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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian.

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Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer and I'm joined by my co-host, Dr.

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Speaker 2: Ashish Varma.

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Speaker 1: And today we're going to talk about a wonderfully lighthearted topic,

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Speaker 1: sort of in the spirit, I have been watching this

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Speaker 1: Netflix series, Making of a Murderer.

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Speaker 2: I don't know whether you've seen it, Ashish, are you

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Speaker 2: a binger?

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Speaker 3: I don't have Netflix. I'm not a binger. We can

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Speaker 3: talk about that, maybe why, but I'm familiar with it,

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Speaker 3: though I don't have Netflix.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: I did not mean to be a binger, but I

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Speaker 1: thought this was like a two or three episode sort

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Speaker 1: of a show. And it turns out that it's evidently

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Speaker 1: like a year long epic of some sort of Chris

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Speaker 1: Nolan odyssey proportions. So I'm still I'm still watching it.

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Speaker 1: But it is sort of fascinating. This this whole story now,

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Speaker 1: it's a documentary. And so they're giving it that nice

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Speaker 1: documentary slant to keep you watching like it has to

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Speaker 1: be interesting. But it's about this gentleman who's initially accused

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Speaker 1: of assault and rape, is wrongfully imprisoned, exonerated, and then

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Speaker 1: ends up– a woman dies, a young woman dies on

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Speaker 1: his property. And he is the primary suspect and ends

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Speaker 1: up back in jail.

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Speaker 2: So this is the guy in Wisconsin, right?

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: This is the guy in Wisconsin.

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Speaker 3: So when I did have Netflix, I did see this.

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Speaker 3: I watched this whole documentary.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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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

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Speaker 3: whatever it's called has picked up his case. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah. So there's a lot of just swarm

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Speaker 2: around it. And I wouldn't pretend.

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Speaker 1: To know exactly what's going on with the case having

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Speaker 1: watched the documentary.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: You sort of have to shrug this stuff off and say,

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Speaker 1: really interesting, really strange. I'm sure I don't have all

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Speaker 1: the information, so I'll refrain from judgment, but it definitely

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Speaker 1: seems odd. I hope this isn't the way the justice

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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

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Speaker 1: filming in October 2026. And so a couple of weeks ago,

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Speaker 1: I did this article on capital punishment because someone within

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Speaker 1: the Trump administration, usually it's ascribed to Pete Hegseth, recommended

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Speaker 1: that a gentleman who had committed a mass murder be

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Speaker 1: publicly executed and that they live stream that execution. And

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Speaker 1: then from the fallout of that, you had various Christians

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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

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Speaker 1: church down in Texas. And he talked about that, you know,

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Speaker 1: there was no moral or biblical reason to oppose live

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Speaker 1: streaming this capital punishment, this execution. Um, Just in the

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Speaker 1: course of sort of responding to that, analyzing his statements

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Speaker 3: why the live stream is not happening. I find that interesting.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Speaker 1: for any government to handle these issues. And just, it

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Speaker 1: should inform how we think about it. But yeah, this

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Speaker 1: should be a fun conversation.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Speaker 1: a man sheds another man's blood, that man's blood should

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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

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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

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Speaker 1: that broader imagination within Israel? now situates capital punishment in

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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,

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Speaker 1: they were primitive and they were just killing people for

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Speaker 1: the heck of it. We have to understand that they

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Speaker 1: just viewed it differently, that this was doing something different

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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

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Speaker 1: would contemplate executing someone.

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Speaker 3: And even in the case of homicide, it's not all

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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

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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

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Speaker 3: longer form contexts that make sense of things, right? No

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Speaker 3: single sentence by itself has a meaning. Apparently, I'm in

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Speaker 3: a stretch of time in which I have to quote

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Speaker 3: George Lindbeck every day. So I'll quote George Lindbeck. He

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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

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Speaker 3: I say, Mother Teresa said Jesus is Lord. The KKK

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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

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Speaker 3: up behind the one that you prefer, but I certainly

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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

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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

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Speaker 3: meaning in and of itself. It has meaning within the

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Speaker 3: larger paragraph, or the event has meaning within a larger paragraph.

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Speaker 3: literary and cultural context. And what you're describing here is

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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

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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

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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,

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Speaker 1: that symbolism is obviously theological. For us, it could be

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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,

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Speaker 1: that sort of I started to recognize that when they

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Speaker 1: started talking about live streaming the execution, because live streaming

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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

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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.

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Speaker 1: We look out at the way we've become a very

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Speaker 1: voyeuristic culture, my concern with having the capital punishment live

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Speaker 1: stream was that it's not going to be given its

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Speaker 1: due weight. I think if something like that were to happen,

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Speaker 1: you don't want to be watching that on a minimized

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Speaker 1: screen on your iPhone while you're, you know, using Claude

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Speaker 1: to figure out what people can get the death penalty

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Speaker 1: for in the United States. I don't think we want

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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,

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Speaker 1: that some people would have treated it with the solemnity

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Speaker 1: that it deserved. Some people would have been excited about

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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

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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

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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

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Speaker 1: not to live stream an execution. Because you have to

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Speaker 1: consider the character and the habits of the people who

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Speaker 1: are watching this event and try to understand how it

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Speaker 1: is that they're going to be impacted. What is it

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Speaker 1: doing to the audience? Not just to the person, but

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Speaker 1: to the audience. At the very least, I think you

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Speaker 1: have to ask that question. Then, of course, you do

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Speaker 1: have to ask the question, does it offer the sort

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Speaker 1: of dignity to the person who is deserving of punishment,

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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

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Speaker 1: was this issue. And so I'm not suggesting that I

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Speaker 1: don't want to come down on, hey, capital punishment's always okay.

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Speaker 1: But I do want to just say, I think the

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Speaker 1: live streaming really did raise this issue for me. And

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Speaker 1: it highlighted the vast differences. Between ancient Israel and current

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Speaker 1: practice in the United States that I think I had

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Speaker 1: ignored up to that point.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, let's tease this a little bit. But by way

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Speaker 3: of teasing it out, I want to make a parallel, potentially.

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Speaker 3: Tell me if you think this works. We began with

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Speaker 3: making of a murderer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Now, the making of a murderer is.

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Speaker 3: In its skeletal version, as you described it, it's about

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Speaker 3: this guy in Wisconsin who's in jail, may or may

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Speaker 3: not be wrongfully in jail. Certainly the way that the

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Speaker 3: program is created, it would lead one who's watching whose

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Speaker 3: information is limited to what's in that documentary to believe

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Speaker 3: he's wrongfully in jail and that there's a system that

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Speaker 3: deliberately was stacked against him. I think as the viewer,

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Speaker 3: one has to watch it and realize that there is

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Speaker 3: a slant to the storytelling. Now that slant to the

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Speaker 3: storytelling from my watching of it was pretty compelling.

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Speaker 2: I'm not a lawyer.

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Speaker 3: I don't know the ins and outs of how these

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Speaker 3: things come together, but I watched it and I thought,

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Speaker 3: you know what? It does seem like he was set

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Speaker 3: up or it does seem like whatever evidence there is,

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Speaker 3: is was poorly dealt with and is circumstantial. But I

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Speaker 3: want to talk about sort of the layer behind it.

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Speaker 3: That seems to be a parallel here. And that's, So

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Speaker 3: let's set aside the people who made that. Is it

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Speaker 3: a documentary? Would we call that that docu-series?

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Speaker 2: I think so, yeah. Docu-series, sure.

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Speaker 3: The people who made that docu-series, let's just assume virtuous intent.

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Speaker 3: They made it because they believe in this guy. They

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Speaker 3: have good reason to believe in this guy. They weren't

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Speaker 3: trying to mislead us. They really were trying to give

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Speaker 3: us a tour de force to show us how messed

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Speaker 3: up the situation is. And they were wanting people to

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Speaker 3: to jump up and support the cause to work towards

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Speaker 3: his freedom, independently of whether or not they think the

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Speaker 3: guy was a good guy. He doesn't deserve to be there.

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Speaker 3: I don't know that that is the motivation. I don't

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Speaker 3: know that's not the motivation. But let's just say that

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Speaker 3: is for a moment. Why does Netflix allow this program

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Speaker 3: to be made on their dime and to air on

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Speaker 3: their streaming platform? Is it because they have a desire

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Speaker 3: to to see justice done, I'm less willing to make

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Speaker 3: that jump there, and I'm more willing to say they

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Speaker 3: thought there's a possibility of viral binge-watching to go on

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Speaker 3: with this making of a murderer. Which means more hits,

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Speaker 3: which means however their metrics work to justify their bottom line.

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Speaker 3: To them, it felt like this was a moneymaker. Perhaps

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Speaker 3: they'll get more subscribers, is what they were thinking. People

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Speaker 3: will talk about it, and that'll get people here to Netflix.

