Apostasy: Capital Punishment in Nebraska. - Comments (2)

Category: Applied,Articles
Author: John Malone
Date: 5th April, 2007 @ 06:07:32 AM

Here’s a chronicle of a local instance of apostasy, and an observation of the {mystery of inquity|2Th 2:5-8} working.

Here in Nebraska, we have another death penalty controversy going on, fronted by newly appointed chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Brad Ashford, who has taken over for Ernie Chambers in that capacity.

Chambers has attempted to end the death penalty in Nebraska every year he has served in the legislature. That is now well above 30 years.

I have had dealings with Ashford when he was the Executive Director of the Omaha Housing Authority, a position which he resigned late last year, claiming the resignation fulfilled “a campaign promise.” In fact, it was legally required to resign in order to avoid a conflict of interest.

As Executive Director of the Omaha Housing Authority, he persistently violated open meetings laws, public records laws, and HUD regulations.

Ashford and the truth are frequently in conflict, but none with as much serious potential impact as lately in the legislature.

Ashford, whose family owns a clothing business, is a 1970 graduate from the then all-male school Colgate. Colgate is one of the many east coast post-secondary institutions which was denominational (Baptist) in origin geared to train pastors, but which are now – and have been for decades – apostate from the faith. In Colgate’s case, the way it apostasized was taking up a different agenda, then separating off the mission of training preachers, and then relegating it to an ecumenical direction where it functions as an enemy of faith.

Not everyone can afford a private school like Colgate, and among those who can afford it, not everyone can get in. So this fellow Ashford is privileged economically, and he is endowed intellectually. He graduated from Creighton University Law School, and graduated with honors.

As a politician, he seems reasonably well-liked. Long-time media players often excuse his errant conduct, simply saying, “That’s Brad.” In a Republican state like Nebraska, Ashford is in the right party, yet is popular enough with Democrats to gain important appointments.

But what makes this fellow dangerous is that he is in the single-house Nebraska legislature, and obtained chairmanship of one of the most important committees: the judiciary committee. That is not done easily.

In one of his first notable acts in the new legislative session, Ashford attempted to get rid of capital punishment in Nebraska, albeit in a duplicitous way, and nearly carried a simple majority (failed 24-25) in the legislature, albeit 30 votes would have been required to overturn the promised veto of governor Heinemann.

What was Ashford’s duplicity? He claims his bill would not have outlawed capital punishment, but merely mandated it only for those who were deemed likely to murder again. Actually, that criteria would have been strange one indeed, because it would have executed the capital offender not for what he had actually DONE, but for what someone suspected the murderer would YET DO.

There are two simple principles violated with this approach. The first – and most obvious – is that a man should be punished according to what he actually did, not what someone thinks he may yet do. Second, when it comes to capital punishment, it is God who formulated it, and gave us the reasons why. I’ll get to that. But it’s man’s responsibility to carry it out, not find ways around it.

As a practical matter, Ashford’s bill would have resulted in no actual executions of first-degree murderers in the state of Nebraska. Mind you, for society to execute a first-degree murderer is he most basic obedience to God.

This is how far political minds stray from sensibility when they have left the foundation of the word of God. interestingly, the Bible warns in Romans that, when men no longer {acknowledge God in their thoughts|Rom 1:19-22}, they will end up with altered (reprobate) minds: {minds void of judgment.|Rom 1:28}

That same section of Scripture tells us that, in response to men failing to acknowledge God in their thoughts, God gives men up to THEIR thoughts, and the result is homosexual practice: a degeneration. When we see this degeneration rampant in our society, as it is, we ought to be alerted that God is giving up on many, and that has disastrous results to the entire nation.

In another gae, before the great Noahic Deluge, men were so fallen in their {devisings and imaginations|Gen 6:5-6} – in a day when capital punishment was not authorized by God – that {violence filled the entire earth.|Gen 6:11} God, in his mercy, destroyed every living thing except Noah and his family – who were singularly genetically preserved prior to the deluge – and the animals God sent to Noah to be preserved with him.

The story is not familiar enough: when Noah left the ark, God gave him the covenant for all mankind to keep. It forms the basis of human governance ever since, and is what God put in place so that He would never have to destory the entire earth as He once did. When we see the rainbow, we are not supposed to think multiculturally: we are to think of the pieces of common human culture that are mandated by God.

Those pieces: {meat-eating|Gen 9:3-4}; {capital punishment|Gen 9:5-6}; and {filling the earth with people.|Gen 9:7}

At some point I will write in detail concerning meat-eating and being prolific in children, but in this instance, it is capital punishment that was under attack – as usual – in Nebraska.

The emphasis I care to make is that when ANY legislator in any parliament sets himself against the execution of any and all first degree murderers, he sets himself against God almighty, and the central proposition of human governance. It’s one thing for someone on the outside of a parliament to advocate such anarchy – indeed, such apostasy! – but it is an entirely worse development when someone on the inside does it.

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