Death penalty divides many Christians
The looming execution of Tennessee inmate Billy Ray Irick puts questions about whether capital punishment is ethical and moral front and center.
But Christians — despite their shared core beliefs — do not agree on the answers.
Just as it divides the nation, views among the religious on state-sanctioned execution splinter along denominational lines and from pew to pew.
Those perspectives are shaped by how they view scripture and how much weight they give to church leadership, said Graham Reside, an ethics and society professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
“It’s a question of authority,” Reside said. “Where do you place your authority?”
Evangelical Christians, for example, tend to place theirs in the Bible instead of denominational leaders. Roman Catholics put theirs in scripture as well as church teachings.
The Bible is ambiguous on the death penalty, said Reside, who teaches philosophy and religion courses to inmates on Tennessee’s death row. That means believers can interpret scripture to be both in support of and against it, he said.
Denomination views on death penalty
The majority of Americans support the death penalty. Fifty-four percent said they favor it for those convicted of murder, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in April and May.
While it is not the only factor that affects views on state-sanctioned executions, religion does have an impact. The Pew survey breaks down support and opposition by religious affiliation:
❚ 73 percent of white evangelical Protestants support the death penalty; 19 percent oppose it.
❚ 61 percent of white mainline Protestants support it; 30 percent oppose it.
❚ 51 percent of Catholics support it; 42 percent oppose it.
❚ 45 percent of the religiously unaffiliated support it; 48 percent oppose it.
But regardless of how believers answer the moral questions it spurs, capital punishment is legal in Tennessee.
Gov. Bill Haslam pointed that fact out in a statement he issued Monday night announcing that he would not intervene in Irick’s lethal injection, which is scheduled for Thursday. In 1986, a Knox County jury convicted Irick of the murder and aggravated rape of 7-year-old Paula Dyer. He was sentenced to death.
The governor shared his decision not to grant clemency to Irick soon after the state Supreme Court denied the 59year-old Knoxville man’s request to stay his execution.
“My role is not to be the 13th juror or the judge or to impose my personal views, but to carefully review the judicial process to make sure it was full and fair,” Haslam said. “Because of the extremely thorough judicial review of all of the evidence and arguments at every stage in this case, clemency is not appropriate.”
Irick’s attorneys had argued he deserved clemency because he was mentally ill and could not understand the consequences of his actions.
The decisions from Haslam and the high court come despite an ongoing legal challenge of the state’s lethal injection method. If Irick is put to death on Thursday, he will be the first inmate Tennessee has executed in nearly a decade.
Pope Francis changes stance for Catholics
His execution date also falls one week after Pope Francis changed the Catholic Church’s stance on the death penalty. It is now “inadmissable” because it attacks the inherent dignity of all humans. Previously, an exception allowed for it if no other way to defend human lives against an “unjust aggressor” existed.
After the Vatican announced the recent change, prominent Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore republished his 2016 response to Pope Francis. At the time, the pope had cited one of the Ten Commandments, thou shall not kill, in his opposition to the death penalty. While the death penalty is not without its serious flaws, Moore argued it is wrong to apply the commandment to every application of capital punishment.
“We must not lose the distinction the Bible makes between the innocent and the guilty,” Moore wrote. “The gospel shows us forgiveness for the guilty through the sin-absorbing atonement of Christ, not through the state’s refusal to carry out temporal justice.”
Haslam declined to explain to the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee how his own Christian beliefs factored into his decision not to intervene in Irick’s case. Nor did he share which, if any, religious leaders he consulted in that process.
Some have tried to intervene.
Religious leaders try to sway Haslam
Last month, the Catholic bishops from the Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville dioceses sent a letter to Haslam calling on him to put an end to this year’s executions.
The governor attends Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville and Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church when he is in Knoxville. The churches are a part of the Presbyterian Church in America and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, respectively. Neither of those evangelical denominations have an official position on the issue.
Marvin Padgett, who is an ordained PCA minister, personally supports the death penalty and believes the Bible permits it as well. But it should not be taken lightly nor celebrated, he said.
“It is something to be approached with gravity,” Padgett said. “Are there instances where the crime is so heinous that the perpetrator of the crime should be put to death? And I think, reluctantly, that is the case.”
The racial imbalance of those sentenced to death in America concerns Padgett. People of color account for a disproportionate number of executions and those sitting on death row, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Padgett has a closer connection to the death penalty than most. A man, who is now sitting on death row in Alabama, beat his best friend to death with a hammer in Alabama before slaying an elderly couple.
“It was really terrible,” Padgett said. “I don’t wish his death. I do think given the circumstances, not because he murdered my best friend, although I can’t be objective about that, that what he did is worthy of being executed.”
At Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Irick is awaiting execution or a last-minute stay by a federal court. Inmates are placed on a 72hour death watch ahead of their lethal injection. They are under 24-hour observation.
Corrections officers moved Irick to death watch at 11:30 p.m. Monday night.
Irick is one of 61 inmates, including one woman, on death row in Tennessee. All of the men are housed in Unit 2 at Riverbend where Deacon W. James Booth visits nearly every Saturday for an ecumenical service and study group.
‘Pall of sadness,’ Booth says
While he does not participate in the weekly group, Irick, known for his artistic abilities, helped paint the Stations of the Cross artwork created earlier this year by several of the men on death row. Booth has helped facilitate its display at schools and churches around Middle Tennessee.
Of late, much of the small group’s Saturday discussion has turned to Irick’s looming execution date and the others set for this year, said Booth, the director of prison ministry for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nashville.
“There’s a general sort of pall of sadness about it,” Booth said.
One member of the Saturday group recounted watching his friend being taken from his cell and moved to death watch years back, Booth said. He called it the single most difficult moment in his decades on death row, Booth said.
“He described it as a feeling of helplessness,” Booth said.
Like Pope Francis, Booth opposes capital punishment. He participated in a Tuesday rally in protest of the scheduled executions and helped deliver a petition to the governor urging him to stop them.
Booth believes that despite a person’s past actions they are still human beings made in the image of God and have intrinsic dignity. The disquieting and horrifying details of an inmate’s crimes can stir passions and a desire for retribution, Booth said.
“We try as Christians to educate our passions in light of Christ’s teachings,” Booth said. “That teaching is one consistently of forgiveness, not being the first to throw the stone, that human beings are capable of change and not to be treated as if they are mere objects to be killed in order to satisfy a thirst for revenge.”
Reach Holly Meyer at hmeyer@tennessean.com or 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.