Abortion: Map of Access by State

Apparently, the closer to water you are the better chance you'll have to be able to destroy an innocent human being in a womb without restriction.

Abortion Access Map

9-Month-Old Pakistani Boy Out on Bail Charged with Attempted Murder

How many more events like this will it take before idiotic liberals stop prefacing stories such as this with "EXTREMIST" while doing cartwheels to make sure Islam more generally comes out smelling like roses?

9-Month-Old Out on Bail in 2014 on Planet Earth  

​Pregnant Orthodox Christian to be Executed for Leaving Islam After Giving Birth

A terrible story here:

On Thursday, May 15, Sudanese Christian Meriam Yahya Ibrahim, 27, was sentenced to death by hanging for the crime of apostasy.

Ibrahim, a physician who graduated from the University of Khartoum Medical School, refused to renounce her Christian faith. The Islamist Khartoum regime claims that Ibrahim is a Muslim because her father, who abandoned the family when she was six years old, was a Muslim. Ibrahim, however, embraced for herself the faith of her Ethiopian Orthodox Christian mother.

Independent Online noted that Judge Abbas Mohammed Al-Khalifa told Ibrahim, addressing her by ​her father's ​Muslim name Adraf Al-Hadi Mohammed Abdullah:

We gave you three days to recant but you insist on not returning to Islam. I sentence you to be hanged to death.

The judge reportedly instructed that her execution be carried out ​once the child has been weened but that she receive the 100 lashes for adultery soon after she gives birth. Morning Star News also reported ​that attorneys will file an appeal of the sentence on Sunday, May 18. This will put off execution of the sentence, including the flogging, until there is a ruling.

Ibrahim is married to Daniel Wani, an American citizen from South Sudan who came to the United States in 1998. She is in her ninth month of pregnancy with the couple’s second child. Their firstborn, Martin, 20 months, is ​imprisoned​ with his mother -- Sudanese authorities prohibit the Christian man from caring for his son. Wani has been prevented from seeing his wife and child since ​she was arrested along with her toddler son​​, but reports that she has not received proper medical care for complications f​rom​ her pregnancy.

According to Morning Star News, “Ibrahim’s nightmare has included denial of bail, insufficient medical care for both her and her unborn child, beatings in prison, and a U.S. Embassy that has offered little help.” Morning Star News added that a prison guard has mistreated Ibrahim and not allowed visitations or medical help, and Wani informed them that “a Muslim woman in the jail has incited other Muslims to make life difficult for her.”

As reported Wednesday​, Ibrahim was also charged with adultery as her marriage to a Christian is not recognized​ under shariah law​. ​As a result s​he was sentenced to be flogged before her execution. The draconian charges fall under Articles 126 (apostasy) and 146 (adultery) ​of Sudan’s Criminal Code which is based on Islamic law.

After her initial sentencing on May 11, Ibrahim was given three days by the court to re​nounce​ her Christian faith to ​avoid execution. In that time, during which she was repeatedly harassed by Islamic organizations sent by the court to "counsel" her on her faith, nothing has changed her mind. Middle East Concern reported Thursday that Ibrahim “calmly confirmed to the judge that she remains a Christian.”

Ibrahim and Wani were married in Sudan in December 2011. Soon afterwards Wani began the process of applying for a spousal visa to bring his bride to the safety of the United States, but he still had not received the visa when Ibrahim was arrested and charged with adultery in August 2013. According to Amnesty International​, a distant relative reported her to the authorities. The court added the further charge of apostasy in February 2014 when Ibrahim asserted that she was a Christian and not a Muslim and provided them with her marriage certificate indicating her Christian faith and the location of her wedding in a church in Khartoum.

Will the regime in Khartoum allow the execution to take place? Although many persons have been charged with apostasy, according the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies​, the last known execution for the "crime" ​of not being a Muslim ​was ​when Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, leader of the Republican Party of Sudan, was executed. Taha was convicted for his political and religious beliefs, including his opposition to the imposition of Islamic Shariah in Sudan.

