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Should Christians Support Livestreaming an Execution? · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer and I'm joined by my co-host, Dr.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Ashish Varma.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: And today we're going to talk about a wonderfully lighthearted topic,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: sort of in the spirit, I have been watching this
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Netflix series, Making of a Murderer.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know whether you've seen it, Ashish, are you
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: a binger?
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: I don't have Netflix. I'm not a binger. We can
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: talk about that, maybe why, but I'm familiar with it,
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: though I don't have Netflix.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I did not mean to be a binger, but I
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: thought this was like a two or three episode sort
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: of a show. And it turns out that it's evidently
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: like a year long epic of some sort of Chris
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Nolan odyssey proportions. So I'm still I'm still watching it.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: But it is sort of fascinating. This this whole story now,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: it's a documentary. And so they're giving it that nice
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: documentary slant to keep you watching like it has to
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: be interesting. But it's about this gentleman who's initially accused
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of assault and rape, is wrongfully imprisoned, exonerated, and then
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: ends up– a woman dies, a young woman dies on
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: his property. And he is the primary suspect and ends
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: up back in jail.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: So this is the guy in Wisconsin, right?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: This is the guy in Wisconsin.
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  Speaker 3: So when I did have Netflix, I did see this.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: I watched this whole documentary.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's pretty fascinating.
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  Speaker 3: A lot of circumstantial seeming evidence. The Justice Coalition or
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: whatever it's called has picked up his case. Yeah.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah. So there's a lot of just swarm
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: around it. And I wouldn't pretend.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: To know exactly what's going on with the case having
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: watched the documentary.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: You sort of have to shrug this stuff off and say,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: really interesting, really strange. I'm sure I don't have all
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the information, so I'll refrain from judgment, but it definitely
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: seems odd. I hope this isn't the way the justice
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: system actually works, the way it's presented in the documentary.
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  Speaker 1: Fingers crossed that's not the way it actually happens. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: that whole preamble leads me into... An article that I
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  Speaker 1: did a couple of weeks ago now, this is we're
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: filming in October 2026. And so a couple of weeks ago,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I did this article on capital punishment because someone within
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration, usually it's ascribed to Pete Hegseth, recommended
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: that a gentleman who had committed a mass murder be
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: publicly executed and that they live stream that execution. And
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: then from the fallout of that, you had various Christians
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: weighing in on this. Um, the one that I analyzed
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  Speaker 1: was Robert Jeffress. He's a pastor of a large Baptist
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: church down in Texas. And he talked about that, you know,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: there was no moral or biblical reason to oppose live
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: streaming this capital punishment, this execution. Um, Just in the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: course of sort of responding to that, analyzing his statements
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and trying to figure out what I thought about the issue,
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  Speaker 1: I ran across some really interesting stuff on capital punishment
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  Speaker 1: in the Bible. And so I thought it'd make for
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: a good conversation for us. So that's where we're headed today.
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  Speaker 3: This should be fun. I think it's worth saying that
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  Speaker 3: we have not discussed our views ahead of time, which
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  Speaker 3: I think partly makes this fun, right? We are live
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: encountering what each other's takes are.
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  Speaker 2: Yes this was a random encounter.
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  Speaker 3: Right we discussed we would do this but we didn't
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  Speaker 3: discuss what it is we think about it right um
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  Speaker 3: but there are a few issues to frame around it
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  Speaker 3: right there's this particular issue which involved the live streaming
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: which we have touched on yes and of course the
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  Speaker 3: live streaming is not happening and I think previously when
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: we touched on it the president had not yet said
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  Speaker 3: this is not happening yeah um but then also related
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  Speaker 3: to that is seemingly the reason that was given for
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: why the live stream is not happening. I find that interesting.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Maybe we can talk about that a little bit.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't see that. So I'm interested. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Okay. So there's something else we haven't discussed live encounter.
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  Speaker 3: And then there's third and maybe most importantly, not maybe
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  Speaker 3: definitely most importantly is maybe is the issue of whether
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  Speaker 3: or how we should think about this as Christians. Yeah. And,
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  Speaker 3: I'm not sure that it's a straightforward answer, though many
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  Speaker 3: people on both sides of the issue probably will present
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  Speaker 3: it as.
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  Speaker 2: A straightforward issue.
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  Speaker 3: Either that it absolutely is what God expects of us,
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  Speaker 3: or it absolutely is not what God expects of us.
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  Speaker 3: And I want to hold these sides in front of
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  Speaker 3: me as, while I do land on a side that
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: will come out, I don't want to hold to... the
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  Speaker 3: absolute part of either side i'm not sure that it
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  Speaker 3: is an absolute even though i do land on a
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  Speaker 3: side yeah fair enough that's my framing of the issue.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah i don't disagree with that i think that there
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: are a lot of i think there's aspects of it
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  Speaker 1: that um will differ on simply because i i do
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  Speaker 1: think that there's an absolute aspect to it but i
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  Speaker 1: think that there's also an embedded aspect to it that
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  Speaker 1: we have to wrestle with as we're thinking about whether
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: or not capital punishment is appropriate today. And so I
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  Speaker 1: think we have to at least recognize that capital punishment
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  Speaker 1: signified something different in Israel than it does in the
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  Speaker 1: United States. And that that signification is crucial to how
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  Speaker 1: Christians address whether or not this is an appropriate way
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: for any government to handle these issues. And just, it
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: should inform how we think about it. But yeah, this
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: should be a fun conversation.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: It should.
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  Speaker 3: To be clear, when you say an absolute and an embedded,
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  Speaker 3: do you mean it's pretty clear in the Old Testament
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  Speaker 3: what God is saying to people in covenant Israel? That's
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: the absolute. And the embedded is understanding how that pattern
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  Speaker 3: might make sense in light.
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  Speaker 2: Of where we are, who we are.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So if I look at Genesis 9, 6, let's say,
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  Speaker 1: which is usually the text that everybody goes to to
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  Speaker 1: look at this.
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  Speaker 2: This is post-flood.
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  Speaker 1: Abraham, or I'm sorry, not Abraham. Abraham's not alive yet.
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  Speaker 1: God is speaking with Noah and he tells Noah that
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: he can eat flesh. Previously, this was just the veggies.
