Christians Must Support the Death Penalty

There are two different kinds of righteousness that are explained through scripture; passive righteousness and active righteousness. In the film Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen, a nun, comforts Matthew, a convicted murderer and rapist, and the tension between her comforting Matthew over the families loss of their children grows. Sister Helen opposes the death penalty, whereas the Apostle Paul, in Romans 13, did not object to the death penalty. The Apostle Paul teaches that we must live by grace with each other, but Paul also clearly states that we are to obey and respect human government. Passive righteousness and active righteousness are examined in Dead Man Walking.

Passive righteousness refers to the righteousness that God has given to us. We are given this righteousness because God loved us enough to send His one and only Son to die on the cross for us. This righteousness, and the actions produced, come outside of us. They are the acts that we commit to doing out of our faith. This is referred to “the fruits of the Spirit,” which Paul writes about. Active righteousness is also known as what we know as civil righteousness. This refers to the actions we choose to make on our own. Instead of affecting our relationship with God, they affect our relationships with our neighbors.

In this film, Sister Helen believed that there are some human rights that are negotiable, but that there are these “basic” human rights that cannot be negotiated. Such as, two human rights that government should not control or act on; the right to not be killed or tortured. She believed that violating these human rights essentially made the government responsible for committing the same act. Her belief leads to the question of whether the people sho...

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...r, he must be given the death penalty. Romans 13:1-7 clearly teaches that human government is given to us and commanded by God. We must to obey and respect government because government does not bear the sword in vain, as we would.

God is the same yesterday, is the same today and forever will be. His command for the need of capital punishment for those who murder their neighbor has not changed. What Sister Helen does not realize is that God is not gray. He gives black and white commandments and they are to be followed and not be molded into something we would rather choose to do or believe in. Murder is not taking a life in a situation of defending yourself, or a soldier in the military defending the rights God has given to us. Killing, given these examples, are praised in the Bible. We Christians, in obedience to our God, must bear and support the death penalty.