My response to the article by Father Jonathan Morris, "Saddam Got What He Deserved" at Foxnews.com.
"Dear Father:
Grace and peace. With regard to your recent article about the execution of Saddam Hussein, I do appreciate your concern that human life be rightly valued. However, you do not seem to take into account such passages of Scripture as Genesis 9:5f and Romans 13. Saddam was a murderer. Capital punishment by a rightful civil authority is not performed in order to defend the community from an evil doer – though it will, or may, do that. It is to be used because murder is an attack upon the image of God. Here is the required transcendant necessity, of greater weight than self defense or a sentimental appreciation for human life.
As for who should perform such an execution, it is the authority appointed by God to bear the sword. In fact, if that authority does not use that sword it is derelect in its duty. The result is that the image of God in man is not rightly valued by the society, and thus human life is not rightly valued and esteemed, and all the other kinds of evils that go along with the failure to obey God’s instructions regarding the Ruler (be it a king, State, whatever).
You speak of the tragedy of Saddam’s execution. The tragedy we witness in this man’s life is the Fall and man’s sinfulness. It is tragic that any man does evil. It is also tragic when an authority fails its God-given duty to preserve the sanctity of the image of God in man. God’s being defines what is just. His laws instruct us in what is just. If he requires that the blood of a murderer be shed, then, by definition, capital punishment is just and not to be demeaned, lest we do violence to the character of God and thus perpetrate another tragedy.
The Lord be with you."
"Dear Father:
Grace and peace. With regard to your recent article about the execution of Saddam Hussein, I do appreciate your concern that human life be rightly valued. However, you do not seem to take into account such passages of Scripture as Genesis 9:5f and Romans 13. Saddam was a murderer. Capital punishment by a rightful civil authority is not performed in order to defend the community from an evil doer – though it will, or may, do that. It is to be used because murder is an attack upon the image of God. Here is the required transcendant necessity, of greater weight than self defense or a sentimental appreciation for human life.
As for who should perform such an execution, it is the authority appointed by God to bear the sword. In fact, if that authority does not use that sword it is derelect in its duty. The result is that the image of God in man is not rightly valued by the society, and thus human life is not rightly valued and esteemed, and all the other kinds of evils that go along with the failure to obey God’s instructions regarding the Ruler (be it a king, State, whatever).
You speak of the tragedy of Saddam’s execution. The tragedy we witness in this man’s life is the Fall and man’s sinfulness. It is tragic that any man does evil. It is also tragic when an authority fails its God-given duty to preserve the sanctity of the image of God in man. God’s being defines what is just. His laws instruct us in what is just. If he requires that the blood of a murderer be shed, then, by definition, capital punishment is just and not to be demeaned, lest we do violence to the character of God and thus perpetrate another tragedy.
The Lord be with you."
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