Hello my friends,

With recent event thrusting the topic of capital punishment and public executions into mainstream public discourse, I thought it would be helpful to spend some time in today's newsletter reflecting on that topic throughout church history and within Jesus' context as we navigate it ourselves in our world today.

Recommended Resources:

​-A Statement of Conscience: People of Faith Reject the Livestreaming of an Execution This is an online petition by Change.org for people of faith to sign and share opposing the livestreaming of an execution.

​-We the People: Cruel and Unusual Punishment by Throughline. This podcast is one of my favorite history podcasts, as you may know. This particular episode tracks to the development of the eighth amendment and handling of the death penalty in the United States.

​-Executing Grace: How the Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It's Killing Us by Shane Claiborne. I have long admired my friend Shane Claiborne and his advocacy in this area. If you haven't yet been able to read his book on this topic, I encourage you to do so.

​-The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America By Mark Lewis Taylor I discovered this book while preparing for this newsletter and I can't wait to read it. I thought I would share it here for you as well.

​-The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone. As always, this book was the most transformative work for me in not only illuminating the theology of Black Christians in American history, but giving me a whole new respect and appreciation for the cross of Jesus.

The season of Advent begins November 29th, 2026. If you are looking for a daily devotional for that season, I have recently self published one that you may check out below.

$20.00 Solace: The Birth of Hope in a Time of Longing This devotional is an ebook, crafted as a daily scripture readings and reflections that begin on the First Sunday of... Read more Get it now!

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We Follow The Crucified, Not The Crucifier.

“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”

-Ezekiel 33:11

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On October 8th, defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood mass shooter, would not only die by firing squad, but that his execution would be live-streamed for public viewing.

While aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, Hegseth told the far-right podcaster Jack Posebiec, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things.”

The last execution the U.S. military carried out was in 1961, which was held privately. The last public execution in the United States was carried out in 1936, which was the hanging of a 22-year-old Rainey Bethea, a Black man who was convicted by an all-white jury of sexually assaulting 70-year-old Lishia Edwards. The chaotic, carnival-like atmosphere surrounding the event drew widespread public backlash and embarrassment, prompting Kentucky to outlaw public executions 18 months later.

Heseth’s announcement drew immediate, sharp backlash from many, including people from both major political parties, faith leaders nationwide, and the UN. Soldiers are also already looking for a way out of Hegseth’s firing squad, primarily based on religious exemption.

If Hegseth carries out this plan, the United States will join nations like Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia in carrying out public executions.

I was immediately disturbed by the announcement and heartbroken that this is where we are as a nation. Here in Idaho, firing squad recently became the primary method of execution under House Bill 37. The law took effect on July 1, 2026, making Idaho the only U.S. state to designate the firing squad as its primary capital punishment option, with lethal injection serving as the backup. To even consider live-streaming this on a national scale is simply appalling.

I was even more disturbed by the numerous comments from many who claim to be Christian that I received across my social media platforms in support of the live-streamed execution. It seems that every day, those in power cause our country to sink lower and lower. And every day, we are shocked again by those who continue to support them, no matter how low they go, even as they claim Jesus as their savior.

In my lifelong journey as a Christian, I have gone from fully supporting the death penalty to completely opposing it after my theological education. While I understand how people can debate capital punishment, I am astounded as to how anyone can endorse live-streaming executions, especially as followers of Jesus.

The early church on capital punishment.

Before looking at Jesus’ own context, I want to step into the context of the early church and briefly mention an important theological shift on capital punishment over the centuries.

In the first three centuries of the early church, the majority of Christians opposed capital punishment and any violence in general. Prominent early theologians and Church Fathers, including Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Cyprian of Carthage, Athenagoras, and Origen, argued that Christians could not kill, participate in warfare, serve as gladiators, or authorize or carry out executions. A position that would be seen as “radical” by many Christians in America today. A few early figures, such as Clement of Alexandria, accepted that the state might have a role in handling extreme or incurable evil, but they were in the minority. Those in opposition to the death penalty and violence in general grounded this stance in the command to love one's enemies, refuse to return evil for evil, and valuing all human life as sacred.

Yet an important shift on this stance happened around the 4th century. Emperor Constantine made Christianity the established religion of the Roman Empire, and this unprecedented access to power, privilege, and wealth begins to shape theology for the church rather than the other way around. Church leaders began to accommodate the reality of Christian magistrates and emperors. In this context of the shifting moral and theological landscape, public officials and soldiers who were Christian converts saw they might be forced to execute people, so they often postponed their baptism until late in life or on their deathbeds (as Emperor Constantine did) to avoid violating Christian moral standards while in office.

