Death Penalty

[Kido Butai]

What is Biblical Scripture that speaks about this? I believe in the ten commandments, in particular the 6th (murder). Does the penalty of death serve the peace of the community? Does it push the condemned to make peace with God. If you were called to serve someone who was approaching their final hour, what would you say? In particular, how can you address their fear of their pending mortality?

 

[GodfatherPartTwo]

What is Biblical Scripture that speaks about this?

Exodus 21 and Romans 13. The Bible supports capital punishment. An eye for an eye is not a call to personal vengeance, but for capital punishment.

What you have now is the State not wanting to enact capital punishment, but wanting to steal the Church's responsibility of rehabilitation. So the State cannot judge righteously as long as it is trying to rehabilitate and the Church cannot rehabilitate effectively because the State is pushing them out. Criminals are not being led to Grace, they are led to licentiousness by the State.

 

[Острог]

Fr. Heers said that death penalty cannot be applied today because now the state all over the world is secular and unable to make correct judgement. It worked in the Byzantine Empire where the Church was a check on the State. In modern day, with separation of Church from state this is impossible.

IMO death penalty is first and foremost a spiritual matter (not a like we are led to believe it to be simply a criminal matter) therefore without the Church the treatment cannot be applied correctly.

 

[analyst_green]

The death penalty as a special punishment was recognised in the Old Testament. There are no indications to the need to abolish it in the New Testament or in the Tradition or in the historical legacy of the Orthodox Church either. At the same time, the Church has often assumed the duty of interceding before the secular authority for those condemned to death, asking it show mercy for them and commute their punishment. Moreover, under Christian moral influence, the negative attitude to the death penalty has been cultivated in people's consciousness. Thus, in the period from the mid-18th century to the 1905 Revolution in Russia, it was applied on very rare occasions. For the Orthodox church consciousness, the life of a person does not end with his bodily death, therefore the Church continues her care for those condemned to capital punishment.

The abolition of death penalty would give more opportunities for pastoral work with those who have stumbled and for the latter to repent. It is also evident that punishment by death cannot be reformatory; it also makes misjudgement irreparable and provokes ambiguous feelings among people. Today many states have either abolished the death penalty by law or stopped practicing it. Keeping in mind that mercy toward a fallen man is always more preferable than revenge, the Church welcomes these steps by state authorities. At the same time, she believes that the decision to abolish or not to apply death penalty should be made by society freely, considering the rate of crime and the state of law-enforcement and judiciary, and even more so, the need to protect the life of its well-intentioned members.​

Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church » Background Information » OrthodoxEurope.org

 

[GoodShepherd]

Personally I think the death penalty should be applied, crime, rape, violence and murders are increasing around the world and the prison system unfortunately in many countries is creating and breeding more criminals who are then released back into society to harm more people, the prisons are not rehabilitating offenders.

I also think the death sentences should be done publically for all to see to set an example.

There are examples in the scriptures for capital punishment if Im not mistaken there has to be at least two witnesses for it to be an actual death sentence, it cant just be based off one testimony, I think we can all agree on here and even in the secular world that if you murder someone that is at least worthy of the death penalty.

 

[analyst_green]

Personally I think the death penalty should be applied, crime, rape, violence and murders are increasing around the world and the prison system unfortunately in many countries is creating and breeding more criminals who are then released back into society to harm more people, the prisons are not rehabilitating offenders.

I also think the death sentences should be done publically for all to see to set an example.

There are examples in the scriptures for capital punishment if Im not mistaken there has to be at least two witnesses for it to be an actual death sentence, it cant just be based off one testimony, I think we can all agree on here and even in the secular world that if you murder someone that is at least worthy of the death penalty.

In countries like South Africa or Brazil, where violent crime is out of control and people are afraid to walk the streets, the death penalty may help restore some order in society. I think the US is also slowly heading in that direction.

In Russia and Eastern Europe, it was also lawless in the '90s. But violent crime has steadily been decreasing since then, despite no executions being carried out since the last century. Moscow today is one of the safest mega cities in the world. Certainly an argument can be made for bringing it back for large terrorist attacks like Crocus.

Also, it should be brought back for the leaders of organized crime networks. Nothing is more disgusting than those who profit from large-scale human sex and drug trafficking that destroys nations. One heroin distributor can ruin thousands of lives while he rakes in the millions, and I find him more contemptible than a drunken man who stabs his friend in a fit of passion.

El Salvador also has managed to go from murder capital of the world to safest country in the Western hemisphere without any executions. But strong leadership and being tough on crime are a prerequisite.

I would much rather offenders be given time to repent as opposed to execution. However, this does not take precedence over public safety if the death penalty is necessary to bring down violent crime rates. And yet it should be held to higher evidentiary standards than imprisonment.

 

[Iakobos]

Nice points in this thread. I have always understood the commandment to refer to murder, not to any act of killing. And as far as I understand the death penalty has historically been permissible in Christian nations.

While mercy whenever possible should be preferred by Christians, there is a line that, when crossed, it is more merciful for all involved to put the criminal to death. Where exactly that line lies is where the spiritual judgment comes into play and I'm glad I will never be in charge of making decisions like this. To me it's a "I know it when I see it" kind of thing that is difficult to codify into law and would rightly be applied by a Christian monarch, which is far from our present situation as above posters have pointed out.

I recommend the book On Resistance to Evil by Force by Ivan Ilyin for those interested in this topic. Its scope is broader than capital punishment but it addresses the underlying question of absolute pacifism vs. the use of force (which he distinguishes from violence). From the Orthodox perspective but I think he nails it, personally.

 

[GoodShepherd]

In countries like South Africa or Brazil, where violent crime is out of control and people are afraid to walk the streets, the death penalty may help restore some order in society. I think the US is also slowly heading in that direction.

In Russia and Eastern Europe, it was also lawless in the '90s. But violent crime has steadily been decreasing since then, despite no executions being carried out since the last century. Moscow today is one of the safest mega cities in the world. Certainly an argument can be made for bringing it back for large terrorist attacks like Crocus.

Also, it should be brought back for the leaders of organized crime networks. Nothing is more disgusting than those who profit from large-scale human sex and drug trafficking that destroys nations. One heroin distributor can ruin thousands of lives while he rakes in the millions, and I find him more contemptible than a drunken man who stabs his friend in a fit of passion.

El Salvador also has managed to go from murder capital of the world to safest country in the Western hemisphere without any executions. But strong leadership and being tough on crime are a prerequisite.

I would much rather offenders be given time to repent as opposed to execution. However, this does not take precedence over public safety if the death penalty is necessary to bring down violent crime rates. And yet it should be held to higher evidentiary standards than imprisonment.

Although El Salvador doesnt have death penalty those guys are locked up in prison until they die, the president also changed the entire prison structure so these criminals have no contact with the outside world or other less offending prisioners, so they cant corrup anyone, so yes we can have the El Salvador system without death penalty, even if you have the death penalty you can still give the offenders time to repent, like a year of solitary confinment.

In South Africa for example we have low offending criminals who get arrested for a crime thats maybe not too serious and within a few months of being in contact with the hard criminals and gang members inside prison they are traumatized and are taught new things (crime education) and instead of being reformed they now come out of jail more dangerous than what they were before the were arrested, unlike Russia our crime stats just keep getting worse every year, our murder rates keep increasing every year so for our country the death penalty is needed unless we have an El Salvador kind of miracle.