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Speaker 3: is that a good reason to make this program? Where

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Speaker 3: now it feels a little bit like, though he wasn't executed,

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Speaker 3: Netflix's purpose in allowing that to go forth, I don't

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Speaker 3: feel like I'm being uncharitable in saying this, is monetary.

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Speaker 3: It's to create a platform that people will binge watch

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Speaker 3: and devour. To create something that just is entertaining, right?

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Speaker 3: To To quote Maximus and Gladiator, are you not entertained?

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Speaker 3: That's what they're wanting to ask, right? And then for

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Speaker 3: those of us who watched it, I can't even remember.

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Speaker 3: This came out a few years ago, and it's when

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Speaker 3: I had Netflix. I don't remember why I watched it,

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Speaker 3: but I remember for some reason I watched it. It

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Speaker 3: might have been someone said you.

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Speaker 2: Should watch this.

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Speaker 3: It's certainly true that it pulled on my heartstrings. But

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Speaker 3: I have to be honest and say what kept me

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Speaker 3: going through it was it was entertaining, too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: What was the payoff from me watching it? Well, I

402
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Speaker 3: didn't get involved in any of the platforms that are

403
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Speaker 3: trying to get this guy freed from jail. I did

404
00:23:52,570 --> 00:23:55,899
Speaker 3: a few Google searches and learned that there were people

405
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Speaker 3: who maybe know a little bit more, who potentially have

406
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Speaker 3: their own agenda that were critical of the making of

407
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Speaker 3: this documentary, saying it left out X, Y, and Z.

408
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Speaker 3: I was not sufficiently informed through that to be able

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Speaker 3: to say that I know definitively what happened. I suppose

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Speaker 3: you could say it was a deterrent from me to

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Speaker 3: commit a crime, but I'm not sure that it was.

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Speaker 3: You know, I'm not I'm not going to commit a crime,

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Speaker 3: at least not intentionally.

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Speaker 1: But I don't know that it deterred me.

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Speaker 3: At the end of the day, it just was entertainment.

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Speaker 3: It was something to watch in the evenings over the

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Speaker 3: course of a week, a week and a half, whatever

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Speaker 3: it was. I don't remember how many episodes there were.

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Speaker 3: So I'd say that for me, the viewer, and for Netflix,

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Speaker 3: the producers or the platform that provides the opportunity for

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Speaker 3: me to view, There's nothing in there that bolsters character,

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Speaker 3: that spurns on virtue, that creates the fruit of the spirit,

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Speaker 3: and nor was there any intent. It was just another

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Speaker 3: thing to watch. It's like spending a couple weeks watching

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Speaker 3: a season of Titans on HBO Max or something. It

426
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Speaker 3: was the latest thing, and that was that. What is

427
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Speaker 3: the purpose of live-streaming? I've heard it said that it

428
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Speaker 3: would deter people.

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Speaker 2: Would it? Yeah.

430
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Speaker 3: I think the parallel, it might sound absurd, but I

431
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Speaker 3: think the parallel is a fair one. If making of

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Speaker 3: a murderer is not deterring me, and I don't think

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Speaker 3: it's deterring anyone else, right? No one says, you know what?

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Speaker 3: I was thinking about committing a crime, but now that

435
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Speaker 3: I see just how great the burden of proof would

436
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Speaker 3: be upon me to prove that I didn't do it

437
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Speaker 3: to get away with it, I'm not going to do it.

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Speaker 3: Or I was thinking about having this insurance gesture over

439
00:25:52,100 --> 00:25:55,100
Speaker 3: at my house. But now I think, what if something

440
00:25:55,140 --> 00:25:57,020
Speaker 3: goes wrong and I'll get blamed for it? I mean,

441
00:25:58,820 --> 00:26:01,140
Speaker 3: I think there's a zero deterrence value in there. And

442
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:05,609
Speaker 3: that might sound like an odd starting point, but to

443
00:26:05,650 --> 00:26:12,210
Speaker 3: me that just feels like, and after the fact justifying, right,

444
00:26:12,470 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 3: from those who said this would be a deterrent. But

445
00:26:15,300 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 3: do I really think that that's why I think it

446
00:26:19,020 --> 00:26:22,220
Speaker 3: might make me sound cynical, but I don't think that's

447
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:27,540
Speaker 3: even why the Secretary of Defense wanted to livestream it

448
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:28,660
Speaker 3: in the first place anyway.

449
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:29,590
Speaker 2: He might have said it.

450
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,510
Speaker 3: I think he did say a deterrence, but I'm skeptical

451
00:26:33,530 --> 00:26:37,530
Speaker 3: that that really was his purpose. What do you think?

452
00:26:38,670 --> 00:26:40,310
Speaker 3: What do you think about the parallel and about the

453
00:26:40,350 --> 00:26:41,250
Speaker 3: claim about deterrence?

454
00:26:42,010 --> 00:26:43,150
Speaker 2: So I'm good with the parallel.

455
00:26:43,210 --> 00:26:46,510
Speaker 1: I think any of those docuseries, you know, they're They're

456
00:26:46,530 --> 00:26:50,300
Speaker 1: not exactly Aesop's fables, right? And they're not giving you

457
00:26:50,340 --> 00:26:54,629
Speaker 1: moral lessons to live by. You know, as we watched it,

458
00:26:54,940 --> 00:26:59,030
Speaker 1: we made these offhand comments to our kids like, hey,

459
00:26:59,070 --> 00:27:00,670
Speaker 1: if the cops ever pick you up, just ask for

460
00:27:00,710 --> 00:27:06,890
Speaker 1: a lawyer. I mean, because you see this poor 16-year-old

461
00:27:06,950 --> 00:27:10,109
Speaker 1: kid And he's in there with these two policemen and he's,

462
00:27:10,550 --> 00:27:14,010
Speaker 1: you can't really tell whether he's just awkward because he's

463
00:27:14,010 --> 00:27:16,870
Speaker 1: 16 year old, whether he's awkward because it's an awkward situation,

464
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,340
Speaker 1: whether it's awkward because he did it. But either way,

465
00:27:20,380 --> 00:27:22,460
Speaker 1: he's in there for a while, just in there, peppering

466
00:27:22,500 --> 00:27:24,300
Speaker 1: him with questions and they're kind of leading him down

467
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,420
Speaker 1: the path. And whether what comes out is the right,

468
00:27:27,460 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: whatever comes out as the truth or whether it was

469
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: falsified again, who knows? Um, but either way, you just

470
00:27:34,380 --> 00:27:36,810
Speaker 1: sort of sit back and you start to understand like why.

471
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,550
Speaker 1: you might want to have someone else there. Like there's

472
00:27:40,590 --> 00:27:43,510
Speaker 1: just no reason to cooperate. I think that's probably not

473
00:27:43,630 --> 00:27:47,750
Speaker 1: the sort of deterrent lesson that people want.

474
00:27:47,510 --> 00:27:48,230
Speaker 2: To get out of this.

475
00:27:50,730 --> 00:27:53,979
Speaker 1: I would also just add though that, so I'm good

476
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:58,100
Speaker 1: with the parallel. I think there's also been sociological studies

477
00:27:58,140 --> 00:28:03,170
Speaker 1: that demonstrate that these sort of things performed today do

478
00:28:03,230 --> 00:28:12,380
Speaker 1: not actually have a deterring effect. The severity of the punishment,

479
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,780
Speaker 1: which is what you have in capital punishment, is far less.

480
00:28:20,020 --> 00:28:25,550
Speaker 2: Deterring than is the surety that one will be caught.

481
00:28:28,070 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 1: And so seeing someone get executed is a severity issue

482
00:28:34,380 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: as opposed to seeing more people getting caught would be

483
00:28:38,660 --> 00:28:44,090
Speaker 1: a deterrent, right? Like seeing more people just getting arrested

484
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:45,690
Speaker 1: for different things. I mean, you think about it on

485
00:28:45,710 --> 00:28:50,370
Speaker 1: the highways, you just let that one sink in. Like

486
00:28:50,850 --> 00:28:53,810
Speaker 1: when I was speeding down the highway, right, and everyone

487
00:28:53,830 --> 00:28:55,890
Speaker 1: else is speeding right along with me and you see

488
00:28:56,030 --> 00:28:59,250
Speaker 1: one cop car with one guy pulled over, you really

489
00:28:59,290 --> 00:29:01,070
Speaker 1: don't think about slowing down that much, right?

490
00:29:02,220 --> 00:29:03,100
Speaker 2: But if you see.

491
00:29:03,150 --> 00:29:06,770
Speaker 1: Four guys pulled over by cop cars, now you're starting

492
00:29:06,810 --> 00:29:11,710
Speaker 1: to slow down. Why the severity of the punishment hasn't changed,

493
00:29:11,770 --> 00:29:13,500
Speaker 1: but the frequency of capture has.

494
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 2: Right.

495
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: And so that's generally what they're showing in sociology is

496
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:25,850
Speaker 1: that the deterrence is actually the probability of getting caught. Yeah.