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  Speaker 1: When this be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
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  Speaker 1: When that was given to the humans in the garden,
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  Speaker 1: The vegetables have been given to all life, humans, non-human,
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  Speaker 1: and fruit. Yes, the vegetation had been given to them
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  Speaker 1: for sustenance. After the flood, now you have this interesting
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  Speaker 1: addition that the dread of Noah will be on the
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  Speaker 1: animals and that they are free for him to eat.
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  Speaker 1: But then he's given a prohibition about the blood of
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  Speaker 1: the animals. He's not to eat the blood because that's
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  Speaker 1: where the life is. And then God tells him that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, if a man's life is taken, then the
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: man who takes that life would be shed. And that's
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  Speaker 1: all rooted in it being humans being made in the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: image of God. I take those sections to be pretty absolute.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, that the blood continues and that the
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  Speaker 1: blood continues to be sacrosanct and hold the life of
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  Speaker 1: humanity in some unique way. I don't know that that's
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: a scientific way, but it's a unique way. And that
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  Speaker 1: the image of God continues forward. And so those two
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  Speaker 1: aspects to me are the, we could call them the
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  Speaker 1: absolute part. They're the parts that are perpetual, we might say.
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  Speaker 1: They continue on to today. The embedded part, though, is
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  Speaker 1: those notions of blood and image of God meant something
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  Speaker 1: to ancient Israel that they generally don't mean to us.
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  Speaker 1: And when I say us, I mean the citizenry of
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  Speaker 1: the United States. They were understanding image of God, the
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  Speaker 1: ancient Israelites, in a very different way than we think
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  Speaker 1: of it today. And so that's what I mean by
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  Speaker 1: the embedding. And I think that that embedding the way
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  Speaker 1: that they imagined the image of God, the way they
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  Speaker 1: thought about how this worked within their communities, that's the
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  Speaker 1: part that then gives capital punishment in part its signifying force.
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  Speaker 2: And this is why they had the death penalty.
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  Speaker 1: For things like, you know, as far reaching as kidnapping
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  Speaker 1: to cursing your parents. And I think there's an underlying
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  Speaker 1: rationale there that makes this make sense. and that gives
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  Speaker 1: it a symbolic character that we don't necessarily carry in
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  Speaker 1: today's world.
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  Speaker 2: That's the embedded part.
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  Speaker 3: Got it. So it's not so much that you're talking
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  Speaker 3: about the question before us of capital punishment was absolute
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  Speaker 3: at one point and is no longer absolute. It's that
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  Speaker 3: the sort of background dynamics that justified or provided the
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  Speaker 3: framework for which capital punishment became a thing in the
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  Speaker 3: Old Testament. Those background issues remain the same, but what
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  Speaker 3: complicates things is the places that we are, both with
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  Speaker 3: regard to biblical narrative on this side of the cross
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  Speaker 3: and where we are with regard to the development of
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  Speaker 3: modern society as something other than what covenant Israel is.
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  Speaker 3: So that even when we're talking about Genesis 9, though
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  Speaker 3: it precedes Abraham and it precedes Covenant Israel, as we've
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  Speaker 3: been wont to say, the nature of those texts, they're
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  Speaker 3: quickly moving, right? Genesis 1 through 11 move very fast
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  Speaker 3: through a lot of material. And many Old Testament scholars,
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  Speaker 3: yourself included, I think would like to say, how do
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  Speaker 3: you like that? I'm saying what you would say, would
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  Speaker 3: like to say these are synatic narratives. These are narratives given...
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  Speaker 3: for the larger purpose of setting up what God is
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  Speaker 3: doing with the people of Israel as they're wandering in
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  Speaker 3: the desert between Egypt and the promised land. So there's
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  Speaker 3: a purpose to why the stories are being told, that
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: are being told, and how they're being told.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: And I think just to sort of underscore this point,
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  Speaker 1: maybe to take it out of something that people may
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  Speaker 1: feel more strongly about with capital punishment and bring it
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  Speaker 1: into something that's a little bit less emotionally charged. If
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: we think about the way that circumcision is practiced today
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  Speaker 1: versus the way that it was practiced in ancient Israel,
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  Speaker 1: you start to understand the difference that I'm trying to make,
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  Speaker 1: the distinction I'm trying to make. Circumcision in ancient Israel
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  Speaker 1: may have ended up being hygienic, for instance. It may
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  Speaker 1: have ended up having these ancillary benefits, but that's not
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  Speaker 1: why it was done. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant.
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  Speaker 1: And so you get circumcised because you're a part of
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  Speaker 1: the covenant community and you get circumcised without your choice
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  Speaker 1: in the eighth day. Like nobody's choosing this necessarily when
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  Speaker 1: they're that young. They're just having it done to them
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  Speaker 1: and they're entered into the covenant. But today when we
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  Speaker 1: circumcise children, babies, boys, when they're born, We don't do
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  Speaker 1: it for some sort of covenantal reason. It doesn't carry
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  Speaker 1: that signification. It doesn't symbolize anything like that. It's almost
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  Speaker 1: purely hygienic. It's a way of just handling that aspect
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  Speaker 1: of the hygiene early on.
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  Speaker 2: And so it's carried on as a practice. It's the
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  Speaker 2: same practice.
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  Speaker 1: Probably not performed exactly the same way, but generally the
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  Speaker 1: same practice. You're accomplishing the same thing. But the way
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: it was understood is understood completely different. We could understand
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  Speaker 1: it in the same way as, let's say, baptism. You know,
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  Speaker 1: the Qumran community that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, they
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: practiced baptism all the time. And in an extremely different
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  Speaker 1: way than we would practice baptism either in infant baptism
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  Speaker 1: or believer's baptism today in Protestant sort of circles. And
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  Speaker 1: so you can have the same practice that signifies something
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  Speaker 1: very different. And what I would argue is that that signifier,
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  Speaker 1: what it symbolizes, why it's done, should not be ignored.
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  Speaker 1: And I think that in our contemporary discussions of capital punishment,
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  Speaker 1: at times we're ignoring that aspect of it. and leaning
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  Speaker 1: back on these sort of quote unquote absolutes of saying, well,
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  Speaker 1: God said the life is in the blood. And if
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: a man sheds another man's blood, that man's blood should
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: be shed because we're all made in God's image. All
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  Speaker 1: of that's true, but then we have to wrestle with,
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  Speaker 1: then why don't we have capital punishment for kidnappers? Why
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: don't we have capital punishment for people who are rebellious
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  Speaker 1: against their parents? Why don't we have capital punishment for
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: that broader imagination within Israel? now situates capital punishment in
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: these other instances, and it makes sense in those instances,
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  Speaker 1: in a way it would never make sense for us.
