I have a hard time accepting that the death penalty is always, in all circumstances morally wrong because, the one time God wrote a set of earthly laws, in the Old Testament, He included the death penalty.   It's hard to believe that God would impose a penalty that He thought was wrong.

Wiley and Duckman, would Matthew 22:21 help to clarify the Christian position on the death penalty? "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Civil government is ordained by God for the maintenance of God's natural law here on Earth.

We cast the poor slob that murders some innocent person in the act of rape or robbery as a defenseless animal about to be butchered. Hey, what about responsibility for what you do? I know that's "Old School" in post modern America, but it may be making a come-back.

Christians don't have to join a prison system for employment. This is clearly Caesar's domain. Murder is a cultural taboo in most parts of the world. Retribution usually follows. I would close by quoting then Gov. George Bush in reply to those who asked concerning the executions in Texas;"What does that say about Texas? The gov.'s reply: "If your going to kill someone, don't do it in Texas." Odel Roo :alert:

Odel,

This is not a slam, and please don't take it as such.  I just want to make it easier for me to read your posts and understand what you are saying.

When you hit the quote button to quote someone's post, it will quote it for you automatically.  This will appear before your response to the post.

When you are quoting someone there are two boxes on the reply screen.  Please type your response in the first empty box.  That way your response won't look like you are quoting what someone else said.  This will make it much easier to see what words are yours and what words belong to the person you are quoting.

You can edit the persons quote if you want, in the lower box.  And when you get good at it you can even intersperse part of their quotes among your responses to their quotes, and we will still be able to easily tell which words are yours and which words belong to the person you quoted.  

[span style=\'color:blue\']Thanks for your help!  :noddingsmiley: [/span]

Kevin

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--][!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]If you want to end abortion stop voting FOR pro-choice politicians in the Democrat Party and the Republican Party. We can end this 30 year agony at the ballot box. :alert:[/quote]
And y'all thought Odel Roo was one-dimensional.[/quote]


Janine,I've been following your posts of late. You do have reasoned opinions.  :clap:  We are on the same side more often than not. And "that's a good thing," to coin a phrase. :thumbup:

If we can get the Christians  :zzzz: to wake up to the task at hand, we may be able to oust some pro-choice politicians be they Democrat or Republican. The vote is sharper than a two edged sword. We can slay the abortion dragon... :help:

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Don't you find it odd that those who are anti-death penalty are usually pro-choice on abortion? [/quote]

I think that, if you check some of the past threads concerning the death penalty, you'll find that on this site that's not necessarily the case.

On this whole this site is a bit of a dangerous place to try to apply political stereotypes, as you'll regularly find them being stretched, twisted, and even mutilated.

Not always, but often.

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Spurly, hang on a minute. In your world of life is life, I hear you speaking about the un-born, the old, and the murderer on death row. Where is the victim's life in your equation? He or she is forgotten in the misguided rush to defend the murderer's life.

It is quite clear that God required a life for a life and still does. This is God's moral law set in the context of civil law. Civil government is God's agent on earth to uphold His moral law. Odel Roo[/quote]
Odel Roo,

Show me where, under the new covenant, God's moral law requires a life for a life.  It isn't there.  In fact Jesus taught just the opposite.

Are you following the Old Covenant or the New?

And no, the victim is not forgotten.  Justice can be served with life behind bars.  By the way, isn't the victim supposed to forgive anyway?

Kevin

Odel,

I realize my comments re. the death penalty were off the original topic (thought the topic did move to comparing people's stands on abortion with their stand on the death penalty), so I'm sorry I took it further away from what you wanted to discuss.

In my desire to rise above the things of this world (I'm far from there, trust me!), I would like to approach the abortion issue differently than you.  You prefer a direct, frontal attack on abortionists, democrats, and those that would have abortions performed on them.  To a lesser extent, or in a subtle way, it sometimes seems you would also attack those who do not want to join you in the direct frontal attack on the above named parties.  Comments like this "Are you standing on the sidelines while fellow Christians fight against abortion at every turn?" make me wonder if that is what you also want to do.

In reference to Matt 22, which you brought up earlier in a effort to clarify a Christian's position on the death penalty, Jesus does an amazing thing.  The Pharisees wanted him to take one position or the other regarding the paying of taxes to Caesar, in order to trap him.  If he said yes, it is right to do so, then they could use that statement to turn his large following against him, since they all hated the oppressive rule of Rome.  If he said no, it is not right to do so, then they could use that against him to turn him over to the Romans for refusing to pay taxes (tribute) to Caesar (how about some irony - you can see in Luke 23:2 that they accused him of it anyway).  Jesus stuns them with his reply.  The way he replied shows that he was not going to become embroiled in this political debate (it was a common one among the Jews who despised living under Roman rule).  The content of his reply shows that, while there are things that are Caesar's (the world's, the gov'ts) that we have to render unto, there is a higher kingdom (God's) that we must render unto above the rendering unto Caesar.

This teaching, along with so many teachings in the NT that talk of this higher kingdom (and as I mentioned earlier about being an ambassador), lead me to a different approach in dealing with abortion than you take.  It is my desire that the focus of the church would be to teach young women their great value in the eyes of God, and their great value while here on earth.  We should help them to know that they are not defined by having a man in their lives, and value is not added to them by taking a man into their beds.  And similarly, we shoud teach young men that women are not their playthings, to have whenever (and whomever) they want.  We teach them that their value is not enhanced by how many notches they can have on their belts.  For me, teaching young women and young men these things would be a starting point.  And I don't mean just having the preacher speak these things from the pulpit, or youth minister in the teenage class teach these things - we can teach our small circle of teenagers these things and not make much of a dent in abortion.  However, if we look outward to our communities and share the love of Christ with them and teach them of God's grace, then we can affect more and more people, and perhaps something can be done.  Maybe Roe v. Wade would be overturned.  Maybe not, but the more people who have a Christian view of sex, the less unwanted pregnancies.  The less unwanted pregnancies, the less abortions.

In short, I would want to work on changing people's hearts with the Gospel as my main weapon against abortion.

And, Odel, I will vote, as often as I can, for those who would be pro-life in their politics.

Now, because you and I would have different approaches to this issue, does that make one of us right and the other wrong?  I don't think so, I think it just makes us different.

But please, don't assume that because I do not join you in taking the direct, frontal approach, that I sit here idle, not doing anything about abortion.

And, finally, all of this I would constantly bring to my Father in prayer.  Because of the power that is tapped by our prayers, I believe more will be done to stop abortions throught prayer than either your direct frontal attack, or by my approach above.

May you have a blessed day in Him, and may our God, who created the heavens and the earth, the God of most awesome power and filled with love, bring about an end to abortions on demand.

Duckman