Amnesty International, describing the sentence as “truly abhorrent,” suggests writing letters to Sudanese authorities urging Ibrahim’s immediate and unconditional release “because she is a prisoner of conscience, convicted solely because of her religious beliefs and identity.” In addition, Amnesty says to call on the authorities “to repeal Articles 126 and 146 that criminalize apostasy and adultery respectively, in conformity with Sudan’s obligations under international human rights law” and “to abolish the punishment of flogging and the death penalty.”

It’s not likely that Sudan, an Islamist state governed by Shariah, which ​has ​numerous connections to global jihad, ​and was once home to Osama bin Laden, ​will take these suggestions under consideration; nevertheless, it is still a good idea to register one’s protest of such inhuman violations of international human rights and the God-given dignity of the human being. Sudanese human rights activist Hawa Salih has urged, “We still have to continue blaming and shaming this law until they re-open the case, and she is free.” Salih, a Darfuri who received the 2012 U.S. Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award, is also a former prisoner of conscience.

However, for United States citizens, the first priority must be to push our own government -- Congress and the Obama administration alike -- into action. It is unacceptable that the wife and mother of U.S. citizens be allowed to be put in this position, and every member of the U.S. Congress should be registering his protest directly with the Sudanese regime as well as with the U.S. State Department.

Andrew Bostom writes, “The Obama Administration State Department (notably the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum) has reacted with what can only be characterized as malevolent indifference to the plight of Meriam Ibrahim and her family -- including her incarcerated 20-month-old toddler son, Martin, a U.S. citizen.”

On Thursday State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf released a statement ​t​​hat was almost word for word the tepid statement ​released by the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum on May 13. “We understand that the court sentence can be appealed,” meekly says the State Department. Perhaps they need to be reminded of the following facts, omitted from their statement:

• This is the wife of an American citizen.
• Her toddler, also i​mprisoned​​, is an American citizen.
• Her unborn baby will be an American citizen.

Concerned citizens should also point out that the U.S. State Department, eager as it is to ​indiscriminately ​provide ​visas ​in some cases, ​has ​made it impossible for a​ Christian American citizen to bring his wife to the United States by not providing a spousal visa in a timely manner (nor, indeed, at all yet, as of this writing). 

“I have tried to apply for papers to travel to the USA with my wife and child, but the American Embassy in Sudan did not help me,” Wani told Morning Star News.

In addition, Wani has revealed that the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum expressed “no interest” in helping the family when his wife was arrested, and that they have demanded a DNA test from Wani to prove he is the father of Martin before they will help the toddler. “I will have to take a DNA sample in Khartoum, then send it to the USA for testing,” Wani said. “I have provided wedding documents and the baby’s birth certificate, and doors were closed on his face. My son is an American citizen living in a difficult situation in prison.”

Even if Khartoum’s shariah court is not going to kill this young mother ​until her newborn is taken away from her​, action should be taken as if death is imminent. The U.S. government must act now to reunite Ibrahim and her son with Wani and to bring the family back to the United States.

Ibrahim’s attorney said Thursday, “Meriam is very encouraged by the international support she is receiving from the international community. She hopes that people stand with her and her family until she gets her freedom.” Let’s push the U.S. government to make that happen.

Faith J. H. McDonnell directs the Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan and is the author of Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children (Chosen Books, 2007).

Church Sign in Town

"TRY OUR SUNDAYS THERE BETTER THAN BASKIN-ROBBINS"

Ummm....I doubt it.

Affirmative Action and Cuban Communist Utopia

Heather Mac Donald has a nice write-up on the recent Michigan affirmative action case.  Here is an excerpt:

Justice Kennedy, writing the controlling plurality opinion (joined by Justices Roberts and Alito), noticed something in the political-process doctrine that is even more lethal to the Court’s preference jurisprudence. By requiring courts to determine whether a policy is a “racial issue,” the doctrine makes courts stereotype minorities, Kennedy wrote. The “racial issue” test presumes that all minorities share the same interests and same points of view, he said. But “it cannot be entertained as a serious proposition that all individuals of the same race think alike.”

