On Execution and Martyrdom

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/2/1/do_we_as_a_society_have?fbclid=IwAR2hOjRCEVe9XKzykO79g5COG3v2pivGNx6vaw9m3Ge0yhO720o0QEk0z3w
homistic theology, or at least ethics, is actually pretty much like Bentham in how it balances the rights of convicts with the rights of the community. In the modern world, where the divine right is with the people due to their capacity to seek the good individually and collectively, the people are responsible for protecting the many from the few who are a danger (indeed, life ethics must be about danger, not innocence or guilt).

Executing a criminal is the state causing their death to protect not only society, but fellow convicts (unless the criminal can be rehabilitated - and if they can be, they must be - just as victims must learn forgiveness for their own sakes).

Life without parole and in solitary confinement also makes the state the instrument of death for the convict, but it is a death by slow torture. Indeed, prisoners who are so confined consider it to be a sentence of death.

The desire for moral consistency is blinding the Church on this issue, yet again. It leads to cowardice because the underlying theology is that God is an Ogre who is jealous of his prerogatives over life and death, rather than leaving us to use reason. This is the case with capital punishment, euthanasia and in permitting the termination of a pregnancy (by induction, not violence).

When the child has no hope of survival to the pregnancy (so no interest in life), the mother's interest in both life and health is logical and obvious unless God is an Ogre. This is not a culture of death, it is one that is not afraid that death is part of life.. We cannot impose the witness of martyrdom on mothers in problem pregnancies. While they can make such a witness, it should not be required of them.

Remember, we started out as a Church of Martyrs. Dying for Christ courageously was kind of our thing. Now we appeal to the US Government to release those who should be embracing the virtue of their witness. We don't celebrate Good Friday because we hope that just once, Jesus gets away.