497
00:29:25,870 --> 00:29:28,050
Speaker 3: Um, Well, you can expand that to, you don't even

498
00:29:28,070 --> 00:29:30,150
Speaker 3: have to see people pulled over. If you pass one

499
00:29:30,190 --> 00:29:32,140
Speaker 3: cop on the highway, you'll slow down for a moment

500
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 3: and then you'll speed back up. But if you periodically see,

501
00:29:35,500 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 3: you know, over the course of.

502
00:29:36,270 --> 00:29:37,770
Speaker 2: A two hour drive. Next one, next one, next one,

503
00:29:37,810 --> 00:29:38,270
Speaker 2: next one.

504
00:29:38,890 --> 00:29:39,050
Speaker 1: Right.

505
00:29:39,170 --> 00:29:39,930
Speaker 2: You're doing the speed limit.

506
00:29:40,550 --> 00:29:43,970
Speaker 3: You're setting your screwed, your cruise level at the speed limit.

507
00:29:44,210 --> 00:29:44,610
Speaker 3: For sure.

508
00:29:44,630 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 2: That's right. So I think that today's world, that's how

509
00:29:47,630 --> 00:29:48,130
Speaker 2: it happens.

510
00:29:48,190 --> 00:29:50,060
Speaker 1: Now, the interesting part is, as we look at the

511
00:29:50,130 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 1: old Testament, you do see that capital punishment was intended

512
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:58,780
Speaker 1: as a deterrent. And, and so again, that's where I

513
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:01,420
Speaker 1: sort of sit back and say, I think that there

514
00:30:01,460 --> 00:30:07,740
Speaker 1: was just a different sort of imaginary that God was

515
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:14,070
Speaker 1: trying to cultivate within the community of Israel. Because what

516
00:30:14,090 --> 00:30:16,430
Speaker 1: we find in the text doesn't necessarily mean that that

517
00:30:16,490 --> 00:30:20,010
Speaker 1: happened historically, right? We know, for instance, that even though

518
00:30:20,050 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: God prescribed the Sabbaths and he prescribed the sabbatical year,

519
00:30:24,620 --> 00:30:28,010
Speaker 1: that Israel did not practice sabbatical year. So it isn't

520
00:30:28,050 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: at all clear that they are taking rebellious children out

521
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 1: and stoning them. But that was what was given to

522
00:30:33,380 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: them as law, and it was designed as, in part,

523
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: a deterrent.

524
00:30:39,220 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 3: I'll add to that and say, it's not just that

525
00:30:41,300 --> 00:30:43,780
Speaker 3: it's not clear. It's very clear that they weren't doing that.

526
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:48,390
Speaker 3: Because when you read about the expectations, what are the

527
00:30:48,430 --> 00:30:51,790
Speaker 3: circumstances that bring about the expectation of stoning the children?

528
00:30:52,790 --> 00:30:58,940
Speaker 3: You and I are both parents. Yeah. Those circumstances are 100% guaranteed.

529
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

530
00:31:00,340 --> 00:31:02,540
Speaker 3: So if they actually followed through on it, there would

531
00:31:02,580 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 3: be no next generation. And by the way, I don't

532
00:31:06,020 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 3: think that was the actual expectation, but maybe we'll hold

533
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 3: on to that, right?

534
00:31:10,340 --> 00:31:10,620
Speaker 2: Yeah.

535
00:31:10,660 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: And I guess my point is not, I guess I

536
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: would say, I don't think it happened in every case.

537
00:31:16,740 --> 00:31:18,700
Speaker 2: I don't think we can say it never happened in

538
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:19,420
Speaker 2: any case.

539
00:31:20,380 --> 00:31:20,510
Speaker 3: Sure.

540
00:31:20,530 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 2: Right.

541
00:31:21,050 --> 00:31:23,170
Speaker 1: But it surely didn't happen in every case. So when

542
00:31:23,190 --> 00:31:25,170
Speaker 1: I'm saying, I don't think it, you know, I don't

543
00:31:25,190 --> 00:31:27,670
Speaker 1: think it really happened that way. Like, I don't think

544
00:31:27,690 --> 00:31:30,959
Speaker 1: they held strictly to it. That's what I'm saying. Um,

545
00:31:31,300 --> 00:31:33,300
Speaker 1: but either way, I think you, you have to look

546
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: at this and say, if these things would have been.

547
00:31:36,500 --> 00:31:39,860
Speaker 2: A deterrent in ancient Israel, right.

548
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:45,340
Speaker 1: As in the Hebrew here, I think is interesting to

549
00:31:45,380 --> 00:31:48,620
Speaker 1: look at, um, because it isn't a hundred percent clear

550
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:52,500
Speaker 1: that it is designed so as to be a deterrent

551
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:55,340
Speaker 1: versus designed.

552
00:31:56,260 --> 00:31:59,420
Speaker 2: Because it will be a deterrent.

553
00:31:59,860 --> 00:32:05,980
Speaker 1: So in other words, the expectation is that this punishment,

554
00:32:06,580 --> 00:32:08,620
Speaker 1: people will look at it and go, I don't want

555
00:32:08,660 --> 00:32:11,350
Speaker 1: to be that. I don't want to be that person.

556
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,770
Speaker 1: This community that I'm in takes these things seriously. And

557
00:32:14,790 --> 00:32:16,430
Speaker 1: so I'm going to toe the line because I don't

558
00:32:16,450 --> 00:32:19,460
Speaker 1: want to end up like that guy. That's what that's

559
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: what I think those phrases are intended to say. It

560
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:25,900
Speaker 1: isn't that, Oh my gosh, I saw somebody get stoned

561
00:32:25,940 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: outside the camp and, and I'm never going to do

562
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:28,510
Speaker 1: that again.

563
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:29,710
Speaker 2: Right.

564
00:32:29,950 --> 00:32:32,390
Speaker 1: I think it, it speaks to a sort of reasoning

565
00:32:32,830 --> 00:32:36,890
Speaker 1: that people were supposed to have. Um, and, and that

566
00:32:36,930 --> 00:32:40,530
Speaker 1: the law was intended to cultivate, but not necessarily a

567
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: sort of pragmatic moment where somebody was thinking a completely

568
00:32:44,260 --> 00:32:48,380
Speaker 1: different way and then just switched. Um, Either way, this

569
00:32:48,410 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: notion of deterrent to me and the way it's used

570
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:58,700
Speaker 1: in our contemporary sort of discussions, it's very pragmatic. And

571
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:02,130
Speaker 1: I think the pragmatism is in part what bothers me.

572
00:33:03,890 --> 00:33:11,020
Speaker 1: It speaks to why we're doing it in part. And

573
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:12,620
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I don't think it's the whole

574
00:33:12,660 --> 00:33:15,670
Speaker 1: reason that we do these things. But it speaks to

575
00:33:15,710 --> 00:33:17,690
Speaker 1: why we're doing it in part, and I'm not sure

576
00:33:17,710 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: it's a good enough why. If we were going to say, well, let's, okay,

577
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:28,980
Speaker 1: let's take that and apply it to other situations, right?

578
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:34,850
Speaker 1: We're all going to stop driving because car accidents kill

579
00:33:34,990 --> 00:33:36,230
Speaker 1: X number of people per year.

580
00:33:36,910 --> 00:33:37,410
Speaker 2: And so.

581
00:33:38,070 --> 00:33:40,310
Speaker 1: The easiest way to do this is just to stop

582
00:33:40,350 --> 00:33:43,230
Speaker 1: doing it, and the car accident should be deterring us

583
00:33:43,350 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: from driving recklessly, for instance. They don't deter us from

584
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: driving recklessly. We all know it's a possibility. It goes

585
00:33:52,020 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: back to that same kind of concept. We don't see

586
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: that many people. We know it happens, but we don't

587
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:01,950
Speaker 1: see it. We don't see the severity or the frequency

588
00:34:02,090 --> 00:34:05,210
Speaker 1: of people dying on the highway. We don't physically see it.

589
00:34:06,970 --> 00:34:10,310
Speaker 1: And so we don't really, we know it happens, but

590
00:34:10,350 --> 00:34:13,629
Speaker 1: we don't notice it's happening. And thus we don't change

591
00:34:13,670 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: our driving habits. I'm just not sure that it has

592
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: the chilling effect that they want it to have. I

593
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,020
Speaker 1: think that's a sort of an empty excuse, if I'm

594
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:30,990
Speaker 1: being honest, why to do this. And I think there

595
00:34:31,030 --> 00:34:35,029
Speaker 1: have to be other rationales and motivations for having a

596
00:34:35,130 --> 00:34:42,150
Speaker 1: public execution that I quite frankly just don't understand in

597
00:34:42,190 --> 00:34:43,270
Speaker 1: our current context.

598
00:34:44,850 --> 00:34:48,610
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you. I want to play the

599
00:34:48,670 --> 00:34:51,969
Speaker 3: inverse side of that same coin. So you say that

600
00:34:52,010 --> 00:34:56,430
Speaker 3: we don't see the chilling effect of these dramatic car accidents.

