Troy Davis, Mark McPhail and the Government

The Troy Davis case in Georgia’s long and complicated approach to death penalty cases has what seems like the whole world talking. Nothing about the case seems to be all that unusual, there are those who believe Davis actually killed the police officer and ought to be executed, and those who believe that the evidence is too shaky for such a judgment and because of that, the state took the risk of executing the wrong person. Davis claimed his innocence until the very end; while the US Supreme Court, the Georgia Supreme Court, and the State Board of Pardons refused to intervene and stop the execution.

The family of Troy Davis worked tirelessly to get the conviction overturned, or at least a new trial or evidentiary hearing. There actually was an evidentiary hearing in June 2010, but the courts upheld the conviction. The family of Officer Mark McPhail was adamant that Davis killed McPhail and seemed at least relieved, if not celebratory, when the execution finally was carried out.

There are no winners in this story. Officer McPhail left behind a wife and two small children. The execution of Davis brought to an end a life that included multiple encounters with law officials, dropping out of high school, poor work performance, a nick name “Rah” which stood for “Rough as Hell,” and being accused of shooting one other person that night, assaulting a homeless man, and murdering McPhail.

McPhail was murdered in 1991, Davis executed in 2011. Whatever else one might think about the death penalty, it can hardly be argued that the execution of Davis was a deterrent to murder. One might suggest that at least Davis would never murder again, but then his chances of getting out of jail were so negligible that he would have never murdered again anyway. While I don’t know the exact details of the cost of the execution, his twenty years on death row, and the multiple trips before the courts – the state of Georgia would hardly have spent more on a life sentence than it did in executing him. Just from the crass world of “what did it cost?” the whole thing makes little sense.

But for believers, there is a more serious issue at stake – how should a follower of Jesus view such actions of the state? Of course second year seminary students who know everything are quick to suggest that there is an answer. Depending on the social justice views of the seminary, it is either horribly wrong or exactly what God created government to do. Forget the fact that from the early church fathers to the present, pretty bright and capable biblical scholars have viewed the subject differently.

Perhaps one lesson to be learned from all of this is that these issues are complicated and while each of us may have absolute conclusions about such complicated questions, we should be careful in assuming that complicated questions have such easy answers.
Paul’s comments about government in Romans 13 are often brought into the discussion. Government is put here by God to bear the sword – protecting the innocent and punish the guilty. Believers are to respect the position of government, pay taxes, and try to stay under the radar of governing officials. What Paul doesn’t mention is what the role of believers in government should be. Again, we are confronted with an issue about which believers have not always seen eye to eye.

Obviously you won’t get the final word on these kinds of issues by reading what I write. Listening to McPhail’s aged mother you couldn’t help but feel the hurt she has experienced these past 20 years. Listening to Davis’ sister, you couldn’t help but feel the frustration she has borne for these past 20 years. Listening to the state argue that you can’t allow people to get away with killing policemen reminded me of the blessing of the safe culture I live in. Listening to supporters of Davis’ claims that he was innocent, you couldn’t help but think “what if?”

For me – and I know it is all very complicated – what seems to be the bigger issue is that as a follower of Jesus who has declared Jesus Lord, there is no room in my heart for allegiance to anyone or anything other than Jesus. In some ways, the fact that God “ordained government” is not that dissimilar to the fact that He “permitted divorce” in the life of Israel. Like divorce, government isn’t reflective of God’s intentional purpose at creation. That doesn’t mean it isn’t important, but it isn’t what He intended for human life to be like.

At some level, that means I should never depend on the government to do what God has called the church to do. That idea has implications far beyond the role of the state in the death penalty. I don’t mean that if my sense of biblical testimony as it reflects the teaching of Jesus is that the death penalty is wrong, I shouldn’t say so – but it does mean that I shouldn’t think “saying so” relieves me of the burden to bring Christ to a world that is “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd,” to use language Matthew uses to describe how Jesus saw the world. If I think the death penalty is consistent with the role of government as described by Romans, I still should not dare think that executing Troy Davis relieves us of the responsibility to find a way to tell people like Troy Davis that there is a better way.

