LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Capital Punishment: Murder
built 291 days ago
The conviction that human life is sacred has generally but not uniformly meant that Mennonites sanctioned neither war nor capital punishment. Opposition to capital punishment is based on biblically oriented arguments. The stipulation of ''life for life,'' was not enforced with Cain, the first murderer (Gen. 4:8-15), nor with David (2 Sam 11:11-2:23). Jesus refused to advocate stoning for the woman caught in adultery John 8:12-11), though biblical law so prescribed. The direction in the Bible, it is claimed, is from an older severity to a stance of grace, from retribution to rehabilitation.
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Exodus 20:13 was never written to be a prohibition of capital punishment, as the anti-capital punishment protesters imply. Instead, it was written as a prohibition against murder. This is made quite clear when one reads Exodus 21:12, which says, “He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death.” Incidentally, under the Law of Moses, no substitute or alternative was accepted for the execution of a murderer. If the murderer was not executed, the land was defiled (Numbers 35:30-33). Clearly, then, the God of the Old Testament not only believed in capital punishment, He demanded it!
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Now Karla Faye Tucker — a confessed murderer — is facing execution in Texas, despite pleas to Governor Bush for clemency from such defenders of capital punishment as Pat Robertson. Robertson became involved when Tucker found God in prison; she is now a "born again Christian".
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Since the reenactment of capital punishment, several dozen condemned prisoners have been released from death row when their convictions were overturned – in some cases where the evidence of their innocence was unmistakable. Those cases have not caused a great outcry... – even though dedicated abolitionists cite them at every opportunity. On Jan. 10, 1999, The Chicago Tribune commenced a series of articles on murder convictions, nationwide, that have been overturned due to prosecutorial or judicial wrongdoing, including the cases of many who were sentenced to die.
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Summary: Kaiser summarizes it well, "It was because humans are made in the image of God that capital punishment for first degree murder became a perpetual obligation. To kill a person was tantamount to killing God in effigy. That murderer’s life was owed to God, not to society …"3
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Members of Parliament have regularly debated the reintroduction of capital punishment since it was abolished for murder. In the last death penalty debate in 1994, MPs voted 363 to 186 against its return for people who had murdered a policeman. MPs voted 403 to 159 against introduction of capital punishment for all murderers.
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