Earlier this month, a call for a parliamentary debate on the
death penalty topped the government's new e-petition initiative, and
polls indicate that over 50% of Britons favour its restoration.
The
recent violence in a number of English cities may have pushed that
figure higher.
As an Anglican priest, my first thought was that the
Church of England would be solidly against any restoration of capital punishment.
As a historian of the church, however, I had to admit that my own church – and indeed almost every other tradition of Christianity – has a shameful record on this profound moral issue.
Throughout
the vast majority of the history of Christianity, capital punishment
has been widely endorsed.
Christian thinkers as diverse as St Paul,
Aquinas and Calvin can be enlisted in its defence.
Article 37 of the 39 Articles of the Church of England
(1563), to which all ordained ministers of the established church
assent, states that "the Laws of the Realm may punish Christian men with
death, for heinous and grievous offences". Anglicans were not alone.
In
1566 the Council of Trent of the Roman Catholic Church reaffirmed the morality of the death penalty:
"The just use of this power [capital punishment], far from involving
the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to [the Fifth]
Commandment which prohibits murder".
On this issue at least there
was consensus between Europe's mega-churches, drawing on the weight of
Christian tradition and teaching but also partly fuelled by shared
hostility towards Christian radicals with their wacky (or do I mean
"biblical"?) beliefs in pacifism, holding all things in common, and a
rejection of capital punishment – positions condemned by all the
mainstream churches. Looking back, it is a pretty uncomfortable example
of ecumenical convergence.
In the 20th century a substantial sea
change occurred. In 1958 the General Convention of the American
Episcopal Church passed a resolution urging its abolition. Three decades
later the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference did so as well.
In 1995 Pope John Paul II did not declare an absolute ban but argued that execution should only be used "in cases of absolute necessity" and maintained that because of the progress in penal systems, "such cases are very rare, if not practically nonexistent".
In
Britain, nonconformist Christians led the charge on abolition. But even
the bishops of the established church could be converted.
In 1948 only
one bishop, George Bell of Chichester, clearly supported abolition in
the Lords; in 1956 eight voted for abolition, one against.
By 1969, 19 bishops voted for and one against.
The bishops were being
remarkably "counter-cultural" as polls indicated that 85% of the public
favoured the retention of hanging in 1969.
The distinguished historian
Hugh McLeod has suggested that the move in the 20th century away from a
theology of salvation based on seeing the cross as punishment for sin,
to an incarnational emphasis on God becoming human in Christ,
strengthened the view that all human life was sacred and helped to move
the episcopal bench on the issue.
McLeod also maintained that Christians
who consider all parts of the Bible "equally authoritative" and promote
a literalist approach support the death penalty more strongly.
Reflection
on the church's transformed teaching on the death penalty raises
challenges for Christians on how we relate tradition and biblical
authority to other current controversies, such as the ordination of
women and human sexuality.
Moving at the pace of the slowest, much
commended in my own church, is not morally neutral.
Should those
favouring the restoration of the death penalty get their parliamentary
debate, my hope is that the Church of England will speak against it with
all the authority of a reformed sinner.