Uh-oh. There goes the diversity rationale down the drain.
According to the Supreme Court, the only reason why schools should be allowed to discriminate against more academically qualified applicants in favor of less qualified black and Hispanic applicants is that those “underrepresented” minorities will bring otherwise missing perspectives to the classroom and cafeteria. But if each individual is in fact sui generis, then there is no reason to believe that selection by skin color will lead to a non-random introduction of additional viewpoints. The next case to challenge racial preferences should quote Kennedy’s words back to him as the death knell for the “diversity” conceit.

Also at City Journal, Michael Totten writes about his recent visit to Cuba:

Leftists often talk about “food deserts” in Western cities, where the poor supposedly lack options to buy affordable and nutritious food. If they want to see a real food desert, they should come to Havana. I went to a grocery store across the street from the exclusive Meliá Cohiba Hotel, where the lucky few with access to hard currency shop to supplement their meager state rations. The store was in what passes for a mall in Havana—a cluttered concrete box, shabby compared even with malls I’ve visited in Iraq. It carried rice, beans, frozen chicken, milk, bottled water, booze, a small bit of cheese, minuscule amounts of rancid-looking meat, some low-end cookies and chips from Brazil—and that’s it. No produce, cereal, no cans of soup, no pasta. A 7–11 has a far better selection, and this is a place for Cuba’s “rich” to shop. I heard, but cannot confirm, that potatoes would not be available anywhere in Cuba for another four months.

Best Christian Films

Well, I finally got around to watching God's Not Dead.  I'll  post about it in the near future, but first I thought I'd give my top ten unobjectionable, intentionally Christian films.  What do I mean by "intentionally Christian?"  I mean that the film has some major Christian theme or prominent Christian element that's hard to ignore, even if the film doesn't jump out and slap you in the face with it.  At some point in the process of writing to the finished product, there was someone involved who had thought about the Christian theme or element, and thus it wasn't mostly an accident that the film turned out to be a Christian film.  By "unobjectionable" I mean that few Christians will find the movie offensive and few will find it unChristian.  For instance, I left The Last Temptation of Christ off the list because it's so controversial.  A different example, the LOTR series could've easily made the list, but the Christian elements are very subtle.  Perhaps I'll make another list sometime with more controversial and less overtly Christian films.

I recommend all of these but here is the list from (roughly) favorite to least favorite:

Two of my favorite actors in a film that everyone in the family can watch.  A classic.  I love it.

The George C. Scott version!  It's the best.  We watch it every year with the girls (and soon, the boys).

The Elephant Man

Staying true to the play it was based on, this Peter Lynch directed movie is powerfully Christian.

Chariots of Fire

Great independent movie.  I'm breathing hard just thinking about it.

A Charlie Brown Christmas

If you don't like this movie then you're probably not a Christian or a good person.

The Seventh Seal

Lots to think about in this classic.

It's a Wonderful Life

Somehow I went 24 years in this world without ever watching this movie.  What's not to like about it?

The Mission

De Niro. With a beard and a sword.  Jeremy Irons playing "Father Gabriel."  What's not to like about IT?

The Passion of the Christ

What was the controversy about again?  Too much blood and gore?  What's not to like about blood and gore?

Babette's Feast

There are some nice subtleties in this off the beaten path film.

SO WHAT AM I MISSING?

DIVERSITY at Harvard!

Liberals should be thrilled with this.  More diversity at college:
Satan at Harvard

Alas, it has been called off due, no doubt, to Satanaphobia:
Black Mass Canceled  

Mother's Day Sermon

Just preached a Mother's Day sermon on exorcisms.  (Blame the lectionary, not the messenger).
Title: Whispers in the Dark (Mumford and Sons fans might understand).
Subtitle: A Mother's Day Sermon from Hell.

