Sunday morning, America woke to the horrific news that a New York criminal had set fire to a woman on the subway and watched her burn to death. If such sickening injustice does not justify the death penalty, what does?
But the very next day, President Joe Biden, a self-proclaimed Roman Catholic, commuted lawful death sentences for 37 men who had been convicted of similarly heinous murders.
“America must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level, except in cases of terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder,” said the president's statement.
He offered no principle to explain why men who raped and murdered multiple children deserved to live while Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Robert Bowers, and Dylann Roof deserved to die. Neither did the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
In fact, the USCCB statement in praise of the president’s commutation mentioned no exceptions whatsoever. Rather, it said unqualifiedly, “The bishops’ conference has long called for an end to the use of the death penalty.”
Both the president’s commutation statement and the USCCB repudiated the government’s exercise of death — one with unexplained exceptions and one without. This column will not attempt to answer them. I have published on the death penalty elsewhere.
I only mention these recent events to meditate on one obvious but unmentioned fact: Neither the President nor the USCCB speak about restoring the lives of those innocents who were murdered.
You may scoff. You may think that I am grandstanding. You may find it a ridiculous observation to say that no government has the power to restore life.
But it is precisely because this is so obvious that we should spend more time thinking about it.
Governments have been given the power of death. But they have not been given the power of life. That is simply an uncontestable fact. God, alone, has the power of life.
The most important part of this simple observation is that there is no power anywhere on earth which does not fall under one of these two categories: life or death.
God is working the power of life with every child conceived and every breath that you are given. Governments, on the other hand, work the power of death not only by capital punishment, but also by every law, policy and rule.
The government has only the power to take away; it never has the power to create. Even when it gives money, it can only give to one what it has first taken from another.
Every possible law that our legislators might pass are all exercises of the power of death. This is true, first, because they require handcuffs, squad cars, and bullets to enforce them. It’s true, also, because every law drains resources that people would otherwise use to live. Taxes, fines, administrative fees, and every restriction on freedom are drains on life.
This does not mean that governments should never make or enforce laws.
It only means that the government should justify, carefully, every law that drains the means of life from citizens, by how effective it is in protecting citizens from the taking of life. This requires proportionality.
It also means that laws protecting life and property are a government’s proper work. But government action that strips protection from some while purporting to give life to others is fraudulent. Such laws attempt to do what only God can do.
After we have considered that governments have power over death but not over life, we should notice something else: Since restoration of life is impossible, perfect justice is impossible. Lawmakers should not be in the business of “righting” past wrongs for the simple reason that they have no ability to do so.
Government power is incapable of giving back stolen lives, stolen time, stolen honor, or stolen innocence. It can only use the power of death to prevent injustice. It cannot use that same power to correct the past.
Government officials, from the president down to the dog catcher, should reflect deeply on the powers that they have been elected and appointed to wield. Those who fail to understand these principles of government power may have good intentions, but they only delude themselves.
As we prepare for the 2025 legislative session, citizens need to understand these principles and help their legislators to apply them. They are a solid framework to evaluate the hundreds of bills about to be considered.
Where God gives life and property and freedom, it is the government’s job to protect it using its power of death. State actors who that repudiate the power of death and pretend to exercise the power of life confuse the roles of Church and state.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com.
