Christian Love and the Death Penalty

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has urged the Jamaican legislature to vote against re-instating the death penalty in Jamaica. He claimed, according to the Observer of Wednesday November 19, that, “It is imposed and inflicted arbitrarily. It is an irrevocable punishment, resulting inevitably in the execution of people innocent of any crime.” In that same vein, fourteen (14) regional Anglican Bishops have called on Caribbean people to stand with them in opposing the death penalty because their “study, reflection and experience” suggest that “the death penalty has not been proved to be a deterrent”.

Jamaican legislators should listen to all voices, whether local, regional, or international, in determining the fate of the constitutionally enshrined death penalty. However, those voices should not neutralize the need for them to ensure that their vote is made after serious reflection on and consideration given to all aspects of this controversial issue.

Indeed, life must be preserved at all times because life is a fundamental human right, as Archbishop Tutu has opined. However, it seems consistent with the dictates of justice for us to embrace the perspective that those who destroy other people’s lives and thereby those persons’ right to life automatically forfeit their own right to life.

Many of these men of the cloth who oppose the death penalty do so on the basis of the Christian ethic of love. They claim that love preserves and protects rather than destroys. What they fail to see is that love demands justice (and even vengeance) as well. Christian theology juxtaposes the love of God and the justice of God and champions the notion that whereas the love of God propelled him to make salvific moves towards humankind, his justice demanded that his Son face the death penalty.

Did God impose or inflict the death penalty on His Son arbitrarily? Did God violate Jesus’ fundamental human rights? Archbishop Tutu and the Anglican Bishops in the region must wrestle with these critical questions. Some may retort by saying that Jesus was innocent and that his story is a perfect example of the imperfectness of any given justice system. Be that as it may, there is a fundamental consideration behind Jesus’ death- we (humans) deserved to die, according to conservative Christian theology. We should have faced the death penalty, but Jesus acted as our substitute on the basis of love. God saw the death penalty as a necessary evil.

It is my view that we must preserve life. However, wherever people, who are deserving of the death penalty, have been so found guilty beyond any modicum of doubt, those persons should probably be executed, the imperfection of the justice system notwithstanding. The issue of deterrence must not be used as a straw man in such instances. Love preserves life, but justice demands death where the guilty is concerned. Love and justice must be held in tension.