{"id":1960,"date":"2013-04-17T07:47:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T07:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/04\/death-penalty-opponents.html"},"modified":"2013-04-17T07:47:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T07:47:00","slug":"death-penalty-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/04\/death-penalty-opponents.html","title":{"rendered":"Death Penalty Opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Are these your allies?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Mark Shea posted a couple days ago<\/a>, once again reasoning that if you still hold to the Church\u2019s traditional approach to capital punishment, then your allies are the likes of barbaric Muslim societies and Communist tyrannies. \u00a0He even included a cute graph like the one above (I deliberately used a different graph that outlined the world\u2019s countries a little better).<\/p>\n

If you look at the above chart, there is quite a variety of countries without and with the death penalty. \u00a0Look carefully. \u00a0Yes, most Muslim countries have it, so does China. \u00a0But so does Brazil. \u00a0So does Japan. \u00a0So does India. \u00a0Argentina. \u00a0Mongolia. \u00a0I\u2019m not sure there\u2019s any trend I can spot there.<\/p>\n

Those that have abolished the death penalty? \u00a0Secular Turkey in the Muslim world. \u00a0Nepal. \u00a0Mostly countries aligned with post-Christian Europe. \u00a0S. America has the death penalty, as well as liberal abortion laws and progress views on gay marriage. \u00a0Russia has the death penalty, loose abortion laws, and right now no move to recognize gay marriage. \u00a0Europe, which seems to be the go to reference point for those who wish to abolish the death penalty altogether, is a living, breathing example of post-Christian values: gay marriages, abortion for the longest time, several moving toward legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia. <\/p>\n

I thought of this as yet one more country that banned the death penalty embraces gay marriage<\/a>. \u00a0And let\u2019s not forget, the United States that brought us federally supported abortion rights was, at the time, also attempting its first round of banning the death penalty. \u00a0My point is, it\u2019s an incredibly weak, almost ludicrous argument. \u00a0Most of my life I opposed the death penalty outright, though I knew that brought a few problems. \u00a0I was happy to embrace the Church\u2019s (then) teaching that it should be rare in deference to mercy if at all possible, but not if it compromises the ability to protect widows and orphans.<\/p>\n

But now, many leaders in the Church, leaning heavily on the State\u2019s\u00a0new-found\u00a0ability to prevent crime, are seeking to abolish the death penalty altogether. \u00a0And in lieu of a better reason,\u00a0apparently\u00a0some have sought to find reasons of their own to do so, including guilt by association. \u00a0Looking at the map above, it\u2019s easy to see why \u2018if you support the death penalty, then you\u2019re in the camp of barbarism\u2019 is really no better than \u2018because now the State can prevent crime.\u2019 \u00a0We\u2019ll have to do better than either of those to justify jettisoning a 2000 year old consistent teaching. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are these your allies? Mark Shea posted a couple days ago, once again reasoning that if you still hold to the Church\u2019s traditional approach to capital punishment, then your allies are the likes of barbaric Muslim societies and Communist tyrannies. \u00a0He even included a cute graph like the one above (I deliberately used a different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDeath Penalty Opponents<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Are these your allies?Mark Shea posted a couple days ago, once again reasoning that if you still hold to the Church's traditional approach to capital\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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