Ahmaud Arbery

I wonder how many people who profess outrage at the murder of Ahmaud Arbery believe his killers should be executed? Or do they oppose the death penalty? It's an easy call for me, but that's because I support capital punishment. The execrable Dylann Roof is still alive because, thanks to the political correctness  of the Obama DOJ, he was charged with hate crimes rather than murder. 

Life imprisonment

Another reason why you can't trust progressives on crime:

https://mynorthwest.com/1703297/rantz-washington-democrats-release-murderers-end-life-without-parole/

The scandalous catechism

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/an-appeal-to-the-cardinals-of-the-catholic-church

The development of doctrine

I'd like to make one comment on this:

http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/0556/01210.html#letteraing

So the new position is classified as a development of doctrine. And that's justified by appeal to the teaching of John-Paul II and Benedict XVI. A couple of points:

i) Strictly speaking, doctrine is not supposed to develop. Rather, allowance is made for evolution in how doctrine is understood. So I assume "development of doctrine" is shorthand for developments in the understanding of doctrine.

ii) The frame of reference for the development of doctrine isn't supposed to be the teaching of the 20C pope, but the deposit of faith:

This tradition which comes from the Apostles develop in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. (5) For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. De Verbum 2.8. 

The deposit of faith is apostolic tradition:

81 "And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. 

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus' teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. 

84 The apostles entrusted the "Sacred deposit" of the faith (the depositum fidei),45 contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a2.htm

That's the benchmark. That's the point of departure. So the starting-point a development of doctrine isn't something a pope says, much less a 20C pope. Rather, that's supposed to trace all the way back to the deposit of faith. To justify the new position on capital punishment, it's necessary to demonstrate that this is a legitimate extension or extrapolation of apostolic tradition–and not a legitimate extension or extrapolation of John-Paul II's position on capital punishment. 

But in reality, this is all about power. The pope has all the high cards, so he can impose it on his sect by papal fiat. Appeal to development is just a cosmetic cover. 

Saving Catholicism from the pope

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/pope-francis-and-capital-punishment

How to paint yourself into a corner

Convert to Catholicism and Catholic philosopher Ed Feser:

For another thing, if the Pope is saying that capital punishment is always and intrinsically immoral, then he would be effectively saying – whether consciously or unconsciously – that previous popes, Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and even divinely inspired Scripture are in error. If this is what he is saying, then he would be attempting to “make known some new doctrine,” which the First Vatican Council expressly forbids a pope from doing. He would, contrary to the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI, be “proclaim[ing] his own ideas” rather than “bind[ing] himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word.” He would be joining that very small company of popes who have flirted with doctrinal error. And he would be undermining the credibility of the entire Magisterium of the Church, including his own credibility. For if the Church has been that wrong for that long about something that serious, why should we trust anything else she teaches? And if all previous popes have been so badly mistaken about something so important, why should we think Pope Francis is right? 

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2017/10/15/the-popes-remarks-on-capital-punishment-need-to-be-clarified/

That was before Francis made it official by rewriting the Catechism. 

Catholic pacifism

This is a sequel to my previous post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/08/papal-eraser.html

1. Ross Douthat characterized the change in Catholic policy on the admission of divorced Catholics to communion as a elite crisis. I don't know whether the change regarding capital punishment will precipitate another crisis, but I'd say this is more of a rank-and-file issue. The doctrinal issues surrounding the readmission of divorced Catholics to communion are arcane and artificial. Only theological junkies care about that. By contrast, the reasoning behind the death penalty is much more accessible to the laity. 

2. Gen 9:5-6 only directly authorizes capital punishment for murder. Yet the Mosaic law contains many capital offenses. In some cases, those may have a different rationale, such as the cultic holiness of Israel. In other cases, they may be an extension of the same principle: actions which desecrate divine image-bearers. 

3. In relation to the new Catholic position, it isn't necessary to take a position on the degree of continuity or discontinuity between the Mosaic law and the new covenant. For the immediate question isn't whether any of those penalties remain mandatory, but whether they were ever morally permissible to begin with. If “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, then the Mosaic death penalties were always unwarranted. 