When Christianity became the state religion of Rome, the Roman legal mindset merged with theological orthodoxy. Under Roman law, an attack on the state religion was often treated as treason against the emperor (laesa majestas). By linking religious deviance to state treason, the Roman Empire established the legal precedent that a "heretic" was not just a theological dissident, but a political rebel threatening the stability of society.

As this theology developed, St. Augustine, who impacted the church on a scale that only the apostle Paul had done before him, acknowledged the state's right to use capital punishment under certain circumstances, such as protecting the common good or stopping grave injustice, though he urged rulers to show mercy whenever possible.

This theological shift from the 4th century and beyond created a kind of “division of labor” in capital punishment between church and state. The medieval church maintained a firm boundary preventing clergy and bishops from personally shedding blood or serving as executioners, leading the state to handle actual executions.

For example, during the Medieval and Spanish Inquisitions centuries later, the Church itself did not execute people. Instead, the Church functioned as a theological grand jury. Inquisitors would investigate, interrogate, and determine if an individual was a “heretic.” If the person refused to repent, the Church would "relax" (hand over) the individual to the secular civil authorities. The state would then carry out the execution (usually burning at the stake) under civil law.

This “division of labor” theology persisted into our modern era as well. While certain religious minorities like the Quakers were early and ardent abolitionists during the 19th century, many institutional church leaders supported the death penalty and even took action to protect it from being abolished.

In Britain and parts of Europe for example, the chaotic, party-like atmosphere of public hangings began to provoke intense public revulsion. Fearing that this distaste would lead to the total abolition of capital punishment, prominent church figures, such as Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, argued that executions should be moved into private prison yards. By removing executions from the public gaze, the state could continue killing condemned prisoners without inciting popular outrage or fueling the secular abolitionist movement. Interestingly, Charles Dickens' opposition to public executions heavily influenced Britain's decision to move executions behind closed doors in 1868.

Appallingly, in the American South, public executions, including the lynching of Black people, from the post-Civil War era into the early 20th century, were heavily religious events. Rather than protesting the spectacles, local ministers and religious communities frequently integrated themselves into the proceedings. The gallows served as a prominent stage for evangelical preaching, hymns, and highly publicized conversions on the scaffolding, which gave religious legitimacy to the state’s right to execute.

The earliest organized intellectual movements to entirely abolish capital punishment were driven primarily by secular Enlightenment thought. Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria’s 1764 treatise, On Crimes and Punishments, provided the foundational arguments against state executions based on the social contract, rather than biblical text. For centuries, major Christian bodies, including the Papal States and mainstream Protestant denominations, accepted and frequently utilized capital punishment.

So, to bring this full circle, one of the great ironies of history is that the secular Enlightenment movement against capital punishment looked more like the early church, while the institutional churches of the 19th century looked more like Rome, which used religion to legitimize the state’s wielding of death.

However, while institutional Christianity did not lead the initial charge against public executions, the late 20th and early 21st centuries did see a massive theological shift. Vatican completely reversed its historical acceptance of state killings, culminating in updates to the Catechism declaring the death penalty inadmissible in all cases. Within Protestantism, major groups like the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have built robust public witnesses dedicated to total abolition. While organizations like the National Association of Evangelicals have increasingly acknowledged flaws in the justice system, internal debate remains highly divided.

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​In Jesus’ context.

In the first century, the Roman Emperor Augustus declared “Pax Romana,” or the beginning of an era of peace over the Roman Empire. However, as like all political propaganda that perpetuates injustice, this “peace” was enjoyed almost exclusively by the rich and powerful. This “peace” would be preserved in the only way Rome knew how: through political oppression and horrific violence.

The historian Josephus recounts that while Rome declared “peace,” ancient Israel only experienced turmoil and suffering. In this context, Israelites mounted numerous uprisings in order to try and free themselves from Roman rule. In his work “Antiquities of the Jews,” Josephus records that around the time Jesus was born, the Roman military crucified around two thousand men, women, and children in the Galilean city of Sepphoris as punishment for rebelling against Rome.

The Roman historian Quintilian showed how these public executions were meant as a tool of fear and spectacle by recording, “Whenever we crucify the guilty, the most crowded roads are chosen, where the most people can see and be moved by this fear. For penalties relate not so much to retribution as to their exemplary effect.” This served to not only strike fear in the hearts of those they ruled over but desensitize the wealthy and privileged Romans to the death of other human beings as just a necessary part of “keeping the peace.”