Along those lines, this might be of interest to some readers:
A Modern Day Pope Gets Old School on the Devil 

What to Say to a Catholic in Doubt When Dying

Some powerful and provoking words from Bill Vallicella:

This from a correspondent:

My grandmother is on her deathbed.  My mother flew out to Boston to be there with her when she dies.  Of course my grandmother is putting up a good fight; however, they expected her to die yesterday.  My mother had a conversation with her while she was lucid.  She asked her, “Why are you fighting so hard?  Do you fear something?” 

My grandmother’s reply, “I fear that there is nothing on the other side.”  Here is a woman who has spent eighty nine years of her life devoting herself to the [Catholic] church and her family.  Now, when it comes down to death she is clinging on because her entire life is behind her and the only thing that she faces in front of her is the uncertainty of whether there is a heaven awaiting her in the coming days. 

If you were there at my grandmother’s deathbed and she would convey to you her fears, what would you tell her? 

I'm a philosopher, not a pastor, and what a dying nonphilosopher needs is pastoral care, not philosophical dialog.  But if I were to play the pastor I would say something along the following lines. 

"You have lived your long life faithfully and devotedly in the embrace of Holy Mother the Church.  She has presided over central events in your life, your baptism, first communion, confirmation, and your marriage.  She has provided guidance, moral instruction, comfort, and community  as you have navigated life's difficulties and disappointments.  She provided meaning and solace when your parents died, and your husband, and your many friends and relatives.  If your faith was a living faith and not a convenience or a matter of social conformity, then from time to time you had your doubts.  But through prayer and reflection you have repeatedly reaffirmed your faith.  You faith was made deeper and truer by those doubts and their overcoming." 

"I ask you now to recall those moments of calm reflection and existential lucidity, those moments when you were at your best physically, mentally, and spiritually.  I ask you to recall them, and above all I ask you not to betray them now when you are weak. Do not allow the decisions and resolutions of your finest and and clearest hours to be taken hostage by doubts and fears born of weakness.  Your weakness has called forth the most vicious attacks of the Adversary and his agents.  You have lived in the faith and now you must remain true to a course of life judged right at the height of your powers.  Your doubts are of the devil and they must be put aside.  Pray, and remain true to a course judged right."  

So that is what I would say to the old Irish Catholic woman on her deathbed.  I would exhort her to remain true to a course judged right in the moments of her highest existential lucidity and to bring her life to a successful completion.  The hour of death is not the time to grapple with the devil of doubt!

To myself and the others for whom the hora mortis is still a ways off, to those in the  sunshine of their strength, physical and mental, I say the following.  Now is the time to wrestle with doubts and either defeat them or succumb to them.  Now is the time to get serious about The Last Things.  It is far better to get serious  about them before they get serious about you.  Now is the time to face the reality of death without evasion and to prepare for a happy death.  Now is the time to realize that you don't have all the time in the world, that as the Zen Master Dogen says, "Impermanence is swift."  Now is the time to stop fooling yourself about how you are going to live forever.  For "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (James 3, 14)

Correlation is not Causation

Kalam Argument for God's Existence Defended?

The Kalam Cosmological Argument for God's existence has two basic premises:
1. There is a beginning of time.
2. The best explanation for this is God's creating time.
[Often the argument is put in terms of the universe having a beginning in time but this is misleading since what the argument needs to ultimately rule out is there being no beginning of time period].

Alexander Pruss has offered a neat defense of premise 1 over at his his blog.  Or at least that is what he suggests.

Here is my formulation of it:

1. There are several paradoxes (Thompson's Lamp/Grim Reaper/Coin Toss Sequence/etc.) which can be solved by appeal to narrow ad hoc principles.
2. But all the paradoxes have a solution if the following principle is true: No event can irreducibly depend on infinitely many things.
3. Unlike the narrow principles, this principle provides an elegantly simple solution to all the paradoxes.
4. If 3, then the principle is probably true.
5. The principle is probably true.

