In the Fall of 2000, I moved from Detroit to Waco, Texas, leaving a job as a federal prosecutor to teach at Baylor Law School. There were many changes to adjust to -- including the highly Christianized political culture in Texas and the fervent support for the death penalty that has made Texas the centerpiece for capital punishment in the Western world.
One day, sitting in church and preparing for communion, the juxtaposition of these two Texan mindsets became clear in my head -- the same Texas that held firm for the death penalty also was dominated by a faith that had at its center a wrongful execution. I walked out of church pushing the two ideas together, and soon they meshed. Shortly thereafter, I came up with what might be the worst idea ever by an untenured faculty member at a Baptist university -- I would stage the trial of Christ in that Baptist church, under Texas capital punishment rules.
And so we did. I recruited my mentor and colleague Bill Underwood (now the President of Mercer University in Georgia) to be the other attorney in our drama. He agreed, with one caveat: He would be the defense attorney, leaving untenured me to prosecute Christ in the long shadow of Baylor, the world's largest Baptist university.
Over the course of four weeks we selected a jury, made opening statements, presented witnesses, and made our arguments before leaving the congregation to deliberate. In the end, it was a compelling and dramatic experience for all of us. Not one but two members of the congregation had in fact served as the forepersons of juries that had each condemned a prisoner to death, adding to the gritty reality of the dialogue. My intent had been to confront politics with faith, and that project was successful. If nothing else, after our trial the idea of capital punishment could not be divorced from Christianity for those of us who were there.
My own journey was not done, though. I am someone with sympathies to the arguments for capital punishment and continue to believe that many of those arguments are principled. To further explore the idea I began to write a book, and it was this project that produced Jesus on Death Row (Abingdon, 2009).
Immediately, I became more acutely aware of my own significant limitations. I knew a lot about criminal law but not nearly enough about the stories and theology relating to the trial and execution of Christ. As I learned more, though, I had the same experience time and time again -- the gospel stories fit neatly into what I knew of criminal law, and the experiences of Christ repeatedly raised the same concerns I had about the modern criminal process. For example, from my own experiences I was troubled by the role that confidential informants play in the type of criminal prosecutions I had often directed as an Assistant United States Attorney in Detroit. Those informants were often motivated by surprisingly large amounts of money, and as I dug into the gospels I immediately was confronted by Judas, an informant who worked for money and performed a common function of people in that role: identifying the place where a defendant could be arrested.
That arrest, too, had aspects that were shockingly familiar. When we were doing a strategic arrest, we would conduct the raid at dawn to make sure that the target would be there and to reduce the chance of violence. And there, in my own worn Bible, I found the same thing, as Jesus was arrested only after the apostles were asleep.
Nor was that the end of the comparisons, some of which ran straight to the heart of the starkest problems in our contemporary system. The witnesses against Jesus conflicted and weren't credible, so the prosecutors searched for more who might tell a better story. In contemporary prosecution, this is akin to the search for defendants who will cooperate and testify credibly in exchange for a good plea deal, a process that sometimes skews justice. Have you ever wondered why that servant girl found Peter in the courtyard and asked if he knew Jesus? To a prosecutor, the answer is easy -- she had been sent to find additional witnesses to bolster the case.
Or take even one seemingly farcical part of Christ's trial, at its conclusion. We are told that the prosecutor, Caiaphus, was frustrated with these conflicting witnesses and ripped his shirt, yelling, "Crucify him!" Sadly, that is a physical manifestation of an emotion most prosecutors will feel at one time or another. There can arise within prosecutors (even within me, at times) a strong belief that the defendant is guilty and dangerous even when the evidence has failed to prove that true, leading to an indescribable frustration. It is in these moments that prosecutors most often stretch, argue unfairly, or twist facts in an effort to bend the jury's will to what the prosecutor believes fervently to be true. It is this passion that too often creates injustice in our own day, as in Christ's.
None of these echoes of Christ's journey in our modern system, of course, is in itself an overwhelming argument against the death penalty. Nor is any bit of that story more of a condemnation of capital punishment than the fact that Christ came upon a legal execution and told the executioners that they did not have the moral authority to continue the killing (in John 8, the stoning of the adultress). Still, I do think that there is something powerful in simply considering Christ as a criminal defendant. That subtle change in perspective can change worlds. No, Christ was no murderer. He was the opposite of the venal criminals who largely populate death rows. Yet, it is at Christ's invitation that we visit him when we visit those in prison, and I would imagine that there is no exception for death row. If it was God who wrote the story of Jesus as a criminal defendant, then it was God who told us that how we treat criminal defendants is important, and we need to heed that message even when it runs against our most fervent urge towards retribution and finality.
I am glad to hear the insight and introspection into how a prosecutor thinks- it makes them seem more human, rather than just dishonest and unethical. Your insight has shown me that they are simply human and susceptible to temptations and tendencies, like the rest of us.
I also appreciate your portrayal of Jesus as a criminal defendant. The details of his trial and the lead-up to trial are also insightful.
I have been struggling with the dishonesty of the District Attorney's Office here where their policy is to misrepresent to me and to the court whether a witness really wants to prosecute a case or not. Frequently, witnesses willl call all over town trying to drop the case and yet the DA tells me and the court that the witness wants to go forward. Your insight has shown me that (at least some) prosecutors are human and are thoughtful and are not all arrogant, dishonest and on a power trip.