Of course, many Catholic bishops, theologians, and academics are happy to grant that the Mosaic law was fallible and errant. Problem is, why should "the Church" be infallible if the Bible is fallible? Why should ecumenical councils or ex cathedra papal pronouncements be infallible if the Mosaic law is fallible and errant? 

4. If “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, then that seems to rule out lethal force in self-defense as well as lethal force to protect other innocent lives, for taking human life, regardless of the situation, is an attack in the inviolability and dignity of the assailant. 

Christian ethicists typically think that humans have a prima facie right to life which they can forfeit by certain actions. An armed intruder breaking into a private home forfeits his prima facie immunity to suffer harm.

However, the new official position of the Catholic church treats the dignity of the assailant as equal to the dignity of the victim. That's absolute. Nothing the assailant does can lower his inviolate dignity.

5. This approach erases the distinction between guilt and innocence, which is the essence of justice. The very concept of just punishment requires a distinction between a wrongdoer and a victim who was wronged. Justice is supposed to treat like cases alike and unlike cases unalike. It subverts the essence of justice to treat innocents and assailants equally. 

Papal eraser

1. Pope Francis has rewritten the Catechism to forbid capital punishment across the board. Here's the official announcement:

http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/0556/01210.html#letteraing

And here's the newly worded position in the CCC: 

Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.

Ross Douthat on the death penalty vis-a-vis Francis

Ross Douthat 
@DouthatNYT
And life imprisonment under many penal conditions seems more contrary to human dignity than the death penalty.

But the bottom line is that this is another example of how Pope Francis has consistently exposed the tensions in the post-Vatican II conservative position, and pushed the JPII synthesis into intellectual crisis.

Now Francis is going further, doing something dramatic enough to be described as "development of doctrine" or a "new paradigm" -- but still preserving a touch of deniability on the definitiveness of the change, in which continuitarians can take refuge.

Another way to see this is that on both the death penalty and divorce, the JPII synthesis stretched the claim of continuity -- with a prudential anti-death penalty arg that *sounded* absolute, and a liberal annulment policy -- without making a formal break.

Which is also the effective pattern in other arenas -- like divorce -- where Francis has sought to shift a teaching without formally using the language of reversal. You can argue that constant teaching remains constant, but no normal person listening to popes would think that.

But anyone arguing for continuity has to recognize that at the very least this kind of shift turns the traditional teaching into a sort of hermetic secret, available to ppl who read extremely carefully but invisible in the normal public teaching of the church.

So you could argue -- and some will -- that we're still stopping sort of reversal, that the church is still emphasizing modern conditions to make a prudential argument rather than an absolute one -- even though some of its language is absolutizing.

Now we have new language that seems to go further, describing the death penalty as "inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person," and urging its worldwide abolition.

Reinventing Catholicism

http://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2018/08/02/pope-francis-changes-catechism-to-say-death-penalty-inadmissible/

Not bearing the sword in vain

for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer (Rom 13:4).

This is a classic prooftext for capital punishment, but is that what it means? According to Ben Witherington:

But does "the sword" refer to the general functions of government, or is Paul already thinking more particularly about the tax police? I believe the reference to taxes in vv6-7 is just a pertinent illustration of the general principle that officials do have the right to use force. But it is unlikely that Paul has capital punishment in view, for which the weapon mentioned was not used. Romans practiced crucifixion, or beheading by a much more lethal weapon. B. Witherington, Paul's Letter to the Romans (Eerdmans 2004), 314.