Pruss doesn't go on to apply 5 to the Kalam but here's a shot at it:
6. If 5, then no event in time can depend on infinitely many previous events in time (or other things).
7. There have been events in time.
8. Thus, (from 6 and 7) there are events in time that don't depend on infinitely many previous events in time (or other things).
9. If 8, there's either an infinite series of events in time with no dependency between previous and future events or other things, or there is dependency between previous and future events (or other things) in a finite series.
10.  Causal Principle: For every event there is a cause.
11. If 9 and 10, then either there is some cause for the infinite series of independent events (or things), or there is some cause of the first event which is not itself an event in time.

Here we have the beginnings of a Cosmological Argument, but it's not exactly the Kalam since it doesn't get us to a beginning in time.  For that we'd need to rule out that there could be an infinite series of events which don't depend on infinitely many things.

This was done quickly.  I'm probably overlooking something.

[Update: From Pruss's comment to my question on his blog I do not think he meant to argue by way of 6-11.  Nonetheless, they might be worth thinking about.]

Let Your Yea be Yea and Your Nay be Nay

Bare Cross or Crucifix?

Catholics, Orthodox, many Lutherans, and some Anglicans display and sometimes wear crucifixes.  Some Lutherans and Anglicans don't, and virtually no Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Evangelicals more generally wear or display crucifixes.  Instead they typically display or wear an empty cross.

Why do we in this latter group reject crucifixes?

From what I can tell, Luther was down with crucifixes but Calvin and Zwingli were not (though Calvin and Zwingli held that certain religious symbols--perhaps crucifixes, I don't know--were OK if in one's house).

Four reasons against crucifixes that I can glean are:


1. Exodus 20:4's prohibition against graven images

2. Having images in church tends toward idolatry
3. An empty cross better symbolizes Christ's resurrection
4. Galatians 6:14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Regarding 1:
Now, Exodus 20:4, taken at face value, rings of Islam: you shall not make any images of any thing period.   But Christians have long been against this extreme type of iconoclasm and have held a more nuanced view in interpreting Exodus 20:4-5 in light of the New Testament.  If Exodus 20:4 rules out crucifixes, it would seem to rule out any statues of Jesus, paintings of Jesus, and the light-bulb-glowing-Christmas-baby-Jesus.

Regarding 2:
This is hard to prove.  Catholics, Lutherans, etc. certainly argue that they are not worshiping crucifixes and don't treat them as idols.  Perhaps in practice this does not always hold but that's definitely their view.  Of course, the threat on the other side is a tendency towards Gnosticism, thinking of God as completely transcendent and forgetting the Incarnational God.  There's also a tendency towards idolatry with respect to the Bible and militant, individualistic Biblicism.  I don't know how many times I've heard pastors and other Christians in the last few years say that "the Bible IS TRUTH" as if Jesus is the Bible!  At any rate, even if crucifixes are sometimes idolized, that's not a good argument against them in principle.

Regarding 3:
The Biblical symbol of the Resurrection is not the cross but the empty tomb.  An empty cross is no better symbol of the Resurrection than a crucifix since the cross was empty before the crucifixion.

Regarding 4:
We should probably take "cross" as a metaphor for the crucifixion or a synecdoche for Christ on the cross.  A cross without Christ is pointless, just as His death without the resurrection is pointless (as Paul was well aware).

Now for some Biblical passages that might be taken to favor crucifixes:

1 Cor. 1  23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

1 Cor. 2   2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Gal. 3:1  You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

Col. 1 15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Hebrews 1 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

John 20 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. [Gross!  Gross?] Stop doubting and believe.”

Rev. 5:6 Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders.

Obviously there's no knock down argument here for displaying or wearing crucifixes, but if we're going to allow some physical representations or symbols of Jesus (beyond symbols in a natural language like "Jesus"), it's hard to see why a three dimensional representation of Jesus dying on the cross is particularly problematic.  We're not Muslims after all!

