Column from the Middletown Journal
by Pastor Dave Kepple
June 23, 2001


Death, where is thy sting?

Perhaps many of us were asking that question last week as mass-murderer Timothy McVeigh was gently put to sleep by the people of the United States of America. The criminal justice system meted out the death sentence on June 11 for McVeigh, the bomber who killed 168 people in Oklahoma City. Only a few days later, the wheels of justice turned in Ohio with the execution of a man named Jay D. Scott in Lucasville. Scott was dispatched in the same antiseptic manner as McVeigh, strapped to a gurney and injected with lethal drugs. Like McVeigh, Scott's crime was murder. The fact that Scott also suffered from schizophrenia, a severe brain disorder characterized by hallucinations and delusions, added a unique wrinkle to Scott's case.

For thoughtful persons everywhere, and for faithful Christians, in particular, the deaths of McVeigh and Scott must raise all kinds of questions -- questions for which there are no easy answers.

In a story filed by the United Methodist News Service, church executive Anne Marshall, whose husband was killed in the April 19, 1995 bombing in Oklahoma, said, "The punishment (of McVeigh) fit the crime.

"I felt little emotion," Marshall said after the execution. "I didn't feel sad. I didn't feel happy. I simply acknowledged that it was the day set for McVeigh to die. He had plenty of time to make amends with family members of victims and others, but he didn't."

As if all this weren't difficult enough to grapple with, there later came published reports that McVeigh asked for and met with a Roman Catholic priest in the last hours of his life, and received the Sacrament of the Annointing of the Sick (once known as the Last Rites). Catholic Church officials say this could only have occurred with some form of confession and penitence being expressed by McVeigh.

There's so much surrounding the McVeigh execution that is troubling. It's disturbing to think that he was able to request his "last meal," by special order. Certainly, as others have pointed out, none of his victims were afforded such niceties on the last day of their lives. Nor were they given the opportunity to confer with a spiritual advisor before terror struck in Oklahoma City. Such acts of simple human decency are traditionally provided to the condemned as they face execution. We are a civilized people, after all.

I don't believe in capital punishment, any more than I believe in abortion. As a general rule, I don't think we humans are supposed to play God by extinguishing souls. Nothing with respect to the deaths of McVeigh and Scott has changed my mind. Besides, I think death was too kind a fate for McVeigh, whose boyish face on the TV screen almost masked the tremendous evil that he embraced. I have a hard time getting past his reference to the 19 children who died at Oklahoma City as "collateral damage." I think he should have had a lifetime in prison to think about the misery and sorrow his actions caused.

In Ohio, meanwhile, I couldn't help feeling a little more disturbed at the execution of Scott. One of his attorneys, John Pyle, struck a theological note of his own in comments made after the execution.

"Vengeance can only beget vengeance," Pyle said. "The only way we're going to get a peaceful world is through mercy. That's the message Jesus delivered about 2,000 years ago, and it needs to be repeated again and again and again."

Capital punishment has always been a thorny and challenging question for Christians, and undoubtedly it will continue to be so into the future. Ironically, the Lord we seek to follow -- the One we love and worship as the Risen Son of God -- was himself given a death sentence, carried out on a cross. Yet through his dreadful death, Jesus of Nazareth opened the door to eternal life for all people, destroying both the power of sin and the darkness of death.

It's difficult for me to imagine Tim McVeigh sincerely confessing, repenting and accepting God's grace, since he never expressed any remorse whatsoever for his crimes -- not even in the last moments when he had a chance to offer some conciliatory words.

Ultimately, of course, the state of McVeigh's soul is between him and the God whose grace is available to all who truly seek him. But one thing I know for sure -- you can't fool the Big Guy.


* Rev. Dave Kepple is pastor of Union Chapel United Methodist Church in Madison Twp.