A Christian Response to a Public Execution

You've likely heard by now that Pete Hegseth has announced a public execution by firing squad. In fact, the Pentagon says it will be livestreamed. Nidal Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at a military base in 2009. It's a horrible act worthy of appropriate consequences. But what happens when our government determines that the appropriate consequence is to make a public show of his killing?

For those of us who study history, it's a staggering step back into something many of us thought we'd moved beyond. The backlash to this recent news is bipartisan. Republican Senator Thom Tillis said that "Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do," even as he said Hasan should face the death penalty. Rep. Austin Scott, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that while he supports a sentence of death, "live-streaming executions is what jihadists do." Republican Senator John Curtis argued that "A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment." Republican Congressman Rob Bresnahan said, “The focus should be on justice for the victims and their families.” And while not necessarily offering a critique, even Vice President J.D. Vance said: "I’m not going to be watching it."

But what discourages me the most is the amount of support I see for it amongst people who call themselves Christians. As with most issues, not all Christians land in the same spot. Yet there are far too many Christians who claim to be bringing Christianity back into our military and government while simultaneously promoting literal death. These are the same people who also consider themselves pro-life.

Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of a 16,000-member church in Dallas, said, "Capital punishment is commanded by God in Genesis 9:6 to remind people of the sanctity of human life." Religious journalist Megan Basham cited Romans 13 to argue that Christians should support it. She posted that "bearing public witness to the wages of evil acts grounds a culture morally." Megachurch pastor Josh Howerton of Lakepointe Church argued that public executions are "what is prescribed (not just described) in the Bible, so I do not think you can say it’s unbiblical or automatically wrong." Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and of Samaritan's Purse said, "I found it ironic that many who embrace Hollywood and its culture of death that is constantly depicting murders, rapes, and all kinds of violence—all in the name of entertainment—are saying they’re so appalled at this. Have we become desensitized to death?" You need only read through some of the Facebook comments on his post to see how many other Christians share this way of thinking.

If I may, I'd like to offer you my sense of what the Spirit of God wants to say to these arguments, and you'll have to forgive me as this is the most theologically accurate way I know how to discern it:

Fuck that.

I'm tired of being polite about it.

If you feel the need to defend killing as a public show, consider whether you would have attended the lynching of our black brothers and sisters in our country. This conversation isn't new. Our nation has a long history of turning killings into public spectacles for entertainment. As theologian James Cone observed,

In the “lynching era,” between 1880 to 1940, white Christians lynched nearly five thousand black men and women in a manner with obvious echoes of the Roman crucifixion of Jesus. Yet these “Christians” did not see the irony or contradiction in their actions.

Now, more than eighty years later, we have once again returned to Christians failing to see the irony and contradiction in their actions. As W. Fitzhugh Brundage noted:

Perhaps nothing about the history of mob violence in the United States is more surprising than how quickly an understanding of the full horror of lynching has receded from the nation’s collective historical memory.

If we were forced to truly grapple with the horrors of lynching in our country, we might have a bit more caution when celebrating the chance to watch a public execution today. We would likely have the humility to learn from our past failures. But we have not faced this evil.

Even worse, we have failed to see that it was Christianity itself that provided a unique defense of this type of atrocity. The civil rights activist Walter White made the connection obvious in the 1920s:

It is exceedingly doubtful if lynching could possibly exist under any other religion than Christianity. Not only through tacit approval and acquiescence has the Christian Church indirectly given its approval to lynch-law... but the evangelical Christian denominations have done much towards creation of the particular fanaticism which finds its outlet in lynching.

Those who want to watch criminals executed by the state today are similar to those who lined up to watch what they did to Jesus. Perhaps you'd counter that Jesus was innocent and Hasan is not. But remember that Jesus was a condemned criminal of the state who most saw as deserving of His fate.

Or consider this: What does public killing do to the people watching?

Luke tells us that when people gathered for the crucifixion of Jesus, "The crowd watched and the leaders scoffed" (Luke 23:35). But we soon discover that "when all the crowd that came to see the crucifixion saw what had happened, they went home in deep sorrow" (23:48). It did not play out as they hoped.

The spectacle often fails to deliver the results it promises. It is a scapegoating mechanism that alleviates our anxiety through collective blame and the destruction of the other. And yet it reveals far more about us and our own insecurities. The French philosopher René Girard noted that "The more one is crucified, the more one burns to participate in the crucifixion of someone more crucified than oneself."

Worse yet, watching a public execution situates Christians on the wrong side of the equation. Cone reminds us, "The cross places God in the midst of crucified people, in the midst of people who are hung, shot, burned, and tortured." We are called to stand in solidarity, not to watch from afar. Even standing with the condemned doesn't excuse the crime or dismiss the victims. If providing healing and support to Hasan's victims is the goal, I would suggest they would likely find the spectacle hollow.

In Rome, they'd often leave bodies on the cross as a signal to others of what happens when you dare to challenge those in power. Today, our military desires to recreate a similar reminder. As Hegseth explained, "people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things." Public killing is a message.

I pray that the cross of Christ disturbs all my Christian brothers and sisters as they pursue its modern recreation in our midst. Cone notes that "The cross, as a locus of divine revelation, is not good news for the powerful." But he wasn't just warning people like Pete Hegseth. Cone explains that the cross is also not good news "for those who are comfortable with the way things are, or for anyone whose understanding of religion is aligned with power."

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Photo by davide ragusa on Unsplash