One last argument (I'm sure there are others) against crucifixes is that the crucifix for Catholics might also be symbolic of Christ's perpetual sacrifice in the Eucharist (which some Protestants reject appealing to Hebrews 10:10 as a proof text among other things).  I don't know if that's true of Catholics, but there's nothing inherent in a crucifix suggestive of a perpetual sacrifice, just as there's nothing inherent in the baby Jesus in a manger scene suggesting that Jesus is perpetually a baby.

Unfortunately, there seems to me a general lack of theological reflection on art in Evangelical circles more generally (and an ignorant rejection of all things Roman Catholic as well).  Here  is a great place to start.  Here is a very introductory work on iconography (which Evangelicals should find appealing; I know my brother-the-pastor found it helpful as did I).

As always, thoughts and objections are welcome.

Grad Student Testimonial

Unless you're going to seminary, here is the sort of thing to look forward to in graduate school where the vast majority of professors quaff kegs of leftist Kool-Aid.   This from a philosophy grad student:

Today I read your blog post on Sterling and the NBA, thought it captured what I've been thinking perfectly, and thought about posting it on my Facebook page as a thoughtful thing for people to engage. But I didn't do it because of my fear that people will make bad, unfair judgments of me that could *truly* damage my reputation. I used to occasionally post political stuff, usually conservative, but I've all but quit. I've been to enough philosophy dinners etc. where I've heard philosophers absolutely shred other philosophers over Facebook posts like that.  So, I've entered a phase of life where I keep most of my political/cultural comments to myself. Basically I'm in the front half of the tunnel, the other end of which is receiving tenure...The liberals that I fear are not Christians; they are my professors and they will write my letters of recommendation. As far as I know, they like me. I'm not giving them any reason to change their opinion unless it's very important.
So, I basically only post Facebook things that I know either everyone will feel like me about, or lots of people won't care anything about. So, I post about sports, fun stuff that I'm doing, or maybe a picture of [my daughter].

[One of my professors is] one of the most antagonistic atheist/secularists I've ever met. His mother home-schooled him for the purpose of ensuring that he DIDN'T experience God in any way, through public school or anything. Anyway, he is a bisexual who is engaged to marry a woman. The "marriage" will be open. He has told many of us that he is active in [our city's] dungeons culture, which apparently is one of the most robust in the country (I really didn't care to know that, but I do now). He has kinda come on to one of my Christian buddies. 

Would Jesus Support the Death Penalty?

Jonathan Merritt, writing for The Atlantic, asks, "Would Jesus Support the Death Penalty?"  For Christians, the question is equivalent to, "Would God Support the Death Penalty?" which raises the more general question, "Should We Support the Death Penalty?"

What do we mean by this question?  We might be asking whether capital punishment (CP) is permissible (in theory) or whether it's intrinsically wrong.  We might be asking whether it's not only permissible, but also obligatory.  We might also be asking whether, even if permissible, CP is overall good or better than alternative punishments for certain crimes.  Or we might be skipping past these questions to the question of whether we should vote for legislators who would implement it.

That it's permissible (in theory) seems to be well supported by the following propositions, one of which only believers in the Western faiths will find appealing:

1. In the Old Testament, God assigns capital punishment for certain offenses; thus there have been times when CP is permissible; thus, in theory, it's permissible.
2. If one knowingly murders an innocent person, one gives up one's right not to have one's life taken in return; if one gives up one's right not to have one's life taken in return for a murder, then CP is permissible in theory; thus CP is permissible in theory.

I find 1 and 2 hard to resist, but Merritt seems opposed to them and against CP in theory as well as in practice. Let's see some of his evidence against it:

Christians who support the death penalty often cite passages from the Old Testament that allowed for capital punishment. But Jesus told his followers not to observe the Jewish law that allowed for retributive justice: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”

As theologian Benjamin Corey says, “It is not possible to argue a Christian case in support of the death penalty while citing passages from the Hebrew scriptures, because this will put one at odds with Jesus himself.”

