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Why the Black Church Must Oppose the Death Penalty
It’s been 57 years since Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated for preaching a gospel of nonviolence, redemption, and mercy. Like me, he opposed the death penalty — not out of naivety, but because justice must leave room for grace.
Capital punishment is violence dressed as justice — a relic we claim to have outgrown yet keep reviving. In April, South Carolina executed Mikal Mahdi by firing squad. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in the 1800s: A hood over his head. Three bullets to the heart.
The Black Church has always known what state violence looks like — and this is why, we especially, cannot stay silent.
Mahdi’s crime devastated a family. But Madhi himself was also abused, mentally ill, and failed by nearly every institution meant to protect the vulnerable. His execution came just weeks after another death by firing squad.
Supporters claim it’s quicker and less error-prone than lethal injection. Maybe so. But if speed is our standard for justice, we’ve already lost the moral argument.
We’re not killing people to heal. We’re killing to disappear the condemned.
As a Christian and faith leader in Los Angeles’s black community, I see capital punishment regressing into spectacle — visceral carnage disguised as progress.
Some say the death penalty offers closure. Others claim it deters future crimes. The evidence for both is thin. What we do know is that around 2,100 people currently sit on death row: mostly poor, disproportionately black and brown, and often failed by our justice system.
It costs us millions more than full-life sentences. It aligns us with authoritarian states. And it isolates us further on a global stage which grows colder by the day.
As of 2024, more than 70 percent of countries have abolished capital punishment in law or practice. No executions have occurred in the European Union since 1997. Even nations once known for harsh penalties, like Kazakhstan and Sierra Leone, have abolished it. Meanwhile, the United States ranks among the top five countries for executions and is one of a handful that allows death by firing squad.
In 2025, capital punishment isn’t a marker of justice, but of regression. And it reflects a deeper failure to believe in the possibility of remorse, reconciliation, or redemption — attributes engrained in the human condition by God himself.
This isn’t about going soft on murder. It’s about asking whether killing people makes society safer, more whole, more just. It’s about whether we believe, as Christians, that anyone is beyond God’s power to redeem.
Across the globe, faith has proven to be a powerful force in challenging capital punishment, demonstrating that mercy and redemption can outweigh retribution. The Catholic Church, under Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis, declared the death penalty “inadmissible.” In Japan, Buddhist principles of non-violence continue to challenge the death penalty’s moral legitimacy.
Even in one of the most unlikely settings, faith recently interrupted the machinery of death. Stephen Munyakho, a Kenyan migrant worker, had been sentenced to beheading in Saudi Arabia following a deadly workplace altercation. For 13 years he waited on death row. His fate only changed after a sustained campaign by his 73-year-old mother and the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims came to the attention of the world’s largest Islamic NGO, the Muslim World League.
In a rare gesture, MWL’s Secretary-General, Dr. Mohammad Al-Issa, authorized a $1 million payment in diya — a form of “blood money” permitted under Islamic law — to the victim’s family in lieu of the death penalty. Munyakho has now returned home. MWL’s actions didn’t deny wrongdoing. Instead, it acknowledged complexity and showed that faith can carve out space for mercy.
And if mercy can prevail in Saudi Arabia, it can prevail here.
Across the country, faith-driven advocacy has already shaped public opinion, with leaders like Sister Helen Prejean pushing for abolition through Christian values. And groups like the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama and the Restorative Justice Project in California work directly with victims’ families, incarcerated individuals, and communities to promote accountability, healing, and transformation.
It’s easy to dismiss these alternatives as idealistic. But they’re not about letting people off the hook. They’re about holding them to a moral kind of accountability that demands participation in repair. In fact, restorative justice programs have been shown to reduce reoffending by up to 27 percent compared to traditional justice systems.
No one is beyond the possibility of change. As Dr. King warned, “returning hate for hate multiplies hate.” The death penalty forecloses redemption and silences transformation. It kills the Christian belief that people, however far they fall, are still capable of moral growth.
The Black Church has always known what state violence looks like — and this is why, we especially, cannot stay silent. This isn’t about going soft. This is about the power of redemption, a power stronger than punishment, and older than any firing squad.
Executions may still be legal. But they are not just. And the return of the firing squad should remind us, with brutal clarity, that capital punishment must end. For good.
READ MORE:
The Church Needs to Regress on the Death Penalty
Trump Ready to Enforce the Death Penalty
Nathalie Beasnael PhD is a Faith Elder at Christ Citadel International Church in Los Angeles, which has served a predominantly African American congregation for over 30 years. She holds an Honorary Doctorate in Divinity and has been a prominent voice in Black Christian activism across Los Angeles championing women’s empowerment and restorative justice. Her writing on global justice and faith has appeared in USA Today, Newsweek, and other national outlets. She is also the founder of Health4Peace, which provides medical supplies to hospitals in Chad, Senegal, Ghana, and South Africa.
The post Why the Black Church Must Oppose the Death Penalty appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.
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