1. Every execution is tragic, and yet there's something particularly dark about killing with a drug that has ended thousands of Americans' lives: Just as overdoses highlight the sickness of addiction, this execution reveals a spiritually sick nation.
nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/…
nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/…
2. Because, at it's heart, the death penalty is not about justice: it is about retribution. It brings to the fore and gratifies our worst cultural impulses through legally sanctioned revenge. Killing cannot be our response to killing—if it is, we only deepen a darkening spiral.
3. The ease with which some justify condemning others to death reflects an inability to recognize others' humanity. Yes, some people we execute have committed awful, terrible crimes—but that does not excuse *us* treating their lives as disposable.
4. Moreover, the number of people who have been exonerated while sitting on death row exposes even deeper cruelty. That anyone could support the death penalty—when its use means that we will execute innocent people—is deeply, deeply immoral.
5. And our criminal justice system's well-documented racism provides yet another reason why executions are unconscionable. If, in many cases, whether you live or die boils down to skin color, how can any dare call this justice? deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-penalty-…
6. Those who gleefully support the death penalty—and exalt in execution as a "tough" response to crime—reveal an addiction to anger and violence, and expose a dearth of mercy and grace.
No one is beyond God's love. No one is beyond redemption.
No one is beyond God's love. No one is beyond redemption.
7. It's time to put aside our anger, our desire for revenge and retribution. But, in any addiction, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
It's time our country reckoned with this sin.
It's time our country reckoned with this sin.