Theologian Benjamin Corey appears to be flirting dangerously close to Marcionism: Is it "not POSSIBLE to argue [for] a Christian case in support of the death penalty while citing passages from Hebrew Scripture"?  Surely that is putting things too strongly.  Here are possible interpretations of Jesus's remarks on lex talionis, not all of which seem impossible to square with a proper interpretation of the Old Testament:

1. Jesus is denying that retributive justice is permissible.
2. Jesus is denying that retributive justice is obligatory.
3. Jesus is denying that retributive justice is obligatory and permissible.
4. Jesus is denying that retributive justice is obligatory and permissible for individuals not acting in the capacity of a state official.
And so forth.

My own view, which I shall not argue for here, is that Jesus is denying that one should ever act simply for the sake of retribution.  Jesus is focusing on the heart and the reasons why we do things.  He is against a certain mindset of reciprocity.  If that is correct, then Jesus is not here denying that it's ever permissible for a state to put people to death (which is a good thing, since the opposite would be hard to square with Romans).

Many forget that Jesus once served as a one-man jury on a death-penalty case. In a famous New Testament story, an adulterous woman was dragged to Jesus’ feet. The woman was guilty of a capital offense and had been caught in the act by at least one witness. The law mandated her death but Jesus prescribed a different response: “Let whoever is without sin cast the first stone.” He was teaching that only a perfect being—only God—should have power over death and life.

The problem with taking this passage to rule out CP gets to a problem that CP abolitionists almost always ignore in this discussion: If this story rules out CP, it would seem to rule out all punishments as well.   Let those of you without sin sentence someone to life in prison.  Let those of you without sin sentence someone to five years in prison.  Let those of you without sin....  I take that as a reductio ad absurdum of the argument which interprets the passage as condemning any instances of CP.

There’s no reason to believe that Jesus or these early Christian leaders would feel any different about the matter today with our broken justice system. The most reliable predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death is not the amount of evidence, but the race of the victim. Geography is also an important factor, which is why a handful of counties are responsible for most of the executions in the United States. And then of course wealth is a factor, as almost all death-row inmates could not afford their own attorney. 

No doubt race and money have some influence in legal matters (but the statistics he cites fail, by themselves, to give an actual argument that the explanation for the majority of the statistics is unjust discrimination). But of course there are all sorts of irrelevant factors that influence prosecutors and juries: how attractive one is, whether one shows emotional displays of empathy in the court room, whether one is a woman (far fewer women convicted of murder receive the death penalty compared to men), and so on.  But this does nothing to show that CP, any more than any other punishment, is impermissible.  At best, what the statistics show (if they can show that there is unjust discrimination), is that there are jurisdictions which need to correct their punitive practices more generally.

There are also practical reasons to oppose the death penalty. [TB: Wasn't the stuff about race a practical reason?] Studies show that death-penalty cases are as much as 10 times more expensive to adjudicate than comparable cases. And the risk of executing a person unnecessarily is real.  

Of COURSE it costs more to adjudicate CP cases, but that's a GOOD thing.  The reason it costs more is because of all the appeals, appeals which are there to make sure the person is guilty.  Yes, "the risk of executing an [innocent] person unnecessarily is real," but so the risk of imprisoning a person FOR LIFE who, unlike the person on death row, is not afforded multiple appeals.

Following Claiborne’s encounter with Haslam, I joined Claiborne in visiting death-row inmates atRiverbend Maximum Security Institution. I spent more than an hour conversing with these men, four of whom have execution dates scheduled. I could feel the weight of desperate prayers and desperate pleas of desperate prisoners.
While I sat talking with them, Dear’s words came to mind: “Killing people who kill people is not the way to show that killing people is wrong.”

