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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Bush, Christianity, Forgiveness and Capital Punishment

http://www.courttv.com/casefiles/tucker/background.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/daily/nr080999.html

http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/2525/karlamain.html

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0002L8

http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/03/tucker/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/.../1998/karla_faye_tucker/newsid_48\
000/48851.stm

http://www.case-studies.com/articles/karla_threat.htm

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/karla.html

===========================================================

Sitaram writes:

I have been reading from the above URLs regarding the execution in Texas of
Karla Faye Tucker, and the role which then Governor George Bush played in
his power to grant clemency and commutation of the death sentence.

Consider the verse from Psalm 85 (below). How may we reconcile the concepts
of mercy and justice?

(excerpt):

http://www.stlukesrec.org/sermons02/3adv02.html

In Psalm 85 we find the following interesting verse:

"Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed."

This verse produced some charming images in past centuries. Artists of old
personified the virtues of mercy and truth, righteousness and peace as angels
of God. In mosaics and frescoes the four angels are depicted kissing each other.

There are some memorable kisses in The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan and Alyosha,
two of the Karamazov brothers, meet in a restaurant to discuss religion. Ivan
is the atheist; Alyosha the monk from the monastery. In an attempt to
caricature Christianity, and bolster his case for atheism, Ivan writes a long
poem. Sitting at their booth he tells it to Alyosha. In the poem the Church is
represented as a ghastly figure, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish
Inquisition. He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered
face and sunken eyes. He is the one who gives the nod of approval to burn the
enemies of the Roman Catholic Church.

Then one day Jesus comes to the city. The Grand Inquisitor is enraged. He has
Jesus arrested and thrown in prison. The Inquisitor visits the Prisoner and
starts talking. The speech turns into a long rant that justifies the conduct of
the Grand Inquisitor and condemns the actions of Jesus. Ivan's poem finishes
with these words: "The Prisoner had listened to the old man intently all the
time, looking gently in his face The old man longed for Him to say something,
however bitter and terrible. But Jesus suddenly approached the old man in
silence and softly kissed him on bloodless aged lips. That was all his answer.
The old man shuddered, opened the prison door, "Go, and come no more come not
at all, never, never!" The Prisoner went away.

Ivan asks Alyosha, "What do you think of my poem? Doesn't it ring true?"
Alyosha responds, "If your philosophy is correct, everything is lawful. If God
does not exist, then all things are relative, there is no right and wrong,
everything is permissible." Ivan smiled, "Yes, if you like, everything is
lawful. I won't deny it. Is there no place for me even in your heart, my dear
hermit? The formula, "all is lawful," I won't renounce will you renounce me
for that, yes?"

Alyosha got up, went to him and softly kissed him on the lips.

"That's plagiarism," cried Ivan, highly delighted. "You stole that from my
poem. Thank you though. Get up, Alyosha, it's time we were going, both of us."

==================

Sitaram continues:

What is the rationale for giving a governor or a president the power of
clemency and pardon or the power to commute the judgment of capital punishment
to a sentence of life imprisonment?

What does the exercise of such absolute power by the whim of one individual say
about the justice of our society or our judicial system?

Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer of the 16th century, objected to
the sale of Indulgences to escape the punishments of Purgatory. Luther argued
that if the suffering of Purgatory is necessary and beneficial for our soul,
then why would we want to pay to be excused from such a necessary therapy?

Most Christians pray for pardon and salvation. They acknowledge themselves as
worthless and impure, the gravest of sinners, and yet they make appeal to God's
mercy and clemency, that their sins might be forgiven and that they might gain
entrance into a heavenly paradise. Why is it that no one yearns for God's
righteous judgment? If we are truly so degenerate and reprobate and if the
judgment of God is righteous and just, then why should we not take our medicine
of eternal condemnation if that is all we deserve?

Conversely, if God is TRULY forgiving, when why would not God forgive us
NOT ONLY of all our outrageous crimes, but even forgive and save us in the
absense of our profession of any belief or doctrine, or accepting
Jesus as our 'personal savior' (and I have always wondered what it might mean to
say 'impersonal savior')?