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  Speaker 1: And we shouldn't just sort of chalk that up to, well,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: they were primitive and they were just killing people for
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the heck of it. We have to understand that they
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: just viewed it differently, that this was doing something different
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: in their community than it does in ours. And then
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  Speaker 1: also recognize that Capital punishment isn't simply reserved for homicide,
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  Speaker 1: even in our culture. There are other reasons that we
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: would contemplate executing someone.
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  Speaker 3: And even in the case of homicide, it's not all
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: homicide cases.
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  Speaker 2: It's not all of them.
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  Speaker 3: Even when we're talking about within a state that has
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: that as a possibility. But I think the larger point
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  Speaker 3: you're making is an important one. It's that There are
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: longer form contexts that make sense of things, right? No
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: single sentence by itself has a meaning. Apparently, I'm in
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: a stretch of time in which I have to quote
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: George Lindbeck every day. So I'll quote George Lindbeck. He
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: does this with Jesus is Lord. He uses other examples.
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  Speaker 3: The one that I use with my classes is that
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: I say, Mother Teresa said Jesus is Lord. The KKK
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: says Jesus is Lord.
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  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 3: What they understand that to mean are two substantially different things.
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  Speaker 3: And I won't ask you to stand up and line
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: up behind the one that you prefer, but I certainly
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: have a preference for what I would like for you
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  Speaker 3: to line up behind, and I think you have a
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: preference as well. Same words, Jesus is Lord, mean two
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  Speaker 3: very different things and are doing two very different things.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe the idea here is that a sentence doesn't have
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: meaning in and of itself. It has meaning within the
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: larger paragraph, or the event has meaning within a larger paragraph.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: literary and cultural context. And what you're describing here is
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: that the act of what we think of as capital
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  Speaker 3: punishment in this case, the covenant setting within which it's given,
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  Speaker 3: and arguably the cultural setting within which it's given, matter
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  Speaker 3: deeply for understanding what's going on in Genesis chapter 9
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  Speaker 3: and then how that bears forth within covenant in Israel.
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  Speaker 3: That despite how similar the act might seem within modern
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: America is not the same thing. Right.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that.
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  Speaker 3: It doesn't have the same meaning.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: And that, what we might call the symbolic value of
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: capital punishment is something that I think we have to
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  Speaker 1: take into account. When I say symbolic, for ancient Israel,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that symbolism is obviously theological. For us, it could be
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: very different. And so I think we just have to
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  Speaker 1: recognize what it is we're doing. And I think in particular,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that sort of I started to recognize that when they
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: started talking about live streaming the execution, because live streaming
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: execution is very different than simply talking about capital punishment. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I think there are nuances, but let's just for a moment,
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  Speaker 1: let's assume for the sake of argument and illustration that
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: capital punishment's fine.
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  Speaker 2: Let's just assume that. That doesn't follow.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't follow that you should live stream that public
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  Speaker 1: execution for any reason.
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  Speaker 2: It just doesn't follow. And I think that as.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: We look out at the way we've become a very
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: voyeuristic culture, my concern with having the capital punishment live
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: stream was that it's not going to be given its
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: due weight. I think if something like that were to happen,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: you don't want to be watching that on a minimized
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: screen on your iPhone while you're, you know, using Claude
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: to figure out what people can get the death penalty
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: for in the United States. I don't think we want
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to be, you know, multitasking while we're watching the execution.
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  Speaker 1: But my fear is that that's exactly what would have happened,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: that some people would have treated it with the solemnity
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: that it deserved. Some people would have been excited about
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: enacting vengeance. And some people would have been treating it
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  Speaker 1: almost like it was a reality television show, completely detached
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: from the seriousness of what is happening.
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  Speaker 2: And I think for.
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  Speaker 1: Those reasons, when I think about, you know, are there
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: biblical and moral reasons not to live stream an execution,
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  Speaker 1: I would say there are absolutely biblical and moral reasons
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: not to live stream an execution. Because you have to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: consider the character and the habits of the people who
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: are watching this event and try to understand how it
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: is that they're going to be impacted. What is it
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: doing to the audience? Not just to the person, but
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: to the audience. At the very least, I think you
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: have to ask that question. Then, of course, you do
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: have to ask the question, does it offer the sort
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: of dignity to the person who is deserving of punishment,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: but also deserving of dignity in that punishment. And so
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  Speaker 1: I think the live streaming for me, what it raised
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: was this issue. And so I'm not suggesting that I
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: don't want to come down on, hey, capital punishment's always okay.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: But I do want to just say, I think the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: live streaming really did raise this issue for me. And
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: it highlighted the vast differences. Between ancient Israel and current
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: practice in the United States that I think I had
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: ignored up to that point.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's tease this a little bit. But by way
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: of teasing it out, I want to make a parallel, potentially.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Tell me if you think this works. We began with
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: making of a murderer.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Now, the making of a murderer is.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: In its skeletal version, as you described it, it's about
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: this guy in Wisconsin who's in jail, may or may
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: not be wrongfully in jail. Certainly the way that the
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: program is created, it would lead one who's watching whose
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: information is limited to what's in that documentary to believe
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: he's wrongfully in jail and that there's a system that
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: deliberately was stacked against him. I think as the viewer,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: one has to watch it and realize that there is
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: a slant to the storytelling. Now that slant to the
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: storytelling from my watching of it was pretty compelling.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I'm not a lawyer.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know the ins and outs of how these
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: things come together, but I watched it and I thought,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: you know what? It does seem like he was set
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: up or it does seem like whatever evidence there is,
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: is was poorly dealt with and is circumstantial. But I
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: want to talk about sort of the layer behind it.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: That seems to be a parallel here. And that's, So
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: let's set aside the people who made that. Is it
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: a documentary? Would we call that that docu-series?
