Fox News guest: "The US executes innocent people, but that's okay because Jesus."

[DetlefK]

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/03/31/fox-news-contributor-robert-jeffress-expresses-support-death-penalty-innocent-people-are-executed-so/223292

ROBERT JEFFRESS (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Let's admit, the death penalty is sometimes inequitably and even mistakenly applied. We know that. And we ought to do everything we can to prevent that. But I remind people, the greatest example of an innocent person being executed was Jesus Christ himself. He was totally innocent, and yet in spite of that, the New Testament never calls for an end to the death penalty. Instead, Paul said in Romans 13, God has given government the power of the sword, the ability to execute in order to bring punishment against those who do evil.

[Tripper11]

1. ahem

[DFW]

2. In this century, NO government has any business wielding the sword on an innocent person

About the only death penalty I could ever sanction would be on those who use it on someone whose guilt is in doubt.

[unblock]

3. well, aside from the thou shalt not kill and the do unto others and the vengeance is mine bits....

never mind that citing religious texts to justify killing innocent people is something they call "terrorism" when non-christians do it....

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Of course he's a dumbass; we knew that.

But he also is wrong when he says Jesus was innocent; he wasn't, except maybe in the theological sense. He was executed for the crime of sedition because he claimed to be a king or a representative of God in a system where the emperor was presumed to be divine, thereby unlawfully undermining the authority of the emperor. It didn't take much to get busted for sedition in those days. But to suggest that the death penalty is OK even though some innocent people get executed just because Jesus was innocent too isn't just stupid, it's factually incorrect. But you can't argue with those people.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. Well, Jesus was actually innocent of sedition, but was set up by the Jewish ruling class...

because he was a threat to them, and Pilate had no interest in justice, just calming the situation. Or at least that's the way I learned the story. Jesus did, after all, plainly say to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

But, all this was to necessary to confirm the prophecies, and if you are a believer you can't possible equate Jesus' death with some prisoner in Texas who couldn't afford a decent lawyer.

I was raised in a very conservative Lutheran church that believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, but always warned us of the dangers of misinterpreting it.

How one decides who is misinterpreting it tends to be a problem. These days I think of the Bible more as a grand puzzle akin to the works of Joyce or Pound.

[struggle4progress]

5. "As Jesus used to say, 'Shoot first and ask questions later'"

[Moostache]

6. Ask these same people about abortion and "sanctity of life"...

These people are full of shit.

They care more about non-viable embryos at 20 weeks gestation than they do a miscarriage of justice that sends a 20 year old black man to death row and kills him in all of our name. They are disgusting in their strident nonsense about justifying two separate arguments on polar extremes with the same book...

[Solly Mack]

7. Sick-minded fuck.

[sarisataka]

8. Unlike many other subjects

Jesus was directly addressed about the death penalty
John 8:3-11

I believe the words of Jesus himself should have greater weight than St Paul.

[delisen]

9. Well god said "Thou shalt not kill" so who is Paul The Roman Soldier to spin that

When in doubt to the source.

I think Satan the Trickster is behind all the "Christian" fronts.

[lindysalsagal]

10. How very "pro-life" of him!

These droplets should return to their playpens and stop bothering the grown-ups.

[Vinca]

11. Well, all I can say is I hope he is falsely found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

[trev]

12. Yes, but in the same epistle, chapter 12

Paul says that we are to obey the government as we would god. How many Republicans follow the law and accept the consequences of elections?

[Oneironaut]

14. Soooo... We're like Jesus's executioners, then?

I don’t think that argument makes any sense.

[NightWatcher]

15. As long as at least half our population believe in fairy tales, we are screwed.