Question: Would they have been praying if they were sentenced to life in prison?  Perhaps we'll never know, but the above should dispel the notion that there is any merit to the argument that some U.S. Christians give about "needing more time to repent."

It is true that murdering people who murder people is not the only way to show that murdering people is wrong.  One could also show that murder is wrong by having them watch a murder on Youtube.  (Of course, most people don't NEED to be shown it's wrong to know that it's wrong!)  But not punishing people EVER (which Merrick's argument seems to entail) is also not a way to show people that what they did was wrong.  What eliminating punishments would do is to mislead people into thinking that actions don't have consequences.

It brings to mind one of the best scenes from Breaking Bad (no major spoilers here):

So do I believe in CP?  Yes, I guess I do.  I think it should be rare.  It should only be for acts so heinous that society puts its ultimate stamp of diapprobation on them as a way of standing in solidarity with those who have received horrific acts of injustice.  Stoning to death for prostitution wouldn't meet that bar; but abducting, torturing, shooting, and burying alive a teenage girl would.

For more on CP see the Maverick here:

Death Penalty, Abortion, and Certainty
and here:
Capital Punishment and the Difference Between Conservatives and Leftists

7th Day Adventist Spambot and Blog Statistics

In the two and a half months of this humble blog's existence, it has received 3691 page views--not bad at all, but I'm nowhere near being able to take over the world.

My guess from all the statistics provided is that there have been anywhere between 150-200 unique visitors and there are probably about 50-60 regular visitors.

There have been 67 comments (probably 1/2 of which are my own).

Most interesting statistic: Of the four people who I don't know that have commented, three of them have been against my annihilationism posts (some making it to my Gmail but not making it to the blog and one just last night)!

How do these people keep finding this blog?!  (Look, I'm happy to have them visit, but I'm just curious how they are finding it!!)

Tocqueville (1805-1859) on the Influence of Democracy on Fatherhood

An excerpt from Democracy in America, Vol. II, Pt. III, Ch. 8:

Everyone has noticed that relations among family members have changed in recent years, that the distance that once separated a father from his sons has decreased and that paternal authority has been if not destroyed then at least impaired.
Something analogous but even more striking can be seen in the United States.
In America, the family--taking the word in its Roman and aristocratic sense--does not exist.  What few vestiges remain exist only during the first few years following the birth of children.  During that time the father enjoys the unchallenged domestic dictatorship that the weakness of his sons required and their interest, together with their father's incontestable superiority, justifies.
 As the young American approaches manhood, however, the bonds of filial obedience grow looser with each passing day.  He first becomes master of his thoughts and soon thereafter of his conduct.  In America, to tell the truth, there is no such thing as adolescence.  When boyhood ends, the man stands forth and begins to set his own course. [Today it would seem that 'adolescence' is a term which picks out a latter stage of boyhood, but not for Tocqueville.]
...
When the social state becomes democratic and men adopt as a general principle that it is good and legitimate to judge all things in relation to oneself, taking old beliefs as information and not as rule, the power of opinion that a father exerts over his sons diminishes, as does his legal power.
The division of patrimonies, which is a consequence of democracy, contributes more than anything else, perhaps, to changing the relationship between a father and his children.
So as power slips away from the aristocracy, we see all that was austere, conventional, and legal vanishing from paternal power as well, and a kind of equality establishing itself around the domestic hearth.
I do not know whether, all things considered, society loses as a result of this change, but I am inclined to believe that the individual gains.  I believe that as mores and laws become more democratic, relations between father and sons become more intimate and tender.  Rule and authority are less frequently encountered.  Confidence and affection are often greater, and the natural bond seems to grow tighter as the social bond is relaxed.
...
It is not impossible, I think, to sum up the entire meaning of this chapter and several of those that precede it in a single sentence.  Democracy relaxes social bonds but tightens natural bonds.  It brings kin closer together while at the same time driving citizens apart. [No doubt Tocqueville was a shrewd observer, but just how prescient he is here is open to debate].