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: I think so, yeah. Docu-series, sure.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: The people who made that docu-series, let's just assume virtuous intent.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: They made it because they believe in this guy. They
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: have good reason to believe in this guy. They weren't
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: trying to mislead us. They really were trying to give
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: us a tour de force to show us how messed
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: up the situation is. And they were wanting people to
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: to jump up and support the cause to work towards
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: his freedom, independently of whether or not they think the
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: guy was a good guy. He doesn't deserve to be there.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know that that is the motivation. I don't
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: know that's not the motivation. But let's just say that
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: is for a moment. Why does Netflix allow this program
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: to be made on their dime and to air on
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: their streaming platform? Is it because they have a desire
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: to to see justice done, I'm less willing to make
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: that jump there, and I'm more willing to say they
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: thought there's a possibility of viral binge-watching to go on
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: with this making of a murderer. Which means more hits,
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: which means however their metrics work to justify their bottom line.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: To them, it felt like this was a moneymaker. Perhaps
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: they'll get more subscribers, is what they were thinking. People
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: will talk about it, and that'll get people here to Netflix.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: is that a good reason to make this program? Where
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: now it feels a little bit like, though he wasn't executed,
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Netflix's purpose in allowing that to go forth, I don't
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm being uncharitable in saying this, is monetary.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: It's to create a platform that people will binge watch
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: and devour. To create something that just is entertaining, right?
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: To To quote Maximus and Gladiator, are you not entertained?
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: That's what they're wanting to ask, right? And then for
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: those of us who watched it, I can't even remember.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: This came out a few years ago, and it's when
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: I had Netflix. I don't remember why I watched it,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: but I remember for some reason I watched it. It
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: might have been someone said you.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Should watch this.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: It's certainly true that it pulled on my heartstrings. But
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: I have to be honest and say what kept me
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: going through it was it was entertaining, too.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: What was the payoff from me watching it? Well, I
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: didn't get involved in any of the platforms that are
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: trying to get this guy freed from jail. I did
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: a few Google searches and learned that there were people
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: who maybe know a little bit more, who potentially have
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: their own agenda that were critical of the making of
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: this documentary, saying it left out X, Y, and Z.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I was not sufficiently informed through that to be able
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: to say that I know definitively what happened. I suppose
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: you could say it was a deterrent from me to
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: commit a crime, but I'm not sure that it was.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm not I'm not going to commit a crime,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: at least not intentionally.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: But I don't know that it deterred me.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, it just was entertainment.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: It was something to watch in the evenings over the
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: course of a week, a week and a half, whatever
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: it was. I don't remember how many episodes there were.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: So I'd say that for me, the viewer, and for Netflix,
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: the producers or the platform that provides the opportunity for
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: me to view, There's nothing in there that bolsters character,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: that spurns on virtue, that creates the fruit of the spirit,
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: and nor was there any intent. It was just another
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: thing to watch. It's like spending a couple weeks watching
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: a season of Titans on HBO Max or something. It
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: was the latest thing, and that was that. What is
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: the purpose of live-streaming? I've heard it said that it
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: would deter people.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Would it? Yeah.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: I think the parallel, it might sound absurd, but I
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: think the parallel is a fair one. If making of
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: a murderer is not deterring me, and I don't think
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: it's deterring anyone else, right? No one says, you know what?
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: I was thinking about committing a crime, but now that
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: I see just how great the burden of proof would
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: be upon me to prove that I didn't do it
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: to get away with it, I'm not going to do it.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Or I was thinking about having this insurance gesture over
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: at my house. But now I think, what if something
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: goes wrong and I'll get blamed for it? I mean,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: I think there's a zero deterrence value in there. And
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: that might sound like an odd starting point, but to
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: me that just feels like, and after the fact justifying, right,
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: from those who said this would be a deterrent. But
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: do I really think that that's why I think it
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: might make me sound cynical, but I don't think that's
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: even why the Secretary of Defense wanted to livestream it
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: in the first place anyway.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: He might have said it.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I think he did say a deterrence, but I'm skeptical
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: that that really was his purpose. What do you think?
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: What do you think about the parallel and about the
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: claim about deterrence?
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: So I'm good with the parallel.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: I think any of those docuseries, you know, they're They're
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: not exactly Aesop's fables, right? And they're not giving you
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: moral lessons to live by. You know, as we watched it,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: we made these offhand comments to our kids like, hey,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: if the cops ever pick you up, just ask for
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: a lawyer. I mean, because you see this poor 16-year-old
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: kid And he's in there with these two policemen and he's,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: you can't really tell whether he's just awkward because he's
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: 16 year old, whether he's awkward because it's an awkward situation,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: whether it's awkward because he did it. But either way,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: he's in there for a while, just in there, peppering
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: him with questions and they're kind of leading him down
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the path. And whether what comes out is the right,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: whatever comes out as the truth or whether it was
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: falsified again, who knows? Um, but either way, you just
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: sort of sit back and you start to understand like why.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: you might want to have someone else there. Like there's
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: just no reason to cooperate. I think that's probably not
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the sort of deterrent lesson that people want.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: To get out of this.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I would also just add though that, so I'm good
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: with the parallel. I think there's also been sociological studies
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that demonstrate that these sort of things performed today do
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: not actually have a deterring effect. The severity of the punishment,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: which is what you have in capital punishment, is far less.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Deterring than is the surety that one will be caught.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: And so seeing someone get executed is a severity issue
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: as opposed to seeing more people getting caught would be
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: a deterrent, right? Like seeing more people just getting arrested
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: for different things. I mean, you think about it on
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the highways, you just let that one sink in. Like
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: when I was speeding down the highway, right, and everyone
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: else is speeding right along with me and you see
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: one cop car with one guy pulled over, you really
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: don't think about slowing down that much, right?
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: But if you see.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Four guys pulled over by cop cars, now you're starting
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: to slow down. Why the severity of the punishment hasn't changed,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: but the frequency of capture has.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: And so that's generally what they're showing in sociology is
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: that the deterrence is actually the probability of getting caught. Yeah.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: Um, Well, you can expand that to, you don't even
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: have to see people pulled over. If you pass one
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: cop on the highway, you'll slow down for a moment
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: and then you'll speed back up. But if you periodically see,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: you know, over the course of.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: A two hour drive. Next one, next one, next one,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: next one.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: You're doing the speed limit.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: You're setting your screwed, your cruise level at the speed limit.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: That's right. So I think that today's world, that's how
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: it happens.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Now, the interesting part is, as we look at the
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: old Testament, you do see that capital punishment was intended
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: as a deterrent. And, and so again, that's where I
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: sort of sit back and say, I think that there
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: was just a different sort of imaginary that God was
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: trying to cultivate within the community of Israel. Because what
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: we find in the text doesn't necessarily mean that that
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: happened historically, right? We know, for instance, that even though
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: God prescribed the Sabbaths and he prescribed the sabbatical year,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: that Israel did not practice sabbatical year. So it isn't
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: at all clear that they are taking rebellious children out
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and stoning them. But that was what was given to
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: them as law, and it was designed as, in part,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: a deterrent.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: I'll add to that and say, it's not just that
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: it's not clear. It's very clear that they weren't doing that.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Because when you read about the expectations, what are the
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: circumstances that bring about the expectation of stoning the children?
