Why Capital Punishment is not such a Capital and Christian Idea

If it was ever the case that I hoped or expected jurisprudence in America to act in ways that accord with Biblical teaching, I have now officially abandoned hope of that being true, or even mostly true. I do not expect lawyers, courts or executors in America to abide by Christian principles any longer.

Furthermore, for those who are so minded, I think a reasonable case for state sanctioned capital punishment can be made on the basis of New Testament texts like Romans 13, though there the weapon mentioned (the short sword), was not used for state executions, but rather for personal protection of the tax police and others. Most Christians in the mid-50s A.D. were not fearful of legal execution by the sword anyway, because most Christians were not Roman citizens like Paul himself, and only Roman citizens who had committed a capital crime face the possibility of a quick execution by beheading.

I do think that because of the increasingly secular direction of our culture, our cultural situation is becoming more like that of the earliest Christians. After all, Paul writes Romans while Nero, and his pagan cohorts, are ruling the Empire. Compared to that, our American justice system and laws and rulers are modicums of fairness and compassion.

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