601
00:34:58,469 --> 00:35:01,910
Speaker 3: And yet we still generally have a notion of ways

602
00:35:01,950 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 3: we shouldn't drive. It doesn't mean that we don't stretch

603
00:35:08,180 --> 00:35:10,779
Speaker 3: the boundaries sometimes if we're in a rush we tend

604
00:35:10,820 --> 00:35:12,500
Speaker 3: to drive one way as opposed to when we're not

605
00:35:12,540 --> 00:35:17,930
Speaker 3: in a rush we tend to get impatient in certain

606
00:35:17,950 --> 00:35:21,010
Speaker 3: kind of traffic settings versus other kind of traffic settings

607
00:35:22,850 --> 00:35:24,510
Speaker 3: but the inverse side of it that I want to

608
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:29,280
Speaker 3: kind of hone in on is even whatever chilling effect

609
00:35:29,340 --> 00:35:31,820
Speaker 3: there is so I remember one year I was driving

610
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:34,800
Speaker 3: to my parents house for Thanksgiving and I was driving

611
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:40,340
Speaker 3: down I-88 West of Chicago. And it was a pretty

612
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 3: free-flowing traffic, but a lot of people on the road still.

613
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:51,150
Speaker 3: It's a standard Thanksgiving rush that's going on. The oncoming

614
00:35:51,190 --> 00:35:55,609
Speaker 3: traffic on the other side of the boulevard was about

615
00:35:55,650 --> 00:35:58,890
Speaker 3: the same coming in towards Chicago. And there was a

616
00:35:58,969 --> 00:36:01,549
Speaker 3: guy who was... And what wasn't clear to me was

617
00:36:02,780 --> 00:36:04,660
Speaker 3: who was doing the weaving, but you could see sort

618
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 3: of the effect of an impatient driver doing the weaving.

619
00:36:08,580 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 3: But all of a sudden there was a guy who

620
00:36:10,460 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 3: swerved and he swerved into the boulevard. And you know

621
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 3: how there's those, in the middle of the boulevard, there's

622
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:19,339
Speaker 3: those little U-turn lanes that are supposed to only be

623
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:24,439
Speaker 3: used by emergency vehicles. He swerved and he went into,

624
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,420
Speaker 3: the swerve took him into the boulevard, which dips down,

625
00:36:27,660 --> 00:36:30,370
Speaker 3: but then there's that U-turn lane that comes back up.

626
00:36:30,430 --> 00:36:32,819
Speaker 3: It served like a ramp. And his car, I kid

627
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 3: you not, was launched into the air. And it was

628
00:36:36,660 --> 00:36:41,779
Speaker 3: already out of control. And it flipped in midair. And

629
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:46,819
Speaker 3: I watched this car. And I'm driving mouth agape. Like,

630
00:36:46,980 --> 00:36:49,180
Speaker 3: what did I just witness? And my kids are in

631
00:36:49,219 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 3: the backseat. And they're really little. And I'm thinking, I

632
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:53,859
Speaker 3: hope they didn't see this. Because this could be traumatizing.

633
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:56,460
Speaker 3: As I watched the car come down on the hood.

634
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:00,380
Speaker 3: And we're talking about traffic that was moving over 60

635
00:37:00,380 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 3: miles an hour, right? Like that. I went later and

636
00:37:02,980 --> 00:37:09,580
Speaker 3: I found, thankfully, the dude didn't die. This was newsworthy. Now,

637
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 3: talk about chilling effect. I did see the gruesome thing.

638
00:37:14,410 --> 00:37:16,710
Speaker 3: And I will admit that for the next 30 miles

639
00:37:16,770 --> 00:37:18,150
Speaker 3: or so, I was a little.

640
00:37:19,590 --> 00:37:23,250
Speaker 3: I was in shell shock mode. I was driving so

641
00:37:23,290 --> 00:37:26,590
Speaker 3: cautiously for the next 30 minutes. You know what, James?

642
00:37:26,630 --> 00:37:28,710
Speaker 3: By the time I drove home from my parents' house...

643
00:37:28,950 --> 00:37:30,950
Speaker 3: I did not forget about that moment. It did not change.

644
00:37:30,989 --> 00:37:32,750
Speaker 3: And I don't think I'm a reckless driver, so don't

645
00:37:32,770 --> 00:37:36,970
Speaker 3: hear that. But the effects of that were gone by

646
00:37:37,010 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 3: the time I drove back after Thanksgiving. We're talking about

647
00:37:40,140 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 3: a few days. And I hadn't forgotten about it. So

648
00:37:44,420 --> 00:37:47,700
Speaker 3: I guess what I'm wanting to do is affirm you

649
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,799
Speaker 3: by saying whatever chilling effects there might be, because you

650
00:37:50,860 --> 00:37:55,850
Speaker 3: did actually witness something pretty dramatic. are not long lasting.

651
00:37:55,890 --> 00:37:58,330
Speaker 3: And I don't think that's terribly shocking, right? I mean,

652
00:37:58,370 --> 00:38:02,029
Speaker 3: you can think about, there's some pretty gruesome injuries that

653
00:38:02,050 --> 00:38:04,950
Speaker 3: happen in sports. There was one just this past weekend

654
00:38:04,989 --> 00:38:07,670
Speaker 3: in the NBA, which one of my favorite players, I

655
00:38:07,690 --> 00:38:09,360
Speaker 3: didn't watch it. I was told not to watch it.

656
00:38:09,370 --> 00:38:11,350
Speaker 3: I'm glad I didn't when I heard the description, but

657
00:38:11,390 --> 00:38:15,350
Speaker 3: apparently like a pretty severe snapping of the leg. That

658
00:38:15,989 --> 00:38:18,050
Speaker 3: is one of those, undoubtedly this guy's out for at

659
00:38:18,110 --> 00:38:22,989
Speaker 3: least a year. Um, Is that going to make me

660
00:38:23,050 --> 00:38:26,810
Speaker 3: tonight think about it a little bit when I'm playing basketball? Absolutely.

661
00:38:28,310 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 3: Within 20 minutes of running up and down the court,

662
00:38:31,219 --> 00:38:32,540
Speaker 3: is that going to change my game?

663
00:38:32,739 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 2: Absolutely not.

664
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:40,540
Speaker 3: To make the claim of a chilling effect, even beyond

665
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 3: a deterrent sort of thing, just doesn't ring true psychologically

666
00:38:45,860 --> 00:38:50,370
Speaker 3: with the everyday experience. It's one thing to say, well,

667
00:38:50,390 --> 00:38:51,550
Speaker 3: that's you. That's not everybody.

668
00:38:51,989 --> 00:38:52,450
Speaker 1: Oh, I agree.

669
00:38:52,469 --> 00:38:54,690
Speaker 3: It's not everybody who thinks the way that I do.

670
00:38:54,750 --> 00:38:57,549
Speaker 3: But I think in this case, we have enough evidence

671
00:38:57,610 --> 00:39:00,180
Speaker 3: around us that these things just don't do it, right?

672
00:39:00,460 --> 00:39:03,719
Speaker 3: I wasn't the only person to witness the accident. I'm

673
00:39:03,739 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 3: not the only person who plays basketball who's aware of

674
00:39:06,500 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 3: this gruesome injury. I promise you, basketball tonight's going to

675
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,180
Speaker 3: be just like any other night, right?

676
00:39:15,780 --> 00:39:16,300
Speaker 2: Yeah.

677
00:39:17,260 --> 00:39:18,779
Speaker 3: It's not going to change the way that we play because.

678
00:39:21,780 --> 00:39:24,940
Speaker 3: That happened there doesn't mean that it's going to happen here. Right.

679
00:39:24,980 --> 00:39:28,899
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I, appreciate that.

680
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:34,800
Speaker 1: Because I do think they can have some relatively minimal effects, right?

681
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,700
Speaker 1: But I mean, I've seen, I've never witnessed it in

682
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:39,580
Speaker 1: the gym, but I mean, I've watched plenty of videos

683
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:42,779
Speaker 1: where people's pec snaps while they're doing a bench press or,

684
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:46,140
Speaker 1: you know, their elbow chunks or something like that. I

685
00:39:46,180 --> 00:39:49,589
Speaker 1: still go to the gym and do it. And I mean,

686
00:39:49,630 --> 00:39:52,410
Speaker 1: I think part of the rationale is, yeah, it won't

687
00:39:52,430 --> 00:39:55,870
Speaker 1: happen to me. Like I know what I'm doing, right?

688
00:39:56,170 --> 00:39:57,450
Speaker 1: Or as long as I'm careful.

689
00:39:57,510 --> 00:39:57,980
Speaker 2: It won't.

