The Death of Love

The bottom line: The murder of innocense is evil - sowing & reaping to follow. The execution of a murderer - the result of sowing and reaping. Christian Charity is always to be acted on. God's Grace is to all mankind the murderer and the wrongful murdered. Pro-choicers claim pro-lifers are hypocrites. Why? A pro-lifer will condemn murder as abortion and capital punishment as justice. This is a great misunderstanding. God operates in both Justice and Grace.

Grace expiates Justice through the Blood of Jesus and belief in the Lord's bodily Resurrection from the dead. That is simple. Nonetheless God is clear, whatever is sown is reaped in this life or the life to come. For the murderer, Justice happens on earth and Grace happens in the next life by shunning hell and gaining Heaven.

Then there is the principle of Mercy. Grace is guarranteed once faith occurs. Nothing can take that away. Yet sin separates from God. Mercy is when God steps in to wipe the slate clean. That is why a Christian must alway confess his sin to God - it enables Mercy. I believe in Mercy for truly repentant murderers. That's God's call though, He knows the heart and thoughts of humanity. God knows the past, present and future as one vision.

So again it comes back to the bottom line: sowing and reaping.

Here's another perspective from another blogger, Ken Brown:

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by Ken Brown
November 28, 2005
Signs of the Times Blog

Charlie Lehardy of anotherthink has written an interesting piece on abortion and the death penalty. He notes that there's no comparing the deaths of a 1000 convicted criminals with those of 45 million innocent children (the US totals since each became legal in 1976 and 1973, respectively). But he argues that the common conservative Christian position strongly supporting the one while violently opposing the other (sometimes literally), is open to the charge of hypocrisy. He therefore proposes a deal with the left: we’ll give up the death penalty, if you give up all “elective” abortions.

My first response to this (admittedly unrealistic) suggestion was overwhelmingly positive. But the more I think about it, the less sure I become. In his amazing little book called Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton argues that a defining feature of historical Christianity is its refusal to take such middle roads, preferring to maintain both sides of any paradox. This applies as much to charity as to the doctrine of the divinity and humanity of Christ. Classic Christian charity is not some vague feeling that we ought to help those in need, nor is it the eminently sensible pagan willingness to forgive some sins but not others. Both of these are dilutions. One allows you to love all people, no matter how unlovely, while the other allows you to treat terrible sins with terrible justice. But each embraces one virtue only at the expense of the other. Christian orthodoxy accepted neither of these.

“It came in startlingly with a sword, and clove one thing from another. It divided the crime from the criminal. The criminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven. The crime we must not forgive at all. It was not enough that slaves who stole wine inspired partly anger and partly kindness. We must be much more angry with theft than before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before.... By defining its main doctrine, the Church not only kept seemingly inconsistent things side by side, but, what is more, allowed them to break out in a sort of artistic violence otherwise possible only to anarchists.”

The mainstream evangelical views on capital punishment and abortion (discounting the inevitable radicals) reflect something of this sentiment. Sin is sin and the worst crimes must hold at least the threat of the worst punishments. The death of an innocent must be treated with the utmost gravity – whether in an abortion clinic or an electric chair. But at the same time, people are people and even the worst sinners must be granted unmitigated love and forgiveness. No one should go to death row without a chaplain by their side, for no one is beyond redemption.

But it's questionable whether this great Christian paradox of charity plays any substantial role in our execution of the death penalty. I wonder if it ever has. Instead of a symbol of the enormity of sin, combined with an equally powerful symbol of the immense value of the one facing justice, capital punishment is more often viewed as well-deserved retribution on the sinner, or a justified means of offering closure to the victim’s family. Even Christians routinely argue for it on these grounds and therefore implicitly deny their claim to be “pro-life.” What might have been the ultimate affirmation of the irrevocable value of human life has been twisted into a distorted and arbitrary hypocrisy. Instead of allowing "wrath and love to run wild," they have become dangerously mixed, to great harm. Combine this with a "justice" system that is anything but, and Charlie’s proposal seems eminently reasonable. To end abortion I would gladly accept this compromise, but I cannot help feeling that some of the grandeur of the classic Christian position has been irrevocably lost.

I'm curious what the rest of you think.

Source: click Title.
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http://www.slantright.com