Several issues:

i) Witherington is a pacifist, so that may bias his interpretation.  In fairness, proponents of the death penalty can have a bias in reverse. 

ii) The context involves the Roman magistrate punishing malefactors. The "sword" as a reference to capital punishment would be fitting in that setting.

iii) In addition, Paul already mentioned the sword in 8:35. There, the implied context is martyrdom, where Christians may face execution for their faith. Since it refers to capital punishment in that previous passage, this makes it more likely that it refers to capital punishment in 13:4.

iv) It may include capital punishment without singling out capital punishment. It may be a symbol or synecdoche for lethal force generally, such as how Rome forcibly responded to uprisings. 

v) Commenting on Rom 8:35, where the same Greek word is used Jewett says:

The climatic tribulation in Paul's catalogue is capital punishment, referred to here as machaira, the short sword or dagger opposed to the long sword. In Rev 13:10; Mt 10:34,38f.; Acts 12:2; Heb 11:34,37, this word refers to execution by the sword, the ultimate punishment of the state…And that the sword was regularly employed in Rome in the enforcement of its decreers, such as the Edict of Claudius, hardly needs to be recalled. R. Jewett, Romans (Fortress Press 2007), 547.

Whether or not the Greek word was the technical term for the kind of sword used to decapitate offenders, Jewett documents NT usage, where the word is employed in capital cases. 

vi) In sum, I think 13:4 probably covers capital punishment, although the sword may be applied more widely. 

Papal silly putty

Having reversed church policy on the admission of adulterous Catholics to communion, Francis is now making moves to reverse church policy on capital punishment. This has been in the pipeline for some time now. Main difference is that he apparently intends to formalize the reversal.

For some background on the lead-up to current developments:

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2001/04/catholicism-amp-capital-punishment

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/05/gods-justice-and-ours

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/10/antonin-scalia-and-his-critics-the-church-the-courts-and-the-death-penalty

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2016/09/had-an-interesting-conversation-with-robert-p-george.html

Catholic philosopher and convert to Catholicism Ed Feser, who has a big following on the Internet, published a defends of the traditional Catholic position on capital punishment just in time to have Pope Francis pull the rug right out from under him. One wonders if there's a breaking-point for some of these disgruntled, high-profile converts to Rome.

The controversy is useful for documenting how the magisterium is a blueprint for anarchy, as well as how Catholic "tradition" has become silly putty in the hands of the magisterium:

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/10/21/on-capital-punishment-even-the-popes-defenders-are-confused/

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/10/mcclamrock-on-by-man-shall-his-blood-be.html

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/10/30/catholic-theologians-must-set-an-example-of-intellectual-honesty-a-reply-to-prof-robert-fastiggi/

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/11/two-further-ideas-about-development-of.html

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/11/reply-to-brugger-and-tollefsen.html

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/11/reply-to-fastiggi.html

https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/11/reply-to-griffiths-and-hart.html

That's just a sample. The magisterium is a blueprint for anarchy. 

Pacifism and Anabaptism

Classic Anabaptism took a strong and pretty consistent position regarding the discontinuity between OT ethics and NT ethics. And that informed their pacifism. They regarded OT warfare, self-defense, and capital punishment, as an obsolete paradigm.

Contemporary Anabaptists are pacifists, but unlike old guard Anabaptists, many contemporary Anabaptists see more continuity between OT ethics and NT ethics when it comes to "social justice" issues like immigration and welfare for the poor.

That, however, means they can't erect a wall between the laws of OT warfare, self-defense, capital punishment, and NT ethics. They run the risk of making ad hoc exceptions. So their position is more precarious. 

The papacy and the death penalty

I believe that at least since John-Paul II, the papacy has been backpedaling on the death penalty. This is yet another example where Catholicism is a blueprint for anarchy:

http://thomistica.net/commentary/2015/3/5/mutationist-views-of-doctrinal-development-and-the-death-penalty

Euthanasia and capital punishment

Many people who oppose capital punishment are the same people who support assisted suicide. A stock objection to capital punishment is the risk of executing the innocent. If you're wrong, they don't get a second chance.

But when it comes to assisted suicide, you know that you're killing the innocent. They weren't even convicted of a serious felony. 

Moreover, they don't get to change their minds about the wisdom of committing suicide once they're dead. Death has a certain…you know…permanence.

If they hadn't undergone voluntary euthanasia, they might have overcome their depression, been in a much more upbeat mood a month later or a year later or whatever. But by assisting their demise, you rob them of a second chance. 

Why do people who support assisted suicide but oppose capital punishment think convicted killers are entitled to the benefit of the doubt, but not depressed patients? 