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: You and I are both parents. Yeah. Those circumstances are 100% guaranteed.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: So if they actually followed through on it, there would
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: be no next generation. And by the way, I don't
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: think that was the actual expectation, but maybe we'll hold
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: on to that, right?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: And I guess my point is not, I guess I
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: would say, I don't think it happened in every case.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: I don't think we can say it never happened in
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: any case.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: But it surely didn't happen in every case. So when
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, I don't think it, you know, I don't
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: think it really happened that way. Like, I don't think
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: they held strictly to it. That's what I'm saying. Um,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: but either way, I think you, you have to look
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: at this and say, if these things would have been.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: A deterrent in ancient Israel, right.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: As in the Hebrew here, I think is interesting to
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: look at, um, because it isn't a hundred percent clear
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: that it is designed so as to be a deterrent
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: versus designed.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Because it will be a deterrent.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: So in other words, the expectation is that this punishment,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: people will look at it and go, I don't want
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: to be that. I don't want to be that person.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: This community that I'm in takes these things seriously. And
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: so I'm going to toe the line because I don't
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: want to end up like that guy. That's what that's
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: what I think those phrases are intended to say. It
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: isn't that, Oh my gosh, I saw somebody get stoned
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: outside the camp and, and I'm never going to do
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: that again.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I think it, it speaks to a sort of reasoning
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: that people were supposed to have. Um, and, and that
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the law was intended to cultivate, but not necessarily a
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: sort of pragmatic moment where somebody was thinking a completely
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: different way and then just switched. Um, Either way, this
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: notion of deterrent to me and the way it's used
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: in our contemporary sort of discussions, it's very pragmatic. And
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I think the pragmatism is in part what bothers me.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: It speaks to why we're doing it in part. And
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I agree with you. I don't think it's the whole
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: reason that we do these things. But it speaks to
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: why we're doing it in part, and I'm not sure
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: it's a good enough why. If we were going to say, well, let's, okay,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: let's take that and apply it to other situations, right?
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: We're all going to stop driving because car accidents kill
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: X number of people per year.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: The easiest way to do this is just to stop
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: doing it, and the car accident should be deterring us
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: from driving recklessly, for instance. They don't deter us from
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: driving recklessly. We all know it's a possibility. It goes
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: back to that same kind of concept. We don't see
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: that many people. We know it happens, but we don't
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: see it. We don't see the severity or the frequency
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: of people dying on the highway. We don't physically see it.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And so we don't really, we know it happens, but
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: we don't notice it's happening. And thus we don't change
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: our driving habits. I'm just not sure that it has
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the chilling effect that they want it to have. I
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: think that's a sort of an empty excuse, if I'm
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: being honest, why to do this. And I think there
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: have to be other rationales and motivations for having a
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: public execution that I quite frankly just don't understand in
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: our current context.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you. I want to play the
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: inverse side of that same coin. So you say that
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: we don't see the chilling effect of these dramatic car accidents.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: And yet we still generally have a notion of ways
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: we shouldn't drive. It doesn't mean that we don't stretch
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: the boundaries sometimes if we're in a rush we tend
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: to drive one way as opposed to when we're not
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: in a rush we tend to get impatient in certain
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: kind of traffic settings versus other kind of traffic settings
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: but the inverse side of it that I want to
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: kind of hone in on is even whatever chilling effect
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: there is so I remember one year I was driving
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: to my parents house for Thanksgiving and I was driving
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: down I-88 West of Chicago. And it was a pretty
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: free-flowing traffic, but a lot of people on the road still.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: It's a standard Thanksgiving rush that's going on. The oncoming
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: traffic on the other side of the boulevard was about
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: the same coming in towards Chicago. And there was a
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: guy who was... And what wasn't clear to me was
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: who was doing the weaving, but you could see sort
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: of the effect of an impatient driver doing the weaving.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: But all of a sudden there was a guy who
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: swerved and he swerved into the boulevard. And you know
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: how there's those, in the middle of the boulevard, there's
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: those little U-turn lanes that are supposed to only be
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: used by emergency vehicles. He swerved and he went into,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: the swerve took him into the boulevard, which dips down,
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: but then there's that U-turn lane that comes back up.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: It served like a ramp. And his car, I kid
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: you not, was launched into the air. And it was
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: already out of control. And it flipped in midair. And
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: I watched this car. And I'm driving mouth agape. Like,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: what did I just witness? And my kids are in
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: the backseat. And they're really little. And I'm thinking, I
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: hope they didn't see this. Because this could be traumatizing.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: As I watched the car come down on the hood.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: And we're talking about traffic that was moving over 60
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: miles an hour, right? Like that. I went later and
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: I found, thankfully, the dude didn't die. This was newsworthy. Now,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: talk about chilling effect. I did see the gruesome thing.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: And I will admit that for the next 30 miles
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: or so, I was a little.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: I was in shell shock mode. I was driving so
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: cautiously for the next 30 minutes. You know what, James?
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: By the time I drove home from my parents' house...
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: I did not forget about that moment. It did not change.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: And I don't think I'm a reckless driver, so don't
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: hear that. But the effects of that were gone by
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: the time I drove back after Thanksgiving. We're talking about
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: a few days. And I hadn't forgotten about it. So
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: I guess what I'm wanting to do is affirm you
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: by saying whatever chilling effects there might be, because you
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: did actually witness something pretty dramatic. are not long lasting.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: And I don't think that's terribly shocking, right? I mean,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: you can think about, there's some pretty gruesome injuries that
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: happen in sports. There was one just this past weekend
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: in the NBA, which one of my favorite players, I
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: didn't watch it. I was told not to watch it.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: I'm glad I didn't when I heard the description, but
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: apparently like a pretty severe snapping of the leg. That
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: is one of those, undoubtedly this guy's out for at
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: least a year. Um, Is that going to make me
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: tonight think about it a little bit when I'm playing basketball? Absolutely.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: Within 20 minutes of running up and down the court,
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: is that going to change my game?
