In my post below on Kevin Cooper (whose execution in California was stayed overnight by the Ninth Circuit, a stay that was upheld by the Supremes), I linked to the Save Kevin Cooper website. XRLQ pointed out, correctly, that I seemed to be making two separate arguments for sparing Cooper — one based on doubts about his guilt, the other based on a blanket opposition to capital punishment. While the arguments can be complementary, of course, I realize that the first argument is actually irrelevant for me as a Christian. Heck, in my as of yet not fully awake state, I repent of having made it at all.
If we put time and energy as anti-death penalty activists into questioning the guilt of those on death row, we imply that we believe that capital punishment can be appropriately applied to the truly guilty. The historic position of Mennonites (which I mentioned below) has generally been that the death penalty is never appropriate, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the condemned person. To my mind, Cooper’s execution is fundamentally immoral, and I will grieve his judicial murder (should it in fact still take place, as it may well) without giving a moment’s thought to whether he actually committed the crime. Is that willfull ignorance on my part? Perhaps. But the tragedy of capital punishment is not that it sometimes is applied unjustly, it is that that capital punishment is inherently unjust.
Most Mennonites don’t debate whether wars are “just” are not, because (thank the good Lord) we believe all wars to be inherently “unjust”. The whole notion of a Just War tradition may be an interesting and fascinating intellectual exercise to us, but ultimately, when people kill people, we pacifists tend not to be too concerned with the rationale behind that killing. We reject the Just War tradition entirely in favor of an ethical pacifism that bravely (perhaps stubbornly) refuses to acknowledge the delicate distinctions that our fellow Christians make. That radical consistency also applies to our feelings on capital punishment.
But here is where my liberal friends will leave me: though I remain conflicted in my own mind as to how best to work to end abortion, I am convinced that the “rape exemption” is equally intellectually and spiritually untenable. Just as the guilt or innocence of Kevin Cooper is irrelevant to my opposition to his execution, so too are the circumstances of the conception of the preborn child irrelevant to the question of that child’s right to be born. I cannot even begin to imagine how traumatic it must be to carry a child conceived in violence to term. The fact that it must be unspeakably difficult and tremendously painful does not mean that it is not the fundamentally right thing to do. (How long before they pull me out of my classroom and tell me I am not fit to teach Women’s Studies — my favorite class — any longer?)
These are radical arguments. To most, they seem simplistic and easy. I once held far more nuanced positions, positions that I thought were reflective of my recognition of the complexity of situations like abortion, war, and capital punishment. But maybe sometimes, folks, the way of the cross isn’t as subtle as we highly educated western Christians think it is. Of course, it’s early morning, and this insufficiently-caffeinated fellow could be totally wrong.
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