Paroling serial killers

Unlike the US, where many states retain the barbaric tradition of capital punishment, civilized nations take a more enlightened view of crime and punishment:

A Rio de Janeiro man has confessed to killing more than 40 people for fun – making him one of history's most prolific serial killers. 

Sailson Jose das Gracas, 26, was arrested shortly after stabbing a woman to death on the outskirts of the sprawling city, and soon confessed to another 41 murders, police said. Thirty-eight of his victims were women, three men and one a two-year-old girl. 

Das Graces boasted during a police press conference that he derived great pleasure from the exact moment his victims died and that four of the killings were contract murders for Cleoza Barbina and Jose Messia, a couple who have since also been arrested, according to a police statement. 

The couple paid him to kill at least one person over a debt of only $15, according to reports. 

Das Graces said the more his victims struggled, the more joy he derived from their deaths.
"I was glad when she struggled, screamed and scratched me," he told police, according to Odia, a local newspaper. 

"At 17, I killed the first woman and that gave me a buzz. I kept on doing it and I enjoyed it," he said, according to AFP. 

Das Graces told reporters he regretted only one murder, the two-year-old child.
"I only regret the child," he said, according to Odia. "The child cried a lot and could have woken the neighbors." 

"I don't feel remorse. If I go to jail for 10, 15, 20 years, then as soon as I get out I'll do the same thing all over again." 

The maximum prison sentence for a serial killer under Brazilian law is only 30 years. 

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/12/12/killing-calmed-me-down-brazilian-man-admits-murdering-more-than-40-people-rio-de-janeiro/21115576/

Roger Olson's made-up morality

Once again, Arminian theologian Roger Olson, who's easily the most commonly featured theologian at the Society of Evangelical Arminians, has chimed in on the subject of capital punishment:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/05/a-step-in-the-right-direction-a-public-policy-statement-about-capital-punishment-in-america/

I now want to repeat my long-standing opinion, expressed here several times, that Christians ought to oppose capital punishment as theologically and ethically wrong. Given some recent events, it is not a stretch to say it is also barbaric—evidence of a lack of civilization (humane society).

The oft-heard claim that "civilized" societies don't execute criminals begs the question. Indeed, it's a tacit admission that the death-penalty opponent can't present a reasoned argument for his position, so he falls back on the circular, sociological appeal. 

I have given my reasons here before. I will only repeat two of them. First, it is simply not possible ever to know with absolute certainty that a person committed the crime of which he or she is accused. An individual eye witness may “know” with ninety-nine percent certainty, but it is impossible for a jury or a judge (not eyewitnesses) to know with one hundred percent certainty. 

i) It's not possible to know with absolute certainty that murderous convicts won't escape to kill again.

ii) It's not possible to know with absolute certainty that liberals can be trusted to keep their word when they offer "life without possibility of parole" as an alternative to the death penalty. It's not possible to know with absolute certainly that furloughed prisoners won't commit murder. 

And that isn't just hypothetical. For instance:

And the most controversial part of the program, the practice of giving furloughs to first-degree murderers sentenced to life without parole, was the result of a decision by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, which held that such inmates were eligible under the 1972 law that created the program because the statute did not exclude them. 

For all of that, the Dukakis administration long supported, and at times actively defended, the practice of giving furloughs to inmates serving life terms without parole. In 1976 Mr. Dukakis refused to sign legislation that would have barred such prisoners from receiving furloughs and would have required a number of other restrictions. 

A 1984 survey by the Corrections Compendium found that 38 states offered some form of home furloughs. A survey this year found that 33 states allow some kind of community release program for prisoners serving a life sentence, according to the compendium, which is published by the Contact Center, a criminal justice information clearinghouse in Lincoln, Neb. 

But Massachusetts was the only state to permit furloughs for prisoners serving a sentence of life without parole, the penalty for first-degree murder in that state. 'Distinction Without a Difference' 

In an interview last week Mr. Dukakis called that a ''distinction without a difference.'' He said that ''premeditated murder is premeditated murder,'' adding that 23 states permit people convicted of first-degree murder to participate in furlough programs. 

