Sunday, August 25, 2019

The Injustice Of Crucifixion

In experiencing death, Jesus received the wages of sin.  However, the fact that he was tortured (using several methods condemned by Deuteronomy 25:1-3) and crucified is of no soteriological relevance to his death, with the exception of one set of verses in Deuteronomy.  The verses in question (Deuteronomy 21:22-23) only permit the suspension of a corpse from a tree until night falls, clearly excluding the process of nailing a live man or woman to a tree for an agonizing death that could be prolonged for up to several days.  The only significance these verses have for the death of Jesus is the curse which Deuteronomy 21 attaches to anyone who is hung on a tree.  Nevertheless, evangelicals have popularized the idea that crucifixion is literally what each sinful person deserves.

Aside from the fact that this stance is riddled with massive logical and Biblical errors (many of which I dissect in great detail here [1]), there is another danger to it.  Any Christian stupid enough to erroneously believe that Jesus took the exact physical punishment that every human deserves must not only contradict the clear laws of criminal justice in Mosaic Law, but they might also be far more supportive of the use of unbiblical forms of torture in modern times--after all, Roman crucifixion is one of the supreme historical examples of unjust torture that the Bible condemns.  All it takes to pressure some conservative evangelicals into endorsing unbiblical forms of torture, unfortunately, is the suggestion of a threat to national security and the illusory promises of utilitarian tactics.

The thoughtless evangelicals who repeat common phrases saying that Jesus took the literal punishment deserved by sinful humans are unwittingly (or, worse, knowingly) approving of the moral monstrosities of Roman crucifixion in at least some sense.  More specifically, they approve of crucifixion in the sense that they regard it as somehow being just in the case of other crucifixions besides that of Jesus.  This is apparent from the manner in which they tend to speak about the thieves crucified with Jesus--although Mosaic Law does not even prescribe execution for theft and explicitly prohibits most tortures.  It is far from uncommon for sermons that touch on Jesus' crucifixion to include at least one comment about how it was unjust for Jesus to be crucified, the pastors implying, if they do not say so outright, that it was just for others besides Jesus to be treated in such a way.

The evangelicals who create or concur with these sermons directly or indirectly equate what the Romans did to crucifixion victims other than Jesus with justice, something that any sound Biblical ethicist would recognize as a thorough rejection of Mosaic Law on multiple levels.  When someone begins to appropriate evangelical theology, it is hardly surprising (within the context of their ideology) that they always seem to regard relatively petty sins as deserving of more attention than unjust legal penalties in the ancient and contemporary worlds.  The evangelical world is blatantly unconcerned with upholding the specifics of Biblical legal punishments for corresponding sins, and it thus settles for arbitrary legal systems that contradict the one detailed in the Bible.  After all, many of its adherents subjectively prefer the Western prison system, with all of its dehumanization, sexual violence, and misandrist sexism, to the far milder punishments demanded by God in the Torah.

A person's worldview will inevitably influence how he or she behaves.  Thus, even inconsistent or flawed moral ideas that seem far removed from everyday life can have disastrous consequences when they are eventually applied, even if they are only applied in very limited scenarios (of course, irrational ideas need to be fought even when they are never acted upon).  Even though the Roman Empire and its form of crucifixion have not persisted, unbiblical forms of torture have.  The notion that Roman crucifixion is just cannot be reconciled to the Biblical prescriptions which oppose numerous aspects of such a punishment, but it also trivializes other lesser forms of unbiblical torture that are implemented in modern times.  Evangelicals are either ignorant of or apathetic towards this, but this is hardly unusual.  Evangelicalism is already brimming over with assumptions, fallacies, and contradictions even before asinine and unjust ideas about crucifixion are considered.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/we-are-getting-what-our-deeds-deserve.html

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