
Anecdotal and statistical evidence both suggest the change is already under
way.
This year, at least 11 states have weighed bills to halt or abolish capital
punishment, and in February, the governor of Arkansas spared a death-row
inmate for the first time since 1970. Also, four states have rejected bills
that would have established capital punishment.
Of course, politicians rarely act in isolation, so it is no surprise that
surveys show fewer Americans back the death penalty today than at any time in
nearly 20 years.
In February, for example, a Gallup Poll pegged support for executions at 71
percent, down from a high of 80 percent in 1994. The poll also showed that an
all-time high of 38 percent of Americans now favor life without parole as a
substitute for the death penalty. (New Jersey does not offer the mandatory
life option except in cases involving the killing of a police officer or the
murder of a child during a sex crime.)
And data from the General Social Surveys, the most comprehensive picture of
American attitudes, show that support for the death penalty has been sliding
in recent years, down to 68.2 percent last year, the lowest level since 1978.
Moreover, the surveys' data show that opposition to capital punishment is at
24.7 percent, a high matched only once since 1980. And the number of those
who say they are undecided about the issue -- 7.1 percent -- is the highest
since the survey started in the early 1970s.
Clearly, a strong majority still wants at least some provision for capital
punishment on the books. And the United States remains on pace to top 100
executions this year, the most since 1976.
But if the erosion in public support for executions is not yet dramatic or
definitive, pollsters say it indicates a growing ambivalence toward the death
penalty, and perhaps the leading edge of a trend that could presage a return
to the attitudes of the early 1960s.
During those years, experts say, Americans were feeling secure with a low
crime rate and a strong economy -- much like today's situation -- and as a
result as many people opposed the death penalty as supported it.
"There is reason to believe that the effect we saw in the 1960s would be
symmetrical today," said Tom Smith, director of research at the University of
Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, which conducts the General Social
Surveys. "The fact that the 1996 numbers were down a bit and the 1998 numbers
were down even more would be consistent with that trend."
What would be markedly different from the 1960s -- or any other time, for
that matter -- is the potential for the Christian churches to turn public
opinion against capital punishment.
Ever since the fourth century, when St. Augustine formulated a rationale for
the death penalty, Christianity has allowed for the ultimate sanction.
It wasn't until 1956 that the first American denomination, the Methodist
Church, formally opposed capital punishment. Although most other mainline
denominations followed suit, issues such as the Vietnam War and civil rights
displaced capital punishment on the religious agenda in the 1960s and 1970s.
In recent years, however, many Christian leaders have started speaking out
against state-sponsored executions, none more prominent than Pope John Paul
II.
Pope John Paul now regularly issues appeals on behalf of American death-row
inmates. In January, in the wake of his visit to St. Louis, the pope had his
first success when Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, a Baptist and a supporter of
capital punishment, spared a murderer's life at the pontiff's behest.
"It is very clear that Catholic teaching and the leadership has turned a
corner on the death penalty," said James Megivern, author of "The Death
Penalty: An Historical and Theological Survey," a 1997 publication. "All of
this is beginning to get through, even to very conservative Catholics."
Catholic teaching now views the death penalty in terms of the "consistent
ethic of life," holding that life is sacred from conception to natural death.
The same argument is used by foes of abortion. Until recently, the church
believed that governments had a legitimate right to put murderers to death.
And until 1969, even Vatican City allowed the death penalty.
While Roman Catholics are the largest single U.S. denomination, with 61
million adherents, a development of equal significance is the nascent
reconsideration of the death penalty within the evangelical Christian
community.
This loosely defined but large and influential group of conservative
believers has been "stalwart behind the death penalty," as one evangelical
leader put it, especially in the South, where most executions take place.
Then came the February 1998 execution in Texas of Karla Faye Tucker. Tucker,
38, had been involved in a brutal double murder but became a born-again
Christian and a model of rehabilitation during her 14 years on death row.
Although polls show a broad range of Americans recoiled at Tucker's death,
her execution affected born-again believers in particular because they saw
Tucker as one of their own, and because such prominent conservative
evangelicals as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson campaigned vigorously to have
her spared.
"I think to execute her is more an act of vengeance than it is appropriate
justice," Robertson said.
Such statements prompted many evangelicals to look for the first time at
research showing the economic, geographic, and racial disparities in the
application of the death penalty, and at the apparent lack of any correlation
between the use of the death penalty and lower murder rates.
That left only vengeance -- the "eye-for-an-eye" reasoning many Christians
traditionally invoked to support capital punishment -- as a rationale. And
that left many evangelicals uneasy.
In the wake of Tucker's execution, the influential evangelical magazine
Christianity Today reversed its historical support for capital punishment in
an editorial that declared "the death penalty has outlived its usefulness."
The magazine "took advantage of what was said by Jerry Falwell and Pat
Robertson because we thought they opened a door to where people would hear
them on this issue for the first time," said David Neff, executive editor of
Christianity Today. "Now that the door has been opened, we are just waiting
for the next case of an evangelical put to death to really focus people."
Other prominent evangelicals have come out against the death penalty,
including John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, the advocacy
group of the Christian right that sponsored Paula Jones' lawsuit against
President Clinton.
Whitehead said he had always been "queasy" about capital punishment, but in
the last two years decided to firmly oppose it on religious grounds. His
institute now regularly takes death-row appeals, and he worked on Tucker's
behalf. But Whitehead also cautioned that evangelicals have a long way to go.
"I'm one of the few loners barking with any stature saying that we should
rethink this," Whitehead said. "It will take a shift in the [evangelical]
leadership. The leadership is calling the shots."
And it is not just born-again Christians who are beginning to oppose capital
punishment. Polls show almost no difference among followers of the various
denominations -- or of other faiths -- whose support for capital punishment
mirrors that of the rest of society. The thinking of many believers is that
death is the proper -- almost merciful -- punishment for murder, especially
if one believes in an afterlife where ultimate justice is dispensed.
Martini himself, who prosecutors say was raised a Catholic, has used this
standard model of Christian thinking in seeking his own execution. In 1995,
in his first affidavit petitioning the courts to let him be killed, Martini
wrote:
"I believe I have a greater chance for religious absolution if I acknowledge
my crime and take no further legal action to prevent my death."
________
No need to reply if you liked this. I'm overwhelmed with mail these days. If
you want a break from too much mail and want to be off my special info list,
let me know, and I'll remove you. I have more sharings for you over the next
few days: they've piled up. Good stuff coming your way. Blessings to my
friends ~ Clara
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