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: To make the claim of a chilling effect, even beyond
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: a deterrent sort of thing, just doesn't ring true psychologically
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: with the everyday experience. It's one thing to say, well,
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: that's you. That's not everybody.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, I agree.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: It's not everybody who thinks the way that I do.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: But I think in this case, we have enough evidence
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: around us that these things just don't do it, right?
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I wasn't the only person to witness the accident. I'm
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: not the only person who plays basketball who's aware of
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: this gruesome injury. I promise you, basketball tonight's going to
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: be just like any other night, right?
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: It's not going to change the way that we play because.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: That happened there doesn't mean that it's going to happen here. Right.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I, appreciate that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Because I do think they can have some relatively minimal effects, right?
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: But I mean, I've seen, I've never witnessed it in
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: the gym, but I mean, I've watched plenty of videos
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: where people's pec snaps while they're doing a bench press or,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you know, their elbow chunks or something like that. I
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: still go to the gym and do it. And I mean,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I think part of the rationale is, yeah, it won't
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: happen to me. Like I know what I'm doing, right?
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Or as long as I'm careful.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: It won't.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: There are probably assumptions that are completely false. I mean,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of these are just sort of
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: fluke accidents, right? You load it a little too much,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: you move a little bit the wrong way, and then
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: something happens. But the point is, if I went to
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: the gym and I was seeing every other person who's
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: on the bench press with their pec snapping, I'm probably
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: not going.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: To do that.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: The frequency isn't enough to get that deterrent effect done.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: And that's sort of my concern with leaning on this
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: pragmatic impact of this act. And if that pragmatic impact
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: is gone, then you have to ask yourself, what would
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: be the rationale ever for showing it?
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: What would ever be the point?
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: If you're going to get the same effect out of
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: just telling people it ended up happening as opposed to
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: live streaming it, why wouldn't you just do that? Right.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's– I don't know. You had
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: mentioned that there was a rationale given for not doing it. Yeah.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: I'd be interested in hearing what that was. Okay.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: You ready for this?
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: So the gentleman who was put forth as potential public
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: villain public victim of execution. In the act that led
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: him to prison and to death row, he himself was
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: injured that left him paralyzed. So now he's in a wheelchair.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: And this is not me speculating. The president in a
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: tweet said, When he saw that the person is in
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: a wheelchair, he decided this should not be live streamed. Now,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: it's up to us to fill in the gaps as
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: to what that meant.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: But the point of connection is he's in a wheelchair.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't. We shouldn't execute. Now, is this a statement
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: of mercy? We don't want to see. It's sort of
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: like taking a wounded animal and then watching someone kill
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: a wounded animal.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: Is that what this is?
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: Or is this a statement of, we need to see
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: something where we can look a guy in the eye
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: who's standing up? The rationale is utterly bonkers to me,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: but that was the rationale.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Interesting.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, when you say that, I will say
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I'm really glad they didn't do it now.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Sure. Okay, why are you really glad? That's probably helpful
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: for context here.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: I think that....
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: As big of a bully move as I thought it
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: was before I knew he was paralyzed, I would see
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: it as an even bigger bully move after he was paralyzed. Now,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: I don't think that that's a reason. I would have
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: been against it either way. But I think that if
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: you just think about the political churn and unrest and
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: frustration that that factor would have... I think it was
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: good that it didn't happen. I think this was going
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: to be, um, inflammatory regardless. And I think that if
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: they'd have been foolhardy enough to go ahead with it,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: given that factor, it would have been nth degree, ridiculous, inflammatory. Um,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: So that's why I would say I think that's a
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: good thing. But it isn't the sort of rationale that
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: suggests we're taking this off the table.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Correct. Which is also troubling. Yeah. Which is also troubling.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: The problem here isn't all the dynamics of making entertainment
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: out of an execution or the drawing into question whether
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: it truly has a chilling effect or is a deterrent
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: or us rethinking ethically whether it's okay or not it's
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: the question of because the guy's in a wheelchair which
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: i have to admit where my mind goes and again
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: there was no no no explanation given as to what
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: that meant yeah where my mind goes is that i
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: just kind of assume that it's oh if we if
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: we live stream this this is going to make us
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: look like the bulls.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: No, that's exactly how I feel about it too. Yeah.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: Which to me, that's like the worst reason to now
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: not live stream. And by the way, I'm not in
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: favor of the live streaming.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: But if you're going.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: To live stream, that is the worst reason to say,
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: we'll look bad. Yeah.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: Was that the whole purpose to make you look good?
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Look at the big, strong, tough guy who can execute
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: somebody and let everyone else watch it? I just don't
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: get that. sort of frame of thinking that much he's
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: not feels like.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: But see, I think that's part of the problem that
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I had with the whole conversation in the first place.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: So we haven't gotten quite around to capital punishment as
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: capital punishment, right? But when we start talking about the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: live stream issue, this starts to feel like it's moving
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: from a moment of appropriate judgment, and we can disagree
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: on whether capital punishment is appropriate or not, but it
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: goes beyond judgment to something different.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Now it's spectacle.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Now it's, I hate to use this analogy, but our
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: president has been on the show before.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: It's WWE, right? It's theater. And I don't care how
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: solemn they try.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: To make it, that event live streamed would have drawn
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: some of the worst instincts out of people.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Ever.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: On either side of the issue, right? There's no way
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: for that to be a unifying act. There's no way
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: for that to be an edifying act. There was no
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: way for live streaming that thing to turn out well.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: And that's why I was so dumbfounded when you hear
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Robert Jeffress say that there's no moral or biblical reason
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: not to live stream this. I'm kind of sitting back like,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of biblical and moral reason not to live
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: stream this.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Plenty. I just don't think you're thinking hard enough about.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: It. Well, when we talked about that, we mentioned that
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: there is actually biblical timeline sort of precedence for this,
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: and that was gladiatorial arenas that were often used as
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: times to execute prisoners. And, right, Christians were among those prisoners.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: And in those particular settings, those were public events, right?