690
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: There are probably assumptions that are completely false. I mean,

691
00:40:02,500 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 1: I think a lot of these are just sort of

692
00:40:03,820 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: fluke accidents, right? You load it a little too much,

693
00:40:07,140 --> 00:40:08,970
Speaker 1: you move a little bit the wrong way, and then

694
00:40:09,030 --> 00:40:12,290
Speaker 1: something happens. But the point is, if I went to

695
00:40:12,310 --> 00:40:14,270
Speaker 1: the gym and I was seeing every other person who's

696
00:40:14,310 --> 00:40:17,779
Speaker 1: on the bench press with their pec snapping, I'm probably

697
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:18,700
Speaker 1: not going.

698
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:18,990
Speaker 2: To do that.

699
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:26,070
Speaker 1: The frequency isn't enough to get that deterrent effect done.

700
00:40:26,090 --> 00:40:32,069
Speaker 1: And that's sort of my concern with leaning on this

701
00:40:32,130 --> 00:40:37,190
Speaker 1: pragmatic impact of this act. And if that pragmatic impact

702
00:40:37,250 --> 00:40:40,469
Speaker 1: is gone, then you have to ask yourself, what would

703
00:40:40,489 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: be the rationale ever for showing it?

704
00:40:43,690 --> 00:40:44,850
Speaker 2: What would ever be the point?

705
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:49,100
Speaker 1: If you're going to get the same effect out of

706
00:40:49,140 --> 00:40:52,359
Speaker 1: just telling people it ended up happening as opposed to

707
00:40:52,620 --> 00:40:56,419
Speaker 1: live streaming it, why wouldn't you just do that? Right.

708
00:40:57,860 --> 00:41:00,259
Speaker 1: And I think that that's– I don't know. You had

709
00:41:00,300 --> 00:41:03,660
Speaker 1: mentioned that there was a rationale given for not doing it. Yeah.

710
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:07,450
Speaker 2: I'd be interested in hearing what that was. Okay.

711
00:41:07,469 --> 00:41:08,109
Speaker 3: You ready for this?

712
00:41:08,739 --> 00:41:08,930
Speaker 1: Yeah.

713
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:15,230
Speaker 3: So the gentleman who was put forth as potential public

714
00:41:15,250 --> 00:41:21,839
Speaker 3: villain public victim of execution. In the act that led

715
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 3: him to prison and to death row, he himself was

716
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 3: injured that left him paralyzed. So now he's in a wheelchair.

717
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:41,540
Speaker 3: And this is not me speculating. The president in a

718
00:41:41,580 --> 00:41:44,270
Speaker 3: tweet said, When he saw that the person is in

719
00:41:44,310 --> 00:41:49,569
Speaker 3: a wheelchair, he decided this should not be live streamed. Now,

720
00:41:49,650 --> 00:41:51,250
Speaker 3: it's up to us to fill in the gaps as

721
00:41:51,270 --> 00:41:52,130
Speaker 3: to what that meant.

722
00:41:53,870 --> 00:41:54,109
Speaker 2: Yeah.

723
00:41:54,390 --> 00:41:56,589
Speaker 3: But the point of connection is he's in a wheelchair.

724
00:41:56,640 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 3: We shouldn't. We shouldn't execute. Now, is this a statement

725
00:42:01,219 --> 00:42:05,320
Speaker 3: of mercy? We don't want to see. It's sort of

726
00:42:05,340 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 3: like taking a wounded animal and then watching someone kill

727
00:42:07,820 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 3: a wounded animal.

728
00:42:08,500 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 2: Is that what this is?

729
00:42:11,180 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 3: Or is this a statement of, we need to see

730
00:42:14,820 --> 00:42:16,540
Speaker 3: something where we can look a guy in the eye

731
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 3: who's standing up? The rationale is utterly bonkers to me,

732
00:42:21,030 --> 00:42:22,090
Speaker 3: but that was the rationale.

733
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:23,790
Speaker 2: Interesting.

734
00:42:23,870 --> 00:42:27,850
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, when you say that, I will say

735
00:42:28,350 --> 00:42:30,009
Speaker 1: I'm really glad they didn't do it now.

736
00:42:31,230 --> 00:42:34,110
Speaker 3: Sure. Okay, why are you really glad? That's probably helpful

737
00:42:34,330 --> 00:42:35,129
Speaker 3: for context here.

738
00:42:36,850 --> 00:42:38,390
Speaker 2: I think that....

739
00:42:42,980 --> 00:42:45,620
Speaker 1: As big of a bully move as I thought it

740
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,819
Speaker 1: was before I knew he was paralyzed, I would see

741
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:54,779
Speaker 1: it as an even bigger bully move after he was paralyzed. Now,

742
00:42:54,940 --> 00:42:57,140
Speaker 1: I don't think that that's a reason. I would have

743
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:01,930
Speaker 1: been against it either way. But I think that if

744
00:43:01,969 --> 00:43:07,330
Speaker 1: you just think about the political churn and unrest and

745
00:43:07,410 --> 00:43:17,320
Speaker 1: frustration that that factor would have... I think it was

746
00:43:17,739 --> 00:43:21,060
Speaker 1: good that it didn't happen. I think this was going

747
00:43:21,100 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: to be, um, inflammatory regardless. And I think that if

748
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,569
Speaker 1: they'd have been foolhardy enough to go ahead with it,

749
00:43:32,820 --> 00:43:39,770
Speaker 1: given that factor, it would have been nth degree, ridiculous, inflammatory. Um,

750
00:43:41,890 --> 00:43:43,750
Speaker 1: So that's why I would say I think that's a

751
00:43:43,790 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 1: good thing. But it isn't the sort of rationale that

752
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:54,380
Speaker 1: suggests we're taking this off the table.

753
00:43:56,160 --> 00:44:01,540
Speaker 2: Correct. Which is also troubling. Yeah. Which is also troubling.

754
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:05,890
Speaker 3: The problem here isn't all the dynamics of making entertainment

755
00:44:06,870 --> 00:44:10,890
Speaker 3: out of an execution or the drawing into question whether

756
00:44:10,930 --> 00:44:13,930
Speaker 3: it truly has a chilling effect or is a deterrent

757
00:44:15,070 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 3: or us rethinking ethically whether it's okay or not it's

758
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,020
Speaker 3: the question of because the guy's in a wheelchair which

759
00:44:22,100 --> 00:44:26,060
Speaker 3: i have to admit where my mind goes and again

760
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,299
Speaker 3: there was no no no explanation given as to what

761
00:44:29,340 --> 00:44:33,370
Speaker 3: that meant yeah where my mind goes is that i

762
00:44:33,390 --> 00:44:36,370
Speaker 3: just kind of assume that it's oh if we if

763
00:44:36,410 --> 00:44:38,150
Speaker 3: we live stream this this is going to make us

764
00:44:38,190 --> 00:44:39,469
Speaker 3: look like the bulls.

765
00:44:39,950 --> 00:44:42,330
Speaker 2: No, that's exactly how I feel about it too. Yeah.

766
00:44:42,770 --> 00:44:42,969
Speaker 1: Right.

767
00:44:43,290 --> 00:44:47,410
Speaker 3: Which to me, that's like the worst reason to now

768
00:44:47,469 --> 00:44:49,130
Speaker 3: not live stream. And by the way, I'm not in

769
00:44:49,170 --> 00:44:50,250
Speaker 3: favor of the live streaming.

770
00:44:50,270 --> 00:44:51,969
Speaker 2: But if you're going.

771
00:44:51,770 --> 00:44:53,710
Speaker 3: To live stream, that is the worst reason to say,

772
00:44:54,150 --> 00:44:55,890
Speaker 3: we'll look bad. Yeah.

773
00:44:56,969 --> 00:44:58,049
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry.

774
00:44:58,110 --> 00:45:00,470
Speaker 3: Was that the whole purpose to make you look good?

775
00:45:00,489 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 3: Look at the big, strong, tough guy who can execute

776
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 3: somebody and let everyone else watch it? I just don't

777
00:45:08,180 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 3: get that. sort of frame of thinking that much he's

778
00:45:10,660 --> 00:45:11,379
Speaker 3: not feels like.

779
00:45:11,820 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: But see, I think that's part of the problem that

780
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: I had with the whole conversation in the first place.

781
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:21,140
Speaker 1: So we haven't gotten quite around to capital punishment as

782
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 1: capital punishment, right? But when we start talking about the

783
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:28,270
Speaker 1: live stream issue, this starts to feel like it's moving

784
00:45:28,390 --> 00:45:32,830
Speaker 1: from a moment of appropriate judgment, and we can disagree

785
00:45:32,890 --> 00:45:36,489
Speaker 1: on whether capital punishment is appropriate or not, but it

786
00:45:36,530 --> 00:45:38,770
Speaker 1: goes beyond judgment to something different.

787
00:45:40,340 --> 00:45:41,360
Speaker 2: Now it's spectacle.

788
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:48,100
Speaker 1: Now it's, I hate to use this analogy, but our

789
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: president has been on the show before.

