Jesus and the Death Penalty

Note: The passages quoted below are from the New American Bible.  Similar passages can be found in the New International Bible in Matthew 15: 1-20 and John: 8:1-11

I spent this morning in Montana’s Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on a bill to abolish the death penalty.  I was testifying if favor of the bill on behalf of NAMI Montana’s members who live with serious mental illnesses and their family.

The Catholic Churches, the Assembly of God, and the Montana Association of Churches also spoke up in favor of the bill.  It’s always nice to be on the same side as your congregation and fortunately with this job I usually am.

When the opponents got up to testify, two preachers stated point blank that anyone who was against the death penalty was not a Christian.  One of the preachers pulled out his Bible to demonstrate evidence for his point.

The preacher cited Jesus’s statement in Matthew 15:4, “‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die’” as proof that Jesus was for the death penalty.  In that passage, Jesus is restating the Mosaic Law described in Leviticus 20:9, “And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.”

The preacher waved his Bible and made it very clear that professed Christians who did not follow Jesus’s will on the death penalty were hypocrites.  It was a powerful allegation, if true; but if it was true then why would the preacher use that passage of the Bible to illustrate his point? 

In that passage, Jesus described this absurd law from Levitucus and that fact that no one followed it in order to defend from the Pharisees’ ridicule of Jesus’s followers for not washing their hands when they eat a meal. Matthew 15:2.  If the passage was actually a defense of putting people to death, why would Jesus conclude it with the simple statement that “to eat with unwashed hands does not defile”? Matthew 15:20. 

If someone reading the Bible wanted to interpret Jesus’s attitude toward the death penalty, couldn’t they just go directly to John: 8:3-11 where Jesus was asked to sentence a woman for death for adultery?  In this instance, there was no doubt that the woman was guilty or that Mosaic Law required her to be put to death by stoning.

If Jesus was a firm believer in the death penalty, He would have been the first one to throw a stone.  This action would have been recorded in the Bible and made it very clear to His followers throughout history that there was no doubt that Jesus stood on the side of capital punishment.

Jesus reached down to the ground, but he did not grab a stone.  Instead, Jesus took his finger and began drawing in the dirt.

The scribes and the Pharisees who originally dragged the woman before Jesus continued to call for his judgment against her.

Jesus “straightened up and said to them, ‘Let the one among you who is without sin be the first one to throw a stone at her.’” After saying this, He bent down and began writing on the ground again.

Eventually all of the woman’s accusers left leaving just her and Jesus.  “Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“She replied, ‘No one, sir.’”

“Then Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go [and] from now on do not sin any more.”

There are some strong arguments in favor of the death penalty.  No one with a heart who listened to victims’ testimonies could deny that.  But the argument that “our government should put criminals to death because Jesus wants us to” is thoroughly debunked by John: 8:3-11.