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: We're not talking about just the execution. We're talking about
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: to do so while also making a buck. Or, even
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: if it was a free event, in order to... The
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: technical language would be to incite the mob, not in
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: the sense of to have people riot in the streets,
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: but rather to win the favor of the mob. See,
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: this is what we do to these enemies of the state.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: And again, that feels very much like what was actually
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: at play here, right? To appeal to a particular base
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: to say, here's how serious we are about the agenda
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: that we've put forward. I think it's a secondary issue,
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: but not secondary in the thought process. It's also a
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: bit of a distraction tactic. Oh, everyone keeps talking about inflation.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: Everyone keeps talking about the price of fuel. Everyone keeps
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: talking about this war in Iran that was supposed to
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: be a quick and done and now here we are
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: everyone keeps talking about these other issues like the Epstein
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: vials that we want to distract from here's something we're
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: giving this to you which again by the way is
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: precisely the sort of thing that gladiatorial events are supposed
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: to be they were distraction tactics it was here we're
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: giving you this person that we all know is an
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: enemy of the state right the Christians are enemies of
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: the state because they undermine our gods and our undermining
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: of our gods makes the gods angry which makes them
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: not have favor towards us which means we suffer as
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: an empire And so here, we're giving you this to
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: distract from all the other problems you may be facing.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's just seditious. That's the use of mass
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: influence in order to distract from being better as leaders.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: Now I get that I'm reading into it, but I
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: think I have good reason to read into it on
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: this level.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't disagree.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, when I rack my brain on why that
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: would have ever come up, There's only a few reasons
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: you can even think of. And, you know, part of
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: it is if I and I'll give my more. I
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: agree with I agree with what you're saying. I also
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: think there's sort of this other underlying reason.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: That is.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: We stream everything now. And so it's almost like a
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: default knee jerk reaction.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: You know what we ought to do? Throw this on YouTube.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: You know what we ought to do? you know, put
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: it on Instagram. Like, I think that we are just
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: sort of embedded in this moment where if it can
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: be visible, it ought to be visible. And, and I
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: think that we've lost our discernment in that. Now, you know,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: we talk about media a lot. I've written on media
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: for the last couple of years and, I'm obviously not
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: against media.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're doing a podcast, right?
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: But I do think that what this event opened up
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: for me was the realization of how deeply ingrained this
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: notion of if it can go out, it should go
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: out kind of gets and where it can actually lead us.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: And so I do think that there's a sort of a,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: as Albert Borgman would call it, an inconspicuous pattern that
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: informs this idea. I'm not sure that they decide to
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: hold a gladiatorial arena-style execution, although anything's possible. But I
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: think that because it's so convenient and easy to do
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: what they suggested doing, now it becomes quasi-normal. And as
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: we see, some people even have trouble coming up with
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: some sort of moral basis against it. We don't even
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: give it that much thought. I mean, once he canceled it,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: it was just kind of over. But I don't think
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: it should be over. I think we're moving into this
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: moment where I don't want to say we're desensitized. I
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: want to say we're conditioned toward. I don't think it's
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: a desensitization. I think that's the wrong phrasing. We're conditioned to.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: voyeuristically watch and host this sort of thing. And if
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: it weren't for... Which might be the bigger problem. Which
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: might be the bigger problem. And so I agree with
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: everything you said, and I want to throw in there,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: I think we're starting to get to the point where
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: this sort of voyeurism, this competition for attention, this because
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: we can show it, we should show it, is really
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: starting to take hold of our culture and our understanding.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: And we need to be very, very careful with it.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: At the very least, the mode of doing so has
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: taken over. I'm not sure that the impulse is new.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Fair.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: What immediately comes to my mind was during the era
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: of Jim Crow, it was a very common occurrence and
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: a very sad occurrence. retrospectively to think about people would
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: leave church and their Sunday afternoon activity was to go
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: from church to the lynching tree to watch a black
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: man being lynched yeah the impulse already existed and I'd
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: say that's the same impulse that would lead someone to
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: go to gladiatorial arena to watch a criminal be mauled
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: by a lion or to be skewered by a spear
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: or chopped by a sword right The same impulses at play.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: The mechanism makes it possible to do this without having
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: to build an arena. Makes it possible to do so
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: without having to face the conscious problem of, I was
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: just in church where ostensibly I'm singing and hearing about
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: one thing, right? And now going into the streets and
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: following someone to the lynching tree to watch this great
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: injustice being done. Now we can just wake up and
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: roll over and watch the replay of it on our phone,
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: which maybe takes away some of the conscious element of it.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: But the impulse is the same. Don't you think?
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: I do. And I mean, we've talked about amplification before, right?
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: And so the technology is just amplifying an impulse that's
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: already there.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: I agree with that.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I do find interesting, though,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: is that our penal system has largely, and this goes
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: back to Foucault, discipline and punish, and that sort of
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: archaeology of punishment that he did. And the movement away
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: from these sort of public punishments that were designed to
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: be deterrents, designed to show the severity and keep people
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: afraid and all that kind of good stuff that he
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: outlines all the way back through medieval times, not the
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: restaurant and play, but the actual era. And so I
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: think what's interesting, our penal system has largely been designed
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: to create the impression that the criminals aren't really among us.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: Unless you live near a prison, you don't know where
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: they go.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: And so this enhanced visibility of this particular punishment, I
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: do think sort of revives an old logic, particularly an
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: old logic that was used by the state.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: That is.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: Just deeply problematic. I don't really know how else to
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: say it, but I agree with you. I agree it's
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: an amplification. I agree there's this old impulse, but I
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: also see it as sort of a potential sign that
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: punishment in public, there may be people who Are more
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: for that than I would have ever thought. Yeah.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: And, and I think.
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: I'm not as shocked.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: Just because of what I mentioned with.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: Just this impulse that I see is stretching through time. Yeah.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: But I get it, but I'm curious. I know there's
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: not much time left, but I think that's actually okay
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: because you've sort of set out your framework.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: What about when we take away the spectacle, when we
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: take away the observational status of all this? Should we
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: be practicing capital punishment in your view?