God has often been described as a King, while kings and emperors throughout
history have often declared themselves as gods, or at least as appointed by God
and having divine right of authority. A Governor like Bush is cast in the role
of God when he is granted such an absurd power of pardon and clemency, but
possessing such an absurd power and not imitating Christ in the exercise of it
makes him a devil, especially in the face of all the Christian rhetoric and
lipservice about forgiveness and loving one's enemies.

Is there any Constitutional rationale behind a bargain such as Ford's pardon
of Nixon, or is that simply another version of "The Emperor's New Clothes" as
we, confronted with naked injustice, choose to see it clothed in a garment of
respectability?

The United States Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment.
In Biblical times, the punishment of life imprisonment was unheard of,
inconceivable and, possible, economically unfeasible, while capital punishment
was often meted out and sanctioned by all religions and societies.

I personally would much prefer the 15 minutes of suffering in an execution by
lethal injection to 30 or 40 years in the sort of prison depicted in the
popular series "Oz."

Christianity pays much lip-service to the concept of "forgiveness." We must
forgive and love our enemies and we, in turn, may expect forgiveness for
ourselves proportionate to the degree to which we have forgiven others.

Yet, often in the news, we see the relatives of murder victims,
themselves "Christian" at least in name, mercilessly crying out for revenge in
the most bloodthirsty of terms.

One of the above URLs alleges that George Bush, in an interview, cruelly mocked
the condemned woman, pursing his lips and imitating in a high, squeaky voice
what he imagined she might say to him in her plea for clemency, "Oh, PLEEEEASE
don't kill me."

I do not know whether it is true that George Bush actually mocked Karla in this
fashion. If it is true, then it is an action unworthy of a Christian much less
of a Governor.

I watch Bush praying on television before the cameras. His eyes are closed and
squinted and his face puckered as if he is someone afflicted with hemorrhoids
vainly attempting to move his bowels. Why should an infinite being such as God
care whether our eyes are opened or closed, or whether we stand or sit or
kneel, or whether we are alone or in a congregation (which is a nice word for
mob)? What is this Protestant obsession with the knees and kneeling? If
kneeling is so important to God then why didn't God create humans with more
industrial-strenght padding in those joints? Why do politicians pray in front
of television cameras? Jesus said we should not pray on the street corners
but should lock ourselves in our rooms. What place does public profession of
faith have in a secular democracy which pays lip service to separation of
Church and State?

Jesus prayed from the cross of agonizing torture and said "Forgive them Father
for they know not what they do."

Why, in the first place, should a governor or president have the power to
commute a death sentence properly imposed by the judicial process, but in the
SECOND place, given the fact that a governor DOES have such power, and a
governor who loves to publicly wallow in his self-serving religious convictions
and flaunt his lip-service to Christian beliefs, then why oh why would such a
governor NOT exercise his privilege and imitate Jesus in the act of forgiveness
of the unforgivable?

(Often, during these past several years, Sitaram feels like some kind of
spiritual "Andy Rooney")

Derrida, founder of Postmodernism, has written, "Forgiveness only is possible
when we are confronted by the unforgivable."

How does Forgiveness deal with the Nazi Holocaust, or the bombing of Hiroshima,
or the destruction of the World Trade Center?

When I lived in a monastery, there were people who would confess their sin of
eating a piece of cheese without permission, or of envying someone else's
larger piece of cheese. I would think to myself, "This is all just so much
cheese, and not genuine forgiveness or repentance. When someone kills your
infant before your very eyes and then gouges out your eyes and then you forgive
them, then THAT is genuine forgiveness."

When we seek pardon for outrageous crimes and escape from deserved punishment
and suffering then that is not true repentance.

St. John Climacus, author of "Ladder of Divine Ascent" said, "At the Judgment,
you shall recognize the Righteous as those with their heads hung low who
say 'We have done nothing worthy.' "

When I witness the rhetoric of American politicians (and how we do love
theatrics, habitually promoting actors to high office), I am left with a vague
stink in the air and a suspicion that someone has "cut the cheese."

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