790
00:45:50,260 --> 00:45:56,859
Speaker 2: It's WWE, right? It's theater. And I don't care how

791
00:45:56,960 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 2: solemn they try.

792
00:45:57,780 --> 00:46:03,660
Speaker 1: To make it, that event live streamed would have drawn

793
00:46:03,980 --> 00:46:08,020
Speaker 1: some of the worst instincts out of people.

794
00:46:09,540 --> 00:46:09,739
Speaker 2: Ever.

795
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:15,460
Speaker 1: On either side of the issue, right? There's no way

796
00:46:15,500 --> 00:46:17,980
Speaker 1: for that to be a unifying act. There's no way

797
00:46:18,020 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: for that to be an edifying act. There was no

798
00:46:20,739 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 1: way for live streaming that thing to turn out well.

799
00:46:24,980 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 1: And that's why I was so dumbfounded when you hear

800
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 1: Robert Jeffress say that there's no moral or biblical reason

801
00:46:33,660 --> 00:46:37,129
Speaker 1: not to live stream this. I'm kind of sitting back like,

802
00:46:37,330 --> 00:46:39,989
Speaker 1: there's plenty of biblical and moral reason not to live

803
00:46:40,010 --> 00:46:40,469
Speaker 1: stream this.

804
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:45,420
Speaker 2: Plenty. I just don't think you're thinking hard enough about.

805
00:46:46,739 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 3: It. Well, when we talked about that, we mentioned that

806
00:46:50,739 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 3: there is actually biblical timeline sort of precedence for this,

807
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,900
Speaker 3: and that was gladiatorial arenas that were often used as

808
00:46:58,980 --> 00:47:04,410
Speaker 3: times to execute prisoners. And, right, Christians were among those prisoners.

809
00:47:04,890 --> 00:47:05,850
Speaker 2: Yeah.

810
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:10,180
Speaker 3: And in those particular settings, those were public events, right?

811
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:12,719
Speaker 3: We're not talking about just the execution. We're talking about

812
00:47:12,940 --> 00:47:18,410
Speaker 3: to do so while also making a buck. Or, even

813
00:47:18,450 --> 00:47:22,950
Speaker 3: if it was a free event, in order to... The

814
00:47:22,989 --> 00:47:24,930
Speaker 3: technical language would be to incite the mob, not in

815
00:47:24,950 --> 00:47:28,690
Speaker 3: the sense of to have people riot in the streets,

816
00:47:28,710 --> 00:47:32,009
Speaker 3: but rather to win the favor of the mob. See,

817
00:47:32,050 --> 00:47:34,450
Speaker 3: this is what we do to these enemies of the state.

818
00:47:35,030 --> 00:47:35,150
Speaker 1: Yeah.

819
00:47:35,530 --> 00:47:38,640
Speaker 3: And again, that feels very much like what was actually

820
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:41,700
Speaker 3: at play here, right? To appeal to a particular base

821
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 3: to say, here's how serious we are about the agenda

822
00:47:47,020 --> 00:47:51,260
Speaker 3: that we've put forward. I think it's a secondary issue,

823
00:47:51,340 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 3: but not secondary in the thought process. It's also a

824
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:58,500
Speaker 3: bit of a distraction tactic. Oh, everyone keeps talking about inflation.

825
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:00,740
Speaker 3: Everyone keeps talking about the price of fuel. Everyone keeps

826
00:48:00,800 --> 00:48:03,529
Speaker 3: talking about this war in Iran that was supposed to

827
00:48:03,570 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 3: be a quick and done and now here we are

828
00:48:06,300 --> 00:48:10,230
Speaker 3: everyone keeps talking about these other issues like the Epstein

829
00:48:10,250 --> 00:48:13,489
Speaker 3: vials that we want to distract from here's something we're

830
00:48:13,550 --> 00:48:15,230
Speaker 3: giving this to you which again by the way is

831
00:48:15,350 --> 00:48:19,250
Speaker 3: precisely the sort of thing that gladiatorial events are supposed

832
00:48:19,270 --> 00:48:22,810
Speaker 3: to be they were distraction tactics it was here we're

833
00:48:22,870 --> 00:48:25,029
Speaker 3: giving you this person that we all know is an

834
00:48:25,090 --> 00:48:27,350
Speaker 3: enemy of the state right the Christians are enemies of

835
00:48:27,390 --> 00:48:29,670
Speaker 3: the state because they undermine our gods and our undermining

836
00:48:29,690 --> 00:48:31,589
Speaker 3: of our gods makes the gods angry which makes them

837
00:48:31,610 --> 00:48:33,890
Speaker 3: not have favor towards us which means we suffer as

838
00:48:33,930 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 3: an empire And so here, we're giving you this to

839
00:48:37,620 --> 00:48:39,900
Speaker 3: distract from all the other problems you may be facing.

840
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:45,830
Speaker 3: I mean, that's just seditious. That's the use of mass

841
00:48:45,930 --> 00:48:51,630
Speaker 3: influence in order to distract from being better as leaders.

842
00:48:52,489 --> 00:48:54,830
Speaker 3: Now I get that I'm reading into it, but I

843
00:48:54,890 --> 00:48:57,370
Speaker 3: think I have good reason to read into it on

844
00:48:57,410 --> 00:48:57,890
Speaker 3: this level.

845
00:48:58,950 --> 00:48:59,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't disagree.

846
00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 1: I mean, when I rack my brain on why that

847
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:05,730
Speaker 1: would have ever come up, There's only a few reasons

848
00:49:05,750 --> 00:49:09,960
Speaker 1: you can even think of. And, you know, part of

849
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 1: it is if I and I'll give my more. I

850
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:17,730
Speaker 1: agree with I agree with what you're saying. I also

851
00:49:17,770 --> 00:49:19,970
Speaker 1: think there's sort of this other underlying reason.

852
00:49:20,900 --> 00:49:21,359
Speaker 2: That is.

853
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:29,259
Speaker 1: We stream everything now. And so it's almost like a

854
00:49:29,380 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 1: default knee jerk reaction.

855
00:49:31,980 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 2: You know what we ought to do? Throw this on YouTube.

856
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:38,250
Speaker 1: You know what we ought to do? you know, put

857
00:49:38,290 --> 00:49:41,670
Speaker 1: it on Instagram. Like, I think that we are just

858
00:49:41,770 --> 00:49:46,250
Speaker 1: sort of embedded in this moment where if it can

859
00:49:46,310 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 1: be visible, it ought to be visible. And, and I

860
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:57,259
Speaker 1: think that we've lost our discernment in that. Now, you know,

861
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 1: we talk about media a lot. I've written on media

862
00:50:01,180 --> 00:50:05,609
Speaker 1: for the last couple of years and, I'm obviously not

863
00:50:05,650 --> 00:50:06,350
Speaker 1: against media.

864
00:50:06,430 --> 00:50:08,109
Speaker 2: I mean, we're doing a podcast, right?

865
00:50:08,989 --> 00:50:13,130
Speaker 1: But I do think that what this event opened up

866
00:50:13,150 --> 00:50:16,589
Speaker 1: for me was the realization of how deeply ingrained this

867
00:50:16,730 --> 00:50:19,509
Speaker 1: notion of if it can go out, it should go

868
00:50:19,650 --> 00:50:22,930
Speaker 1: out kind of gets and where it can actually lead us.

869
00:50:23,890 --> 00:50:26,450
Speaker 1: And so I do think that there's a sort of a,

870
00:50:28,260 --> 00:50:32,580
Speaker 1: as Albert Borgman would call it, an inconspicuous pattern that

871
00:50:32,700 --> 00:50:39,150
Speaker 1: informs this idea. I'm not sure that they decide to

872
00:50:39,210 --> 00:50:48,989
Speaker 1: hold a gladiatorial arena-style execution, although anything's possible. But I

873
00:50:49,070 --> 00:50:52,460
Speaker 1: think that because it's so convenient and easy to do

874
00:50:52,540 --> 00:51:00,279
Speaker 1: what they suggested doing, now it becomes quasi-normal. And as

875
00:51:00,340 --> 00:51:03,100
Speaker 1: we see, some people even have trouble coming up with

876
00:51:03,140 --> 00:51:07,379
Speaker 1: some sort of moral basis against it. We don't even

877
00:51:07,420 --> 00:51:14,090
Speaker 1: give it that much thought. I mean, once he canceled it,

878
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:19,170
Speaker 1: it was just kind of over. But I don't think

879
00:51:19,210 --> 00:51:22,670
Speaker 1: it should be over. I think we're moving into this

880
00:51:22,730 --> 00:51:28,450
Speaker 1: moment where I don't want to say we're desensitized. I

881
00:51:28,489 --> 00:51:31,610
Speaker 1: want to say we're conditioned toward. I don't think it's

882
00:51:31,660 --> 00:51:35,540
Speaker 1: a desensitization. I think that's the wrong phrasing. We're conditioned to.