One of the more notable preachers in Atlanta used his sermon Sunday to denounce the injustice of the execution of Troy Davis. If the clips played on the news reflect his content, he didn’t say a word about the fact that there are hundreds of young men in Georgia who, based upon their circumstances in life, could end up being another Troy Davis. The news in our city seems to daily reflect that reality. And of all the people I’ve heard saying Davis deserved to be executed, I’m yet to hear a single one say – we must find a way to stop this cycle of violence that is far too predictable these days.

I’m not happy that Georgia executed Troy Davis. I’m not happy that he very well could have been the one who killed Officer Mark McPhail. Even if I thought the death penalty was reasonable, I wouldn’t be happy that it was carried out. I’m far less happy that it is so easy to put the burden on the state when it is the body of Christ that God has called to change the world.

Wrestling

The conversation started out something like this. “Do you think the Bible is God’s word?” My reply was something like, “Yes, of course I do.” That reply was followed up with another question – “So you think whatever is in the Bible is really the word of God?” By now I’m beginning to think my questioner had an agenda of sorts, but I decided to answer the question any way. Hoping that I could give a one word answer and end the conversation, I simply said, “Yes.”

He wouldn’t give up so easily, and the conversation quickly included a litany of “so you believe . . .” statements that reflect a reading of the Bible as it might be seen through the lens of mid-twentieth century culture rather than an attempt to read the Bible through the lens of its own historical setting. The list of “things” I would need to agree to in order for him to believe that I believed that the Bible is the word of God was overwhelming!

This kind of conversation reminds me of why I detest labels. Had our conversation continued to the point where I would have suggested that we need to read Scripture through the lens of its writers and readers and not our own cultural settings, he would have dismissed me as one of these “liberals” who “water down” the gospel. Unfortunately, it is equally easy for me to dismiss him as one of those hopeless “fundamentalists” who abuse the gospel – maybe, to create a new term, “water up” the gospel!

I remember reading – actually have read it several times since I’ve used it as a classroom assignment – Myron Taylor’s “A Theology of the Word of God,” available in his autobiography, Preacher of the Gospel. The lecture was given at Emmanuel Christian Seminary, back in 1998. His opening sentence is remarkable: “The habit of referring to the Bible as the Word of God has disguised the fact that the expression has a multiplicity of uses in scripture.” (page 37)

Taylor then talks about what he calls “the eternal word,” “the historic word,” “the spoken word,” “the written word,” “the word of proclamation,” and “the indwelling word.” The last sentence of Taylor’s lecture is worth repeating as well, “the richness of the biblical concept of the Word of God deserves our careful and thoughtful attention.” (page 47)

So to my recent questioner, “yes, of course I believe the Bible is the Word of God, but it isn’t quite as simple as you might think!” As I heard William Willimon once say, “the Bible is a thick book.” Indeed it is, and Taylor is right – it deserves a whole lot of thinking on our part. To that I would add, “for the rest of our lives.”

One of the reasons I never think that “I’m going to work” is because I’ve spent my entire adult life employed as one call to “wrestle” with this thing we call “the Word of God.” I haven’t become rich when it comes to retirement accounts, but I have lived a decent life, rich in ways that actually matter. And in that “wrestling,” sometimes I’ve walked away with a limp.

Making Sense Out of Life

I tend to be a “two plus two must equal four” kind of person. I like things to make sense. What I perceive to be acts of stupidity drive me to distraction. I want things to “make sense” in the “best sense” of that phrase.

That may not be a bad approach to life if I’m talking about what the bank ATM does when I deposit a check. Or how the cash register at the grocery store accounts for my purchases. Or how my fellow commuters in Atlanta respond to traffic laws. Or even how I get from text to sermon or lesson.