As Professor Obery Hendricks writes on this, “Although terrible enough, the several hours Jesus hung on the cross were atypically short. Most victims of crucifixion took much longer to die. Some hung immobilized for days before breathing their last. Josephus tells of one instance in which a victim lingered alive on the cross for two weeks. There is no telling how long the crucified victims at Sepphoris lingered before breathing their last. However, we can be sure that their screams and agonized moans would have been a lasting source of fear and trauma for all who witnessed them, even for those who only heard descriptions of the horror. Some sense of the effect that the horror at Sepphoris would have had upon the collective psyche of the people of Israel, including the young Jesus, can be seen in the response of African Americans to the lynching of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till in 1955. Till’s torture and murder induced terror and revulsion in the black community. The grisly images and gruesome descriptions of Till’s mutilated body and the naked fear they raised remain emblazoned to this day in the memory of all who had the misfortune to be exposed to them.” (Politics of Jesus, pg. 52)

Sepphpris was only a half-day’s journey from Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. It no doubt had a deep impact on Jesus’ political and theological consciousness. This shows in his opposition to violence, his call for peace, his critique of “an eye for an eye” in the Sermon on the Mount, and even in his power to render Rome’s capital punishment against him as powerless by rising from the dead.

The American Empire.

Now, given this context, imagine claiming to follow Jesus, who was publicly executed by the state, then glorifying public executions by the state by wanting to live-stream them.

I believe we are witnessing the continued outworking of authoritarianism in our country. Authoritarian regimes use the theater of punishment much like Rome did, relying on the expressive, visible power of “shock punishment” to project absolute dominance, especially when their political legitimacy and definition of “peace” feel threatened. This kind of public spectacle serves not only as a “show of force” by this administration over whom they wish to control, but also to further desensitize the American public to suffering and death, as has been done already through the mistreatment and death of immigrants and those protesting ICE in our streets.

I also find it difficult not to assume that Hegseth is choosing a Muslim who committed a terrible crime to be executed by firing squad as an intentional choice to not only continue to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment in our country but to send a message to Iran, where he is currently conducting a senseless war. It is purely for spectacle and authoritarian optics.

There is no doubt about the severity of what Nidal Hasan did. His crimes deserve justice and our deepest lament. But the inhumanity he committed does not justify committing inhumanity against him or live-streaming inhumanity to anyone who might be watching online, including children.

As Americans, we must object to our country sinking to this level of barbarism. It is undemocratic and un-American. We must uphold justice without losing our humanity.

As followers of Jesus, we hold that every human being is created in God’s image. That we are not to repay evil for evil. That no one should be deprived of human dignity, even the worst of sinners. As a people who believe in the resurrection, we refuse to support the empire’s machinery of death.

As both Americans and Christians, we oppose this barbarism, which is an affront to both our country and Christianity, but is being carried out under both banners.

When Jesus describes the Final Judgment in Matthew 25, he explicitly tells his followers, "I was in prison and you visited me." He does not say, "I was the judge, the guard, or the executioner." Because Jesus died among thieves and rebels, our theological alignment must always skew toward mercy, rehabilitation, and proximity to the marginalized and condemned, never toward the celebration or sanitization of their demise.

"I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live." -Deuteronomy 30:19

Prayer

Jesus,

You came that we might have life and have it abundantly.

Give us the strength and courage to oppose the culture of death that continues to grow around us.

Give us the clarity of the prophets to speak truth to power when this culture of death is being carried out in your name.

Help us be a people of resurrection and abundant life in a world that glorifies tombs.

In your name we pray, amen.

Now I'd like to hear from you! Did you find this helpful? What thoughts came to your mind as you read? Feel free to respond to this email and share your thoughts with me. I look forward to reading them. A 30 Day Day Devotional: I wrote a daily devotional in hopes to provide a companion for people seeking to follow Jesus through the season of we are currently navigating together. You can find out more below: $20.00 Following Jesus In A World Obsessed With Empires: 30 Days of reclaiming the hope, compassion, and justice of Jesus. Today, our world can often feel overwhelmed by darkness, division, and despair. I created this 30-day devotional to... Read more Get it now! ​ Ways to support: If you'd like to support this project, you can do so through one-time-gift of any amount you feel is right. You can also subscribe through a $5/mo, $15/mo, or $25/mo. Several others have also asked for a recurring gift option that is different from the ones offered here, like this one. If you'd like me to set up a different option for you, please just send me an email with the word "support" in the subject line. As always, I really want to thank all of you for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every single week. I'm thankful for the ways we are building this together and hope it creates a lasting, positive change in our world along the way! I sincerely appreciate you all, Ben Remember, you can now view this and all previous newsletters as well as invite friends to join through this link: https://benjamin-cremer.ck.page/profile.

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