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: I think the government has the ability.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: To do it. And by that, I mean, I think
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: that they have the warrant to do it.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: I think that the blood and.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: The image haven't changed across time and so that there's
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: still a sense in which there's an appropriateness to that punishment.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: At the same time, even if they might have the
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: warrant to do it, I don't generally, I wouldn't even
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: say generally, I don't think it's something that any government
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: actually has the capacity to do. So in other words, again,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: I put a lot of weight on the way this
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: is embedded in ancient Israel, right? The image of God theology,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: the protection of holiness of the community, the, you know,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: all of these different elements. And it's hard for me
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: to separate this out, the death penalty. It's hard for
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: me to separate that out from it reinforcing false narratives
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: that That are propagated by a given nation. And so
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: just as a for instance, like, you know, we've mentioned earlier,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: this isn't just about certain forms of homicide, like traitors
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: can be executed.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Well, this is a crime against the nation, a crime
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: against the state that is now punishable by death, which is.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: suggests something about what the state believes it's owed. And
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: so I have real difficulty with the sort of symbolic
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: matrix in which capital punishment would be meted out in
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: a modern government. And so as a general rule, I
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: would say there are other ways to, um, enact judgment
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: on criminals. And I don't believe that, uh, capital punishment
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: is a viable way of doing that today. I will
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: clarify that today with just saying, could I ever envision
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: a time when a government could do it?
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Sure. But as we sit right now in the United
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: States in this government.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: I have difficulty with it. I don't know whether that's
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: too hedgy of an answer, but that's kind of where
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: I fall.
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: No, I liked it. Well, what I appreciate about that
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: answer is that it It recognized that it's a complicated
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: issue and that there are a lot of different entailments
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: that go about it. My own answer is going to
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: maybe seem like I don't acknowledge the same complicated nature
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: of the issue, but I do think it's complicated. I'm
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: generally against the idea of capital punishment, but my rationale
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: pulling from your same Old Testament framework that you built
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: out was, as I look at the Old Testament, it's
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: not clear to me that That's actually what God was
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: telling biblical Israel to do. So an example of this
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: to me would be the book of Hosea, which is
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: just an utterly fascinating book in the Old Testament to me.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: There's a section in the middle of it. At this point,
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: I don't have off the top of my head the
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: chapters to match, but there's a section in the middle
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: of it where God is mad. I think that's an understatement.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: He's angry at Israel for its choices, its choices of disobedience, unfaithfulness,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: going after other gods, failure to take care of each other.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: The whole image of Hosea's wife being a prostitute is undeniably,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: it's straightforwardly and explicitly what he sees Israel to be.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: He's calling them prostitutes, and he's mad at them. And
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: his rhetoric around that is really uncomfortable. just to read
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: as a modern person. And that rhetoric is, I will
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: disown you, but not only that, he just talks about
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: all the evil that he's going to bear down upon them,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: or he's going to allow to come down upon them.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: He's going to utterly strike them down. But what's interesting
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: to me is that at the end of that rant,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: then there's a whole chapter that basically says, I'm not
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: going to do any of this because I love you.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: And that to me is fascinating. I read that backwards
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: into the really harsh sounding way in which God declares
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: things like stoning rebellious children, of setting apart those who've
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: committed certain sorts of crimes within the nation of biblical
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: Israel in order to set them apart for their own stoning,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: their own being killed in some way, shape, or form.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: But then I place that alongside the provision of the
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: sacrificial system, the provision of especially Yom Kippur, the Day
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: of Atonement. And when I read that through the lens
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: of that interesting turn in Hosea, it sounds to me
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: like what God is saying, I've created an image for
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: you all, right? To speak maybe presumptuously from God's voice.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: I've created an image for you all to understand just
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: how horrific the problems are that were created by Genesis 3, right?
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: The entrance of sin. the structural dynamics, the personal dynamics,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: both of them. And as a result, as already described
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: at the beginning of Genesis, the result is just de
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: facto death, and it brings about a well-deserved death. That
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: well-deserved death maybe also includes undeserved death in the sense
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: of people die as victims within the structures that come about.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: But overall, we are in some way willfully made present
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: within these dynamics. And so death is the overwhelming consequence
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: of this. And yet, still, but, right, whatever negation effect
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: you want to put on this, I have created a
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: path forward. And so I want to look at that
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: and say that I don't think God ever intended for
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: them to stone the children. I don't think God ever
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: intended for them. It's meant to be an image of
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: just how serious things are within the space set apart,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: within the presence of God. but God himself takes it
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: upon God's self to deal with it. And then the
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: ultimate image of that, of course, is the fulfillment of
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: that in the person of Jesus. Now, I think the
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: interesting dynamic is, the straightforward thing after that is that
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: none of that ought to be done in the name
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: of God, because God has finally now fully put that
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: into effect by fully and finally taking that final sacrifice
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: onto himself on the cross. But the situation of the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: nation-state of the United States or any other nation state.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: Despite what some might have wanted to claim at various
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: points in time, it's not covenant Israel, as you pointed out.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: It is not a covenant group that exists in some
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: sort of overt theological relationship with God. But I want
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: to say, if it's not something that God seemingly wants
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: actually done and has already dealt with it within God's self,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: then to me, not even nations should be doing that.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: But I will take it a step further and say
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: that I do think that there should be a prison system,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: but even the way that we envision a prison system
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: as entirely penal to me misses the point to the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: degree that it's possible. We can never affect the hearts
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: of people the prison system should also be rehabilitory. And
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: I know that we talk in those ways, but it's
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: not clear to me that we actually act in those ways.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: So I come to a similar conclusion to you with
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: regard to not doing it, but I think I have
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: a harder no upon my answer than you do. But
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: that's all to say that that's why I actually appreciate
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: the way that you come to a softer no.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: I think it'd be interesting to sort of delve into
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: this a little bit more And so maybe we'll take
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: the next episode to do that as well. I I'd
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: like to think through what you just said. Um, but
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: we are out of time. And so I want to,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: I want to revisit that in the next episode. I
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: think there's a lot of good stuff there. Um, but
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: I also have a couple of challenges I want to
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: throw out there. So, um, yeah, please bring them, but
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: we'll leave that my research.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: We'll, we'll leave it for the next episode. So, um, Thanks, everybody,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: for listening. Hopefully this wasn't too crazy. I feel like
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: we had a pretty good through line through the whole thing.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: And so give you a different perspective on at least
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: some aspects of capital punishment and particularly the live streaming
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: of that capital punishment. And appreciate you sticking with us
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: this long. Ashish, great conversation as always. And we'll catch
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: Take care.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.