But taken too far into my heart of faith – I’m not all that confident that God has called me to a life that “makes sense.” There is that troubling idea in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 about “the foolishness of the message preached” that is supposed to be the framework for my life. If you think about it, preaching “Christ crucified” doesn’t “make sense” when you’re living in a culture that demands “signs” and “wisdom.” But is what Paul is committed to doing.

In the introductory section to Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir, Stanley Hauerwas speaks to this challenge by saying, “I have, moreover, tried to live a life I hope is unintelligible if the God we Christians worship does not exist.” In a bit of a paradox, that “makes sense” to me. Faith in God creates an approach to life that is, without doubt, “senseless” unless God is really who He claims to be.

The “unintelligible life if God doesn’t exist” I’m called to live might make me love my enemies rather than getting even with them. It might even cause me to be a generous giver of resources rather than saving them for my own rainy day. It might challenge me to be more reflective about the privilege of where I was born. After all, becoming a Christian where I was born was a lot easier than it would have been had I been born in Tehran. Recognizing that privilege, I might even become more understanding of the non-Christian world. Who knows – I could start praying that the geo-political decisions of my own government would quit making it so easy for Muslims to dismiss Christianity as nothing more than an extension of American foreign policy.

The “unintelligible life if God doesn’t exist” is going to call me to realize that saying “Jesus is Lord” is a call for absolute allegiance to this Nazarene as Lord. It probably isn’t going to make sense all the time – but it will make sense to God.

I’m probably going to always look at the check I get when eating out. I’ll always want it to “add up” and “make sense.” But when it comes to the tip – I want to be viewed as living an “unintelligible life” – even when the service isn’t that good. That’s a starting place for a guy whose brain loves for life to “make sense.”

Almost Bible

For a number of years, my study partner and I were privileged to go up to Cherry Log Christian Church in Ellijay, Georgia, where once in the spring and once in the fall, the great preacher, Dr. Fred Craddock, would hold seminars on preaching. It was always a wonderful experience and we always left there more committed to the ideal of preaching than ever.

One time the topic was something like “the challenge of preaching in our world.” Craddock talked about a lot of issues that day – all of which I could identify with but the thing that he said that has stuck in my mind ever since then is that one of the challenges of preaching today is “that there is an awful lot of ‘almost Bible’ out there.”

A few weeks ago I was reading One Life by Scot McKnight. It is an overview of the life of Christ and its implications for discipleship, born in the classroom where McKnight taught Life of Christ at North Park University in Chicago. There’s a phrase in the book that reminds me of what I learned from Craddock. McKnight describes it as reworking a phrase from Flannery O’Connor. Here’s how McKnight puts it: “That’s right, but it just ain’t right enough.” (page 62)

Put those two ideas together and somehow I’m thinking that “almost Bible just ain’t right enough.” Yet, most of us reading this are living and studying; teaching and preaching – bearing witness of our faith where what I describe as the “civic Jesus” is much better known that the Jesus of Scripture.

And that is, to say the least, quite a challenge. How do we manage to stand against the “commonly held view of Jesus” in our culture and dare suggest that there is a Jesus in Scripture who stands over and beyond this “civic Jesus?”

Scott Peck, the psychiatrist who came to faith later in life, once suggested that the Jesus of Scripture may be among the best kept secrets in all of Christianity. I’ve not taken a scientific survey about that question, but he may have been on to something.

Paul’s way of talking about this was simply to say, “we preach Christ, and Him crucified.” (I Corinthians 1:18-25) Clearly in that text he is refusing to market the Jesus story to the demands of his marketplace – for Jews, it was signs; for Greeks, wisdom. But Paul won’t go down those roads – and sticks to this rather unpopular and often unbelievable story of “Christ, and Him crucified.”

There is an awful lot of “almost Bible” that isn’t quite “right enough.” God has called us to be His witness – and a good witness tells the truth!