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/05/us/prison-furloughs-in-massachusetts-threaten-dukakis-record-on-crime.html?pagewanted=print

iii) Likewise, the next step, after abolishing capital punishment, is to abolish life imprisonment:

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/07/10/2282321/top-european-human-rights-court-deems-life-in-prison-without-parole-inhuman-and-degrading/

iv) It's not possible to know without absolute certainly that a lifer won't murder a fellow inmate–or prison guard. Indeed, absent the death penalty, a lifer has nothing to lose by committing murder in prison. 

Second, from a specifically Christian perspective, unnecessary killing is simply always wrong. And capital punishment today is always unnecessary. We have prisons fully capable of keeping violent people off the streets and away from potential victims.

The "necessity" of capital punishment is not to prevent crime (although that's a fringe benefit), but to exact justice. A moral necessity. 

I will go so far as to say, as a Christian theologian, that, in my opinion, a person who participates in an execution is sinning. I do not know how God deals with that, but all sin is serious and killing especially so. (I do believe there are degrees of sin in God’s eyes and killing is certainly very serious.) I would warn a person who participates in an execution at any point in the process—from mixing the chemicals to be used to actually pushing down the plunger that sends the chemicals into the convicted person’s body—that he or she is grievously sinning and needs to repent and stop that activity.

Olson has gone into business for himself, concocting his own social morality, which he imposes on fellow Christians–without any divine warrant for his impudent moralizing and judgmentalism. 

Euthanasia and capital punishment

One of the ironies in the death penalty debate is that many people who oppose capital punishment also support euthanasia: "death with dignity." In some cases they support voluntary euthanasia on the basis of personal autonomy. But that inevitably shades into involuntary euthanasia for the senile or developmentally disabled. People who can't make life and death decisions for themselves. At first the family makes the decision. But because grown children suffer from a sentimental attachment to their elderly parents, they can't be trusted to make the "right" decision, so that's soon taken out of their hands. Since, moreover, doctors in countries which practice euthanasia may be gov't employees, it will be bureaucrats rather than the patient or family members who ultimately make the decision.

As a result, you have people who think it's immoral to execute a vicious killer, but virtuous to euthanize someone's mother. 

Neo-Vikings

Arminian doyen Roger Olson, that beacon of clarity in a morally gray world, has once again voiced his opposition to the death penalty, using "botched" executions as one justification:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2014/05/my-response-to-al-mohlers-defense-of-the-death-penalty/

I'll make a few observations:

i) Although I don't think the state should torture murderers to death (not that a "botched" execution qualifies as torture), if the execution accidentally turns out to be painful for a vicious killer, I consider that a bonus point. 

ii) I've often thought the best way to punish a vicious killer is to turn him over to the family of the victim. If he's undoubtedly guilty, let the family of the victim punish him. "He's all yours!"

I suspect the murder rate would drop if prospective murders knew the family of the victim was going to mete out justice. 

iii) I think bleeding-heart opponents of the death penalty should have to stay overnight in the cell of the vicious killers who evoke their empathy.

Death-penalty opponents are just as sociopathic as the sociopathic killers for whom they empathize. For them, the victim or the victim's family is just an abstraction. They have no real compassion for the victim or his family. LIke a classic sociopath, it isn't real to them if it happens to someone else. It's only real to them if someone does it to them. 

iv) The reason we have death by lethal injection in the first place is because death-penalty opponents whined about how cruel other forms of execution were. But there's no pleasing them. If you accede to their demands by replacing other forms of execution with lethal injection, you are conceding to them the principle that there's something inherently cruel and barbaric about execution, so the best we can do is to mitigate that. But at that point you already lost the argument. It's a mistake to appease them in the first place.

v) I suspect many death penalty opponents are cynical. Because they are convinced that capital punishment is evil, they knowingly resort to bad arguments to attack it. They don't care. Because they think capital punishment is immoral, that justifies any argument, any pretext, however lame, you can use against it.

vi) In the case of other opponents, because they think capital punishment is evil, that disarms their critical sense. They have no incentive to stop and consider whether their arguments are any good. 

vii) Incidentally, this reflects a larger trend in contemporary American society. Increasingly, liberals don't even maintain the pretense of applying a uniform standard to everyone. They really think there should be one standard for their kind of people, and a different standard for their opponents.

