Keepin' It Real

Garrison Keilor says, “I was taught about total depravity at my fundamentalist mother’s knee, and nothing has happened since then to make me think otherwise.” As a kid I too learned that we are all sinners, and that if God were to exact a perfect justice, that all of us would deserve the death penalty. So when I hear Christians say that the state is to wield the sword to accomplish God’s justice, I wonder if Christians--those of us who acknowledge our guilt in the face of God’s righteous justice—shouldn’t be the first to get in line.

But then I think about the symbol I wear around my neck--a cross, an ancient instrument of the death penalty. One of the reasons I wear it is to remind myself that the founder of Christianity underwent the death penalty so I wouldn’t have to. It is a symbol that God wills mercy over justice.

I think that is good news that I have to tell the world. It is tempting to spiritualize all this and think about it in terms of “spiritual life” and “spiritual death.” But I’m reminded that Jesus didn’t “die” in the spiritual realm somewhere. He died by the ancient equivalent of an electric chair. He seemed to want to make it as real as possible. I think about opposing the death penalty as a type of lived parable about God’s will for mercy over justice. I understand it as one way of keeping the gospel real.

-Tim