883
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:44,630
Speaker 1: voyeuristically watch and host this sort of thing. And if

884
00:51:44,690 --> 00:51:47,129
Speaker 1: it weren't for... Which might be the bigger problem. Which

885
00:51:47,190 --> 00:51:50,310
Speaker 1: might be the bigger problem. And so I agree with

886
00:51:50,350 --> 00:51:52,450
Speaker 1: everything you said, and I want to throw in there,

887
00:51:53,090 --> 00:51:55,390
Speaker 1: I think we're starting to get to the point where

888
00:51:56,130 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 1: this sort of voyeurism, this competition for attention, this because

889
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:07,020
Speaker 1: we can show it, we should show it, is really

890
00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:11,100
Speaker 1: starting to take hold of our culture and our understanding.

891
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:13,840
Speaker 2: And we need to be very, very careful with it.

892
00:52:15,170 --> 00:52:15,390
Speaker 1: Yeah.

893
00:52:16,790 --> 00:52:18,850
Speaker 3: At the very least, the mode of doing so has

894
00:52:18,910 --> 00:52:21,169
Speaker 3: taken over. I'm not sure that the impulse is new.

895
00:52:21,870 --> 00:52:22,109
Speaker 2: Fair.

896
00:52:22,150 --> 00:52:25,980
Speaker 3: What immediately comes to my mind was during the era

897
00:52:26,020 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 3: of Jim Crow, it was a very common occurrence and

898
00:52:29,940 --> 00:52:33,810
Speaker 3: a very sad occurrence. retrospectively to think about people would

899
00:52:33,870 --> 00:52:37,009
Speaker 3: leave church and their Sunday afternoon activity was to go

900
00:52:37,050 --> 00:52:41,580
Speaker 3: from church to the lynching tree to watch a black

901
00:52:41,620 --> 00:52:47,940
Speaker 3: man being lynched yeah the impulse already existed and I'd

902
00:52:47,980 --> 00:52:49,880
Speaker 3: say that's the same impulse that would lead someone to

903
00:52:49,900 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 3: go to gladiatorial arena to watch a criminal be mauled

904
00:52:53,060 --> 00:52:57,870
Speaker 3: by a lion or to be skewered by a spear

905
00:52:57,969 --> 00:53:02,739
Speaker 3: or chopped by a sword right The same impulses at play.

906
00:53:02,780 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 3: The mechanism makes it possible to do this without having

907
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:10,930
Speaker 3: to build an arena. Makes it possible to do so

908
00:53:12,170 --> 00:53:15,290
Speaker 3: without having to face the conscious problem of, I was

909
00:53:15,330 --> 00:53:19,810
Speaker 3: just in church where ostensibly I'm singing and hearing about

910
00:53:20,030 --> 00:53:25,989
Speaker 3: one thing, right? And now going into the streets and

911
00:53:26,170 --> 00:53:28,720
Speaker 3: following someone to the lynching tree to watch this great

912
00:53:28,739 --> 00:53:32,299
Speaker 3: injustice being done. Now we can just wake up and

913
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:35,300
Speaker 3: roll over and watch the replay of it on our phone,

914
00:53:36,300 --> 00:53:38,770
Speaker 3: which maybe takes away some of the conscious element of it.

915
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:41,600
Speaker 3: But the impulse is the same. Don't you think?

916
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:45,890
Speaker 2: I do. And I mean, we've talked about amplification before, right?

917
00:53:45,989 --> 00:53:48,830
Speaker 1: And so the technology is just amplifying an impulse that's

918
00:53:48,870 --> 00:53:49,410
Speaker 1: already there.

919
00:53:50,150 --> 00:53:50,870
Speaker 2: I agree with that.

920
00:53:50,950 --> 00:53:53,250
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I do find interesting, though,

921
00:53:53,290 --> 00:53:56,370
Speaker 1: is that our penal system has largely, and this goes

922
00:53:56,430 --> 00:54:01,759
Speaker 1: back to Foucault, discipline and punish, and that sort of

923
00:54:01,820 --> 00:54:05,280
Speaker 1: archaeology of punishment that he did. And the movement away

924
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:08,299
Speaker 1: from these sort of public punishments that were designed to

925
00:54:08,340 --> 00:54:12,089
Speaker 1: be deterrents, designed to show the severity and keep people

926
00:54:12,110 --> 00:54:13,790
Speaker 1: afraid and all that kind of good stuff that he

927
00:54:13,850 --> 00:54:17,589
Speaker 1: outlines all the way back through medieval times, not the

928
00:54:17,650 --> 00:54:21,800
Speaker 1: restaurant and play, but the actual era. And so I

929
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:26,340
Speaker 1: think what's interesting, our penal system has largely been designed

930
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:32,980
Speaker 1: to create the impression that the criminals aren't really among us.

931
00:54:35,020 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 2: Unless you live near a prison, you don't know where

932
00:54:39,239 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 2: they go.

933
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:48,930
Speaker 1: And so this enhanced visibility of this particular punishment, I

934
00:54:49,030 --> 00:54:58,000
Speaker 1: do think sort of revives an old logic, particularly an

935
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:00,180
Speaker 1: old logic that was used by the state.

936
00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:02,700
Speaker 2: That is.

937
00:55:04,300 --> 00:55:09,140
Speaker 1: Just deeply problematic. I don't really know how else to

938
00:55:09,200 --> 00:55:12,029
Speaker 1: say it, but I agree with you. I agree it's

939
00:55:12,050 --> 00:55:15,450
Speaker 1: an amplification. I agree there's this old impulse, but I

940
00:55:15,530 --> 00:55:19,650
Speaker 1: also see it as sort of a potential sign that

941
00:55:23,430 --> 00:55:30,169
Speaker 1: punishment in public, there may be people who Are more

942
00:55:30,270 --> 00:55:34,529
Speaker 1: for that than I would have ever thought. Yeah.

943
00:55:35,350 --> 00:55:35,990
Speaker 2: And, and I think.

944
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:37,300
Speaker 3: I'm not as shocked.

945
00:55:38,180 --> 00:55:38,500
Speaker 2: Yeah.

946
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:41,180
Speaker 3: Just because of what I mentioned with.

947
00:55:42,020 --> 00:55:42,219
Speaker 1: Yeah.

948
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:45,700
Speaker 3: Just this impulse that I see is stretching through time. Yeah.

949
00:55:46,680 --> 00:55:49,919
Speaker 3: But I get it, but I'm curious. I know there's

950
00:55:49,940 --> 00:55:51,900
Speaker 3: not much time left, but I think that's actually okay

951
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:54,420
Speaker 3: because you've sort of set out your framework.

952
00:55:55,219 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

953
00:55:56,030 --> 00:55:58,069
Speaker 3: What about when we take away the spectacle, when we

954
00:55:58,110 --> 00:56:04,360
Speaker 3: take away the observational status of all this? Should we

955
00:56:04,390 --> 00:56:06,299
Speaker 3: be practicing capital punishment in your view?

956
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 1: I think the government has the ability.

957
00:56:14,219 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 2: To do it. And by that, I mean, I think

958
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:21,750
Speaker 2: that they have the warrant to do it.

959
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:23,260
Speaker 1: Okay.

960
00:56:26,130 --> 00:56:27,830
Speaker 2: I think that the blood and.

961
00:56:27,790 --> 00:56:30,450
Speaker 1: The image haven't changed across time and so that there's

962
00:56:30,489 --> 00:56:33,969
Speaker 1: still a sense in which there's an appropriateness to that punishment.

963
00:56:36,190 --> 00:56:38,710
Speaker 1: At the same time, even if they might have the

964
00:56:38,770 --> 00:56:45,180
Speaker 1: warrant to do it, I don't generally, I wouldn't even

965
00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:51,560
Speaker 1: say generally, I don't think it's something that any government

966
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:59,100
Speaker 1: actually has the capacity to do. So in other words, again,

967
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:01,379
Speaker 1: I put a lot of weight on the way this

968
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:05,960
Speaker 1: is embedded in ancient Israel, right? The image of God theology,

969
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:09,910
Speaker 1: the protection of holiness of the community, the, you know,

970
00:57:10,010 --> 00:57:12,770
Speaker 1: all of these different elements. And it's hard for me

971
00:57:12,810 --> 00:57:16,450
Speaker 1: to separate this out, the death penalty. It's hard for

972
00:57:16,470 --> 00:57:24,100
Speaker 1: me to separate that out from it reinforcing false narratives

973
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: that That are propagated by a given nation. And so

974
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:34,160
Speaker 1: just as a for instance, like, you know, we've mentioned earlier,

975
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:38,790
Speaker 1: this isn't just about certain forms of homicide, like traitors

976
00:57:39,030 --> 00:57:39,850
Speaker 1: can be executed.

977
00:57:41,090 --> 00:57:41,350
Speaker 2: Right.