Thanks for the post.
ago. The upshot of my struggle came to a conclusion when I realized that
"if it is illegal for ONE man to commit murder, how is it legal for 12 men/women
to commit murder?"
Following the logic for that allowance of breaking the law led me to being
adamantly against the death penalty, under any circumstance.
It is my fervent wish that everyone can see the contradiction and consequent
mind-screw that such a law projects into society.
Peace and Love
change that word illusion to expression and it works better for me.
we are not illusions but we are all expressions of that that is.
which means we are that that is.
without our ignorance there is no perceived us.
just isness.
vedic is still religious beliefs.
but you will not come to see that.
once we sign up for a religion any religion the paradigm is set in stone.
ie paradigm paralysis.
That that is not , is not that that is.
Is that not so?
Without our ignorance there is no perceived us.
I agree with Sri Ramana Maharshi , There is the absolute Self from which a spark roceeds as from fire. The spark is called the ego. In the case of an ignorant man it identifies itself with an object simultaneously with its rise. It cannot remain independent of such association with objects. This association is ignorance, whose destruction is the objective of ou efforts. if its objectifying tendency is killed it remains pure, and also merges into the source. The wrong indentification with the body must go before good results follow.
THE LESSON Book of the Perfect Mind:
I was sent by the Power and came to those who thought of me. I was found by those who sought me. Behold me, ye who thought of me. And ye who wanted to hear me, listen to me. And ye who expected me, accept me. And do not drive me away from before your eyes. And let not your voice or your ear hate me. And do not drive me away from before your eyes. And let not your voice or your ear hate me. Do not ignore me anywhere or at any time. Do not ignore me, for I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the despised one. I am the harlot and I am the saint. I am the woman and I am the virgin. I am the mother and I am the daughter. I am barren and I have many children. I have many husbands and I am unmarried. I am the physician who heals and I am the one who wounds. I am the bride and I am the bridegroom. I am the mother of my husband and my husband is my father. I am the doughter of my husband, and my husband is my son. I am the sister of my husband and my husband is my brother. I am the slave of my father and I am the mistress of my son.
Jesus said, Death Oh Death where art thy sting? Now?
I'm sympathetic. But non-sequitur theological arguments aren't helpful to our cause.
Judas, the legal system and the cross were all tools to achieve this goal and, in working the system, Jesus achieved his own goal of dying for a purpose.
If my understanding is correct then, the opposite of the conclusion of this article is true. Jesus was not here to become a king or military ruler, but to die. Jesus was not wrongfully executed, but rightfully executed through his own design and, therefore, the system of executions was part of God's design.
Would this not be an appropriate assessment?
Second, the Sanhedrin didn't convene at night. Ever.
Third, everything else that's wrong with this
As is the case in many biblical teachings, we are required to hold two conflicting views as both being true when that is imposable.
If anything most clearly shows the bible as being a source of moral insanity, then it is the killing and torture of Jesus as sanctioned by god and that believers are required to accept ...
The victim of a murder is innocent. The perpetrator, not so much.
I could see myself killing someone who I would see in the act of murder or torture. To have the state, years later kill that person, a different situation. I, at times, wonder if Tim McVeigh may have changed if he'd not been put to death. We'll never know if he could have found some type of redemption in this life. I am left with the belief that the DP is simply postponed bloodlust.
More important it brought this man, a lawyer and law instructor, to think about how trials are conducted in this country. It is certainly true that we need to strive to have the most fair methods we can devise to try and to convict a person of a crime. The guilty should not go free, but the innocent should not be punished because the trial was biased with false testimony.
The death penalty is the ultimate penalty. If we are going to impose it we need to be especially careful that we are executing a guilty person. I wonder how many have been executed who were innocent of the crime.
God ask Job where were you when I founded the earth?
Who determine its size?
Into what was its pedestals sunk?
Who laid the corner stone?
who set all the limits, paths, for the stars, moon sun clouds the seas?
Tell me which way it is to the dwelling place of the light?
Which way is the parting of the winds?
Who counts the clouds in his wisdom?
So the dust of the earth is fused into a mass and its clods made solid?
How you entered the storehouse of the snow?
Can you send the lightnings on their ways?
do you know the ordinances of heaven?
Can you send the lightnings on their ways?
Please also notice where Job comments on the pillars of heaven (that hold up the flat sky).
Glad you worship the god who made a flat earth (the only way for it to have a corner stone).
Zeus god of the lightning bolts is a fable, we now know where lightning comes from and it isn't Zeus, and it also isn't the god of Job.
So yes, Jesus is guilty of being a fable, and the god of Job is also a fable .
But you wouldn't want to upset god by thinking that it was not real, would you?
And I think it short-sighted that the progressive atheists would rather slam you for what they believe is wrong rather than find an ally in common cause.
I'm a left-wing labor populist. Yet, I, too, am a Christian. An independent, esoteric Eastern Orthodox one. So I am sympathetic.
But I also know that the fan of Ayn Rand and many liberatarians are also atheists. They see peace movements, restrictions on corporations, and in fact any form of altruism, as nothing but weakness.
So if we want allies for the greater causes of economic justice and peace, we have to learn to talk to political progressives without hammering them with Bible quotes.