After a short moratorium, the United States has returned to its historical attachment to death as a penalty for serious wrongdoing. Indeed, executions have become so common place that we hardly notice them. Yet revelations about the sentencing and execution of innocent people have caused reservations among even the strongest proponents—if not about the death penalty itself, at least about the difficulty of administering it fairly and accurately. The question of capital punishment is indeed one of the most urgent ones of our era. It is important because of the concrete reality and implications of the penalty itself. But the question is also urgent because of the symbolic dimensions of the death penalty. What are we saying when we advocate for it? Are we genuinely committed to death as a penalty, or are we rather expressing other concerns, such as the need for decisive responses to wrongdoing or the level of disorder in our society? What does the death penalty as a symbol communicate to others about the value of life or the acceptability of violence? Does it communicate what we intend, or does it convey the opposite? The death penalty can and should be explored on many levels. Does it deter potential offenders or brutalize society, possibly encouraging more violence? Are the costs more than we can afford? Does it truly represent just desserts for murder? A question pertinent to my own work is this one: Is the death penalty satisfying to family and friends of homicide victims? To explore this question a recent conference at Skidmore College brought together a diverse range of abolitionists and death penalty supporters, victims and victim advocates as well as offender advocates. The consensus of this group was that while we can marshal stories on either side, there have been few studies of this important issue. Working from a restorative justice framework that focuses on victims needs and roles, the emerging field of defense-based victim outreach in death penalty cases does suggest that even survivors who are inclined toward the death penalty often choose to forgo this in favor of having other of their needs and concerns met in the judicial process: needs, for example, for information, involvement, acknowledgment, safety. Still, there is much we do not know about this aspect of the death penalty. All of these issues are urgent, but the religious dimension is especially significant. This is of course true for Christians who do—or should—base their positions on Scripture and the life of Jesus. But in Western society, this topic is also important for non-Christians. For better or worse, Western culture has been molded in part by understandings of Christian theology; some of us would argue that these understandings are in part distorted, but nevertheless they have been highly influential. As Dutch law professor Herman Bianchi has often said, we need to take a homeopathic approach to this: Like the philosophy of homeopathic medicine, it is going to take a dose of what caused the problem to cure it. In this book Millard Lind takes on this challenge, but in an unusual way. He identifies key biblical emphases, tracking them through both newer and older Testaments, not shying away from difficult texts, weaving themes together into a whole cloth. Lind has been exploring biblical motifs of justice and injustice, war and peace, for many years. As he suggests in his preface, this book is the culmination of a life of scholarly work, and an alternative to his memoirs. Knowing something about his life journey, I am sure his memoirs would have been interesting. This, however, may be a more significant contribution to one of the most pressing issues of our era. —Howard Zehr, Professor of
Sociology and Restorative Justice; Sound of Sheer Silence orders:
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