What are you against? It is a rather unusual question. The more common query is “What (or who) are you for?” Whether it be a sports team (Go Bucks!), a flavor of Mountain Dew in their Dewmocracy contest, a religion, or a politician, most people ask the question in the positive form.
Yet, I have become more sensitive to the numerous ways in which people express their feelings, and questions, in the negative form. People are less and less ‘for’ something, and more and more ‘against’ something.
In fact, I was at a church service recently, and was thoroughly surprised (as were many) at the blatantly political message from the pulpit.
I should mention at the start, however, that this congregation is unlike many in the broader Christian world. Generally, this congregation, and its fellowship in general, tends to be very Republican and conservative, but is also careful to keep politics and in most cases even patriotism “separate and apart” from the message of the Good News. I have never seen a flag of any kind on the grounds of any of the churches of this fellowship, much less in the building (Praise God!). Also, this congregation attempts to train and involve as many Christian men as are willing. So, at least one time a month, the elders allow and encourage men of the congregation to sign up to give the sermon. On this night, a young man that I respect greatly was giving the lesson.
He started his sermon most excellently about talking about priorities. Whose priorities are we seeking, our priorities or God’s? He gave several good biblical illustrations of people who sought their own priorities, much to their detriment. He then shifted gears a bit to remind us that this process of seeking God’s priorities extends to politics and the election process. He started by stating, “I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. It’s none of my business.” So far, so good. “But as a Christian, I can tell you who you should not vote for… Nobody who calls themselves a Christian can vote for Obama.” What!? His main reason was Obama’s support for abortion rights. While it is terribly predictable that abortion would be the most important issue for him (and the church in general), I was struck at how he was so blatantly against something, and not for something.
I am for life. In fact, I’m so pro-life that I have serious reservations (not blanket prohibitions) about the death penalty and use of violence to accomplish military and nationalistic goals. I am morally sickened at the rampant use of abortion.
But I am for other things too. In fact, my whole life perspective, my whole theology, is succinctly summarized by Micah 6:8 – “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” I am for justice and mercy and walking humbly with God. I am about loving people.
In this election, as it always is now a days, I have to wisely seek God’s priorities, because no one individual appears to be “for” the same things my limited understanding leads me to believe are God’s priorities. If I vote for “X”, he will likely align with my views on this one issue. And if I vote for “Y”, he will likely align with my views on these two issues. How do I value these in the process of deciding to vote?
If churches, and really all faith communities, want to address moral issues in the political realm, they should really be addressing how to be wise in making evaluations about what really matters. Which is a higher priority for God? Stopping abortion, or addressing the economic oppression and moral decay that leads to abortion? How should we view personal responsibility in terms of the Christian perspective? What does it mean to oppress the poor, and how does that happen today? These are the types of questions that I wish faith communities would wrestle with.
I wish people would be more worried about what they are for, than what they are against.
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Can the death penalty be viewed as pro life?
The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
To state the blatantly clear, living murderers, in prison, after release or escape, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.
Although an obvious truism, it is surprising how often folks overlook the enhanced incapacitation benefits of the death penalty over incarceration.
No knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law.
Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
That is. logically, conclusive.
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty deterrence.
A surprise? No.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 16 studies. They don't. Studies which don't find for deterrence don't say no one is deterred, but that they couldn't measure those deterred.
What prospect of a negative outcome doesn't deter some? There isn't one . . . although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one.
However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. Yet, the evidence is compelling and un refuted that death is feared more than life.
Some death penalty opponents argue against death penalty deterrence, stating that it's a harsher penalty to be locked up without any possibility of getting out.
Reality paints a very different picture.
What percentage of capital murderers seek a plea bargain to a death sentence? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of convicted capital murderers argue for execution in the penalty phase of their capital trial? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of death row inmates waive their appeals and speed up the execution process? Nearly zero. They prefer long term imprisonment.
This is not, even remotely, in dispute.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Furthermore, history tells us that lifers have many ways to get out: Pardon, commutation, escape, clerical error, change in the law, etc.
In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to spare murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocent lives.
Furthermore, possibly we have sentenced 20-25 actually innocent people to death since 1973, or 0.3% of those so sentenced. Those have all been released upon post conviction review. The anti death penalty claims, that the numbers are significantly higher, are a fraud, easily discoverable by fact checking.
6 inmates have been released from death row because of DNA evidence. An additional 9 were released from prison, because of DNA exclusion, who had previously been sentenced to death.
The innocents deception of death penalty opponents has been getting exposure for many years. Even the behemoth of anti death penalty newspapers, The New York Times, has recognized that deception.
To be sure, 30 or 40 categorically innocent people have been released from death row . . . (1) This when death penalty opponents were claiming the release of 119 "innocents" from death row. Death penalty opponents never required actual innocence in order for cases to be added to their "exonerated" or "innocents" list. They simply invented their own definitions for exonerated and innocent and deceptively shoe horned large numbers of inmates into those definitions - something easily discovered with fact checking.
There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US, at least since 1900.
If we accept that the best predictor of future performance is past performance, we can reasonable conclude that the DNA cases will be excluded prior to trial, and that for the next 8000 death sentences, that we will experience a 99.8% accuracy rate in actual guilt convictions. This improved accuracy rate does not include the many additional safeguards that have been added to the system, over and above DNA testing.
Of all the government programs in the world, that put innocents at risk, is there one with a safer record and with greater protections than the US death penalty?
Unlikely.
Full report -All Innocence Issues: The Death Penalty, upon request.
Full report - The Death Penalty as a Deterrent, upon request
(1) The Death of Innocents: A Reasonable Doubt,
New York Times Book Review, p 29, 1/23/05, Adam Liptak,
national legal correspondent for The NY Times
copyright 2007-2008, Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
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