Take the IRS targeting the Tea Party. That elicited a collective yawn from the Left. They think the Tea Party is evil, so if the IRS targeted the Tea Party, it was getting its comeuppance. Of course, if the tables were turned on them, they'd scream bloody murder, but not because they believe the IRS should be impartial. 

Same thing with the increasing disregard for the Constitution. They don't believe in a uniform standard for everyone concerned. Rather, they believe in one standard for the good guys (themselves), and a different standard for the bad guys (their political or religious opponents). 

For them, freedom of speech (to take one example) should only protect the right kind of speech. Their speech. Not the speech of their ideological adversaries. 

Same thing with "hate crimes" and protected classes. They openly embrace a double standard. 

We're reverting to primitive tribal morality where the only code of conduct is loyalty to members of the in-group. There are no ethical inhibitions in how you treat outsiders. Increasingly, their social mores approximate the Viking code of honor in the History Channel drama. 

Evil Jesus

I'm going to comment on two posts by Arminian theologian Roger Olson:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/07/the-heresy-of-capital-punishment/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/07/the-old-testament-and-contemporary-christian-ethics/

I believe Christian churches of all kinds ought to do more to oppose capital punishment. They ought, at the very least, to declare it incompatible with Christian faith and put members who openly believe in it under some kind of discipline (not necessarily excommunication but at least forbidding them to teach it in the ecclesial context). And those who practice it, actively seeking it and participating in it, should be excommunicated from Christian churches. It ought to be a matter of status confessionis—as apartheid was declared by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches which helped lead to its downfall in South Africa.

I have a better idea: why don't Arminians hold a big pow wow and declare Roger Olson persona non grata? 

It is my considered opinion that belief that capital punishment, at least as it is known and practiced in the U.S. today, is a heresy when espoused by Christians. It manifests an embrace of the myth of redemptive violence by humans and flies in the face of the ethic of Jesus which forbids violent retribution. It is absolutely, incontrovertibly contrary to love. And it is, as practiced in the U.S. today, manifestly unjust.

i) To call it the "myth of redemptive violence" is just a question-begging label. 

ii) Why must capital punishment be "redemptive" rather than punitive? 

iii) Jesus doesn't forbid criminal punishment; rather, he forbids personal vengeance. A murderer is not usually my enemy. Most murder victims are perfect strangers to me. 

iv) So what if capital punishment is unloving? Love and justice are not interchangeable. Love is not the only moral duty. 

As you know, I am very much attracted to Yoder's Christian ethic. The only place where I am almost certain we disagree is about just war. I think a war might be just, but I would say even a just war is at best a necessary evil.

How is capital punishment "incontrovertibly contrary to love," but just war is not? 

The state of Texas recently executed its 500^th person since capital punishment was restored by the Supreme Court in 1976. That’s more than all other states combined. 

i) That's true by default. Nothing prevents other states from vigorous capital punishment.

ii) Texas is the second most populous state in the union. In addition, many states don't practice capital punishment. So Olson's comparison is sloppy. 

The 500^th executed person was a black woman. Not many women go to the death chamber in Texas or elsewhere, but many African-Americans do. Studies have shown that African-Americans are more likely to receive the death penalty than Caucasians—especially when the decision (or recommendation) is made by a jury rather than a judge.

i) Women are less likely to be executed in part because women are less likely to commit murder. In addition, juries often have a double standard for female killers. 

ii) Blacks disproportionately receive the death penalty because blacks disproportionately commit murder.

iii) I believe most black crime is black-on-black crime. So why is Olson denying justice to the black victims of murder? 

iv) I'm guessing that Caucasians with MBAs are more likely to commit white collar crimes than blue-collar workers. Does that mean Scott Sullivan, Ivan Boesky, Bernie Ebbers, Bernie Madoff, Michael Milken, Jon Corzine, and Ken Lay (to name a few) are victims of racial discrimination? 

