The Widow of Saint-Pierre

My wife and I are great netflix fans. Our small town does have a video store, but nothing that compares to netflix. I can pick from thousands of dvd's, and there are no late fees! Commercial over. If you watch a lot of films, I recommend checking it out.

We just watched a movie called The Widow of Saint-Pierre. Do I recommend it? Loosely. Thumbs sideways pointing slightly up. The film is about capital punishment, really, and I'm glad my wife and I didn't get in too deep a discussion after. She is an ardent opponent. So much so that she has told me if she is ever murdered, she does not want the killer executed. Impressive, almost unbelievable, to me.

And there's the issue: I don't actually have a position on capital punishment. I've never had to think about it much. Students have written pro and con papers on the topic many times over the years (one advantage of teaching Freshman composition: I get a varied education reading those essays) but I've never felt the need to form a solid opinion. The issues involved are complex. My wife will say that I am in fact a supporter, and that I suppose I need to think about.

I am not a violent person. In fact, I have never struck another individual (well, apart from controlled and consensual martial arts training). I don't even think about hitting other people. Maybe because the kickboxing experience took that fantasy out of me. I remember watching The Witness years ago in college. There's some scene where a local jerk is harassing this Amish caravan. Indiana Jones/oops Harrison Ford walks up to the front (he's an undercover cop hiding out if I remember) and beats this guy's face bloody. Before he got up there my friends (a mixed church group) were saying, yeah, beat him up! Maybe I was too; can't remember. Afterwards, when the guy looks all bashed, everyone was like...oh, that was gross. One girl said 'well, that's what you guys wanted.'

Ah, yes. Violence does beget violence, and it is never ever pretty. Nods to MLK.

But what about in response to a heinous crime? Heinous like that guy who stabbed that little, innocent boy to death in an orange county beach bathroom a few years back? Or the individuals who have abducted, raped, even tortured women and children and then killed them? What about that Yosemite motel killer whose name thank God escapes me?

Truth is I don't know, but I'm going to try and sort out my thoughts a bit (my wife is working another twelve and I have already done 1) some laundry and 2) worked on that *&!+~% floor all I want to today).

Something about capital punishment reminds me of vendetta. Lots of cultures have had vendetta rules, some still do. Europe did for centuries before the modern era. You kill my brother? Okay, I and mine will kill you (just saw a Brazilian film about this not long ago, forgot the title). Neither party is held liable before the law because 'justice' has been served. Vendettas are nasty and can last generations. Generally a lot of people end up dead. When the government steps in and does the killing for the injured party as in capital punishment, well, no payback vendetta, right? I guess that is usually so. Still, the urge to kill someone who has killed someone else (natural as those feelings may be) is behind both capital punishment and vendetta. This all reminds me of a colleague, a well-travelled, gentle, and educated guy, who doesn't believe in capital punishment because he believes in what he calls personal vengeance. In other words, vendetta. Luckily he has never been tested, as of course our justice system would hold him liable.

A common argument students give is that if our culture says killing is wrong, it's wrong to kill a perpetrator even in response to a horrific crime. Perhaps. But then it's wrong to put someone in a concrete box for twenty five years behind my house. Prison already strips away civil and personal rights. That's what due process can do to any citizen (of course these days, due process is even being set aside for some, but that's another issue).

I would probably feel like watching someone be executed if they had killed my family. At least I think I would feel that way. God keep me from ever really knowing. Though those who have watched killers executed for killing those they love do not always feel better. But I haven't researched this and will move on.

The best argument I've heard for not killing the guilty, no matter how repulsive their crime (besides the possiblity the person is innocent) is that the person may come to know God sometime while he or she is still alive and in prison. Would Timothy McVeigh have converted in twenty or thirty years? We'll never know. I know issues of election and predestination and free will come into this, but since I think no human can understand those things from God's perspective one wit, in my opinion the guilty should be given the benefit of the doubt. Jesus, of course, said anger makes us as guilty as a murderer. Well, then we're all doing hard time.

It is strange (again, at least to me) how many Christians vehemently oppose abortion but support capital punishment. It goes hand in hand with that right wing thing, often. (And the Mosaic laws, which tell me having sex with my wife during her period is an abomination, or that ejaculation make me unclean till sunset, are not the final word). Of course a fetus really is innocent; it has had time to do neither good nor bad (and abortion is another issue I haven't really worked toward closure on) while a condemned man is (presumably) guilty of some terrible act or acts. But I'm wondering...can anything we do on earth make up for some crimes humans commit? Sure someone like Dahmer or Gacy has to be kept away from the public for the rest of his life; he is a true threat to the population. But can that kind of score ever be evened?

I'd like to think so, but I don't know how. There was some freak up here in Sacramento who ran some kind of multiple wife prophet-household where he was essentially using his underage daughters, and others' daughters, as sexual slaves in the name of jehovah. No kidding. Using religion, the bible, to justify sex with children right in his home. You know what? I don't care what happens to that guy. And I mean it. It's how I feel. Get medieval. Let him feel what it feels like to be assaulted (and I'm keeping this family as I can).

But could I really support that kind of punishment if I were there watching it? That is a question. This is similar to comments I heard a few weeks back, after the four American contractors were murdered in Iraq and hung up, comments like 'level fallujah.' Oh, and are you willing to go over there and watch thousands of families be killed as they are 'levelled?' Nope. The vast majority of zealous people speak of war, violence, and prison from a safe and naive distance.

And if I would feel dehumanized taking that religious psycho's life in cold blood (as opposed to having to use force when other life, like mine or my family's, is threatened; pray that is never tested in me either!) how can I support a system which does the same? As time goes on, I move farther and farther away from capital punishment, though I admit some crime freeze my blood and have part of me crying for that kind of final justice.

What would Jesus do? No idea. To my knowledge he never addressed this issue. But I'm sure he'd forgive any murderer who asked him sincerely. And if so, why cut a person's life short before he or she has that chance? Of course it could be argued that once that person converts we can now kill him, but I don't think that would be argued by many.

So yes, I remain conflicted. Between thought and mixed feelings. And I hope I never get any closer to this issue than I did today. But this is another of those issues Christian culture sometimes takes for granted: of course I'm pro-death penalty, George Bush is a Christian and look how many people were executed in Texas, and have you read Leviticus? Well, we should all be looking closely at our beliefs, especially me (because I shoot my mouth off so much).