Now I know that someone out there is already thinking: “Yes, almost, but it has never actually happened. There are checks and balances to keep innocent people from being executed.” I simply don’t believe they are sufficient to guarantee it. 
Our justice system is not foolproof which is one reason why capital punishment is wrong; judges and juries can never know with absolutely certainty that an accused person is guilty—even if they confess. (Many confessions are made under extreme duress.)

Why does Olson assume capital punishment is wrong unless we can eliminate the risk of convicting the innocent? Is vaccination wrong unless we can eliminate the risk of fatal reactions? Is driving wrong unless we can eliminate the risk of vehicular homicide? 

But there are many other reasons capital punishment is unjust. I have explained them here before. In brief they are: (from a Christian point of view) that it takes away a person’s time to repent and believe or to witness to other inmates, leading them to repentance and faith.

i) A death row inmate has ample time and incentive to make himself right with his Creator.

ii) The duty of the state is to exact justice, not mercy. Clemency for the killer is unjust to the victim and survivors.

...and (from a secular point of view) it offers no real deterrent to crime.

How does Roger Olson know that capital punishment lacks deterrent value? The very fact that we distinguish between white collar and blue collar crime is evidence that penalties have a demographic deterrent effect. If, given your socioeconomic status, you have more to lose by committing a crime of violence, the penalty is a deterrent. 

 …and costs the government more than incarceration for life.

It's because of death-penalty opponents like Olson that the appellate process is so glacial and costly. 

 Also, from just a humane point of view, it is extremely damaging to the families of those executed.

Justice delayed is extremely damaging to the families of murder victims. 

 ...and is barbaric for a supposedly civilized society such as we claim to be (no country we like to compare ourselves with in terms of social development practices capital punishment).

Like giving the mass murderer Behring Breivik a minimum 10-year sentence is a posh containment facility. 

I can just hear someone mocking my question above “Would Jesus do it?” Would Jesus push down the plunger to begin the flow of deadly chemicals to kill a condemned man or woman? Sure, sound arguments can be made that there are things we must do that Jesus would not do. “What would Jesus do?” is a simplistic principle for ethical guidance. But it’s a place to start.
I am not an Old Testament Christian; I'm a Jesus person. I cannot reconcile Christians believing in capital punishment with the Sermon on the Mount.

i) According to NT Christology, Jesus is Yahweh. Therefore, whatever Yahweh said or did, Jesus said or did. 

ii) Jesus is also the eschatological judge, who sentences the damned to hell. Yet damnation is worse than execution (Mt 10:28). 

As a long time reader and former student of mine, I'm sure you won't be surprised by my response. God is God; we are not. God gives and takes away; we are not permitted to take life in every way that God may take life. 

Notice Olson's about-face. First he says we should take Jesus as our frame of reference. He's our example. Then, when his bluff is called, he suddenly retracts that.

Also, I see a great discontinuity between God's establishments of laws for Israel and Jesus' teachings about what his followers are to do.

Capital punishment antedates the Mosaic code. 

When was the last time a person sentenced to life without the possibility of parole escaped and murdered someone? I haven't heard of it in America recently. 

Try Ted Bundy.

But you don't have to escape prison to be a repeat offender. Liberals who oppose capital punishment often oppose life imprisonment. You can't trust the judicial system to keep its word.

There can be little doubt that the Old Testament represents God as commanding Israel to practice ethnic cleansing—including the slaughter of non-combatant women and children. (And it won’t do to argue that it wasn’t true “ethnic cleansing” because it was limited to a certain time and place. 

It wasn't "ethnic cleansing." It was pagan cleansing or geographical cleansing.  

And yet, the vast majority of contemporary Christians would consider ethnic cleansing absolutely wrong and Christian support for it and participation in it heresy.

Is Olson saying the OT is heretical? 

The belief that holy war with ethnic cleansing (to be very specific with this case study) is always unequivocally evil must be based on a hermeneutic that bypasses and supercedes the Old Testament Pentateuch and historical books.

If it's "always unequivocally evil," then is Olson saying the OT commands were unequivocally evil?