978
00:57:43,910 --> 00:57:48,410
Speaker 1: Well, this is a crime against the nation, a crime

979
00:57:48,450 --> 00:57:54,120
Speaker 1: against the state that is now punishable by death, which is.

980
00:57:55,000 --> 00:58:01,720
Speaker 1: suggests something about what the state believes it's owed. And

981
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:04,960
Speaker 1: so I have real difficulty with the sort of symbolic

982
00:58:05,020 --> 00:58:09,460
Speaker 1: matrix in which capital punishment would be meted out in

983
00:58:09,500 --> 00:58:13,380
Speaker 1: a modern government. And so as a general rule, I

984
00:58:13,420 --> 00:58:19,820
Speaker 1: would say there are other ways to, um, enact judgment

985
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:26,630
Speaker 1: on criminals. And I don't believe that, uh, capital punishment

986
00:58:26,770 --> 00:58:30,870
Speaker 1: is a viable way of doing that today. I will

987
00:58:30,890 --> 00:58:34,150
Speaker 1: clarify that today with just saying, could I ever envision

988
00:58:34,190 --> 00:58:36,450
Speaker 1: a time when a government could do it?

989
00:58:36,590 --> 00:58:42,220
Speaker 2: Sure. But as we sit right now in the United

990
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:43,580
Speaker 2: States in this government.

991
00:58:45,120 --> 00:58:48,340
Speaker 1: I have difficulty with it. I don't know whether that's

992
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:50,140
Speaker 1: too hedgy of an answer, but that's kind of where

993
00:58:50,200 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 1: I fall.

994
00:58:50,660 --> 00:58:53,170
Speaker 3: No, I liked it. Well, what I appreciate about that

995
00:58:53,250 --> 00:58:58,570
Speaker 3: answer is that it It recognized that it's a complicated

996
00:58:58,610 --> 00:59:01,340
Speaker 3: issue and that there are a lot of different entailments

997
00:59:01,380 --> 00:59:04,780
Speaker 3: that go about it. My own answer is going to

998
00:59:04,820 --> 00:59:07,870
Speaker 3: maybe seem like I don't acknowledge the same complicated nature

999
00:59:07,890 --> 00:59:13,650
Speaker 3: of the issue, but I do think it's complicated. I'm

1000
00:59:13,830 --> 00:59:17,740
Speaker 3: generally against the idea of capital punishment, but my rationale

1001
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:23,400
Speaker 3: pulling from your same Old Testament framework that you built

1002
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:27,640
Speaker 3: out was, as I look at the Old Testament, it's

1003
00:59:27,680 --> 00:59:30,540
Speaker 3: not clear to me that That's actually what God was

1004
00:59:30,620 --> 00:59:38,840
Speaker 3: telling biblical Israel to do. So an example of this

1005
00:59:38,970 --> 00:59:41,510
Speaker 3: to me would be the book of Hosea, which is

1006
00:59:41,530 --> 00:59:44,540
Speaker 3: just an utterly fascinating book in the Old Testament to me.

1007
00:59:44,570 --> 00:59:46,330
Speaker 3: There's a section in the middle of it. At this point,

1008
00:59:46,350 --> 00:59:47,470
Speaker 3: I don't have off the top of my head the

1009
00:59:47,530 --> 00:59:49,450
Speaker 3: chapters to match, but there's a section in the middle

1010
00:59:49,470 --> 00:59:55,210
Speaker 3: of it where God is mad. I think that's an understatement.

1011
00:59:56,360 --> 01:00:01,680
Speaker 3: He's angry at Israel for its choices, its choices of disobedience, unfaithfulness,

1012
01:00:01,780 --> 01:00:04,840
Speaker 3: going after other gods, failure to take care of each other.

1013
01:00:05,740 --> 01:00:12,689
Speaker 3: The whole image of Hosea's wife being a prostitute is undeniably,

1014
01:00:12,710 --> 01:00:16,910
Speaker 3: it's straightforwardly and explicitly what he sees Israel to be.

1015
01:00:16,970 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 3: He's calling them prostitutes, and he's mad at them. And

1016
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:24,990
Speaker 3: his rhetoric around that is really uncomfortable. just to read

1017
01:00:25,030 --> 01:00:27,290
Speaker 3: as a modern person. And that rhetoric is, I will

1018
01:00:27,330 --> 01:00:29,310
Speaker 3: disown you, but not only that, he just talks about

1019
01:00:29,450 --> 01:00:31,880
Speaker 3: all the evil that he's going to bear down upon them,

1020
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 3: or he's going to allow to come down upon them.

1021
01:00:33,820 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 3: He's going to utterly strike them down. But what's interesting

1022
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:40,940
Speaker 3: to me is that at the end of that rant,

1023
01:00:42,480 --> 01:00:45,220
Speaker 3: then there's a whole chapter that basically says, I'm not

1024
01:00:45,240 --> 01:00:50,190
Speaker 3: going to do any of this because I love you.

1025
01:00:52,050 --> 01:00:56,350
Speaker 3: And that to me is fascinating. I read that backwards

1026
01:00:56,430 --> 01:01:01,340
Speaker 3: into the really harsh sounding way in which God declares

1027
01:01:01,380 --> 01:01:06,200
Speaker 3: things like stoning rebellious children, of setting apart those who've

1028
01:01:06,220 --> 01:01:09,480
Speaker 3: committed certain sorts of crimes within the nation of biblical

1029
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:13,880
Speaker 3: Israel in order to set them apart for their own stoning,

1030
01:01:13,900 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 3: their own being killed in some way, shape, or form.

1031
01:01:17,060 --> 01:01:20,580
Speaker 3: But then I place that alongside the provision of the

1032
01:01:20,620 --> 01:01:25,060
Speaker 3: sacrificial system, the provision of especially Yom Kippur, the Day

1033
01:01:25,100 --> 01:01:29,260
Speaker 3: of Atonement. And when I read that through the lens

1034
01:01:29,340 --> 01:01:34,410
Speaker 3: of that interesting turn in Hosea, it sounds to me

1035
01:01:34,490 --> 01:01:37,490
Speaker 3: like what God is saying, I've created an image for

1036
01:01:37,530 --> 01:01:41,530
Speaker 3: you all, right? To speak maybe presumptuously from God's voice.

1037
01:01:41,870 --> 01:01:44,230
Speaker 3: I've created an image for you all to understand just

1038
01:01:44,290 --> 01:01:50,120
Speaker 3: how horrific the problems are that were created by Genesis 3, right?

1039
01:01:50,360 --> 01:01:55,110
Speaker 3: The entrance of sin. the structural dynamics, the personal dynamics,

1040
01:01:55,270 --> 01:01:59,790
Speaker 3: both of them. And as a result, as already described

1041
01:01:59,850 --> 01:02:02,660
Speaker 3: at the beginning of Genesis, the result is just de

1042
01:02:02,700 --> 01:02:06,760
Speaker 3: facto death, and it brings about a well-deserved death. That

1043
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:10,340
Speaker 3: well-deserved death maybe also includes undeserved death in the sense

1044
01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:14,020
Speaker 3: of people die as victims within the structures that come about.

1045
01:02:14,540 --> 01:02:17,790
Speaker 3: But overall, we are in some way willfully made present

1046
01:02:17,850 --> 01:02:24,290
Speaker 3: within these dynamics. And so death is the overwhelming consequence

1047
01:02:24,350 --> 01:02:30,770
Speaker 3: of this. And yet, still, but, right, whatever negation effect

1048
01:02:30,810 --> 01:02:32,690
Speaker 3: you want to put on this, I have created a

1049
01:02:32,710 --> 01:02:36,240
Speaker 3: path forward. And so I want to look at that

1050
01:02:36,260 --> 01:02:39,000
Speaker 3: and say that I don't think God ever intended for

1051
01:02:39,040 --> 01:02:41,340
Speaker 3: them to stone the children. I don't think God ever

1052
01:02:41,400 --> 01:02:43,720
Speaker 3: intended for them. It's meant to be an image of

1053
01:02:43,780 --> 01:02:47,460
Speaker 3: just how serious things are within the space set apart,

1054
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:52,140
Speaker 3: within the presence of God. but God himself takes it

1055
01:02:52,200 --> 01:02:55,920
Speaker 3: upon God's self to deal with it. And then the

1056
01:02:56,000 --> 01:02:57,960
Speaker 3: ultimate image of that, of course, is the fulfillment of

1057
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:02,410
Speaker 3: that in the person of Jesus. Now, I think the

1058
01:03:02,490 --> 01:03:05,850
Speaker 3: interesting dynamic is, the straightforward thing after that is that

1059
01:03:07,090 --> 01:03:08,510
Speaker 3: none of that ought to be done in the name

1060
01:03:08,530 --> 01:03:10,750
Speaker 3: of God, because God has finally now fully put that

1061
01:03:10,810 --> 01:03:13,970
Speaker 3: into effect by fully and finally taking that final sacrifice

1062
01:03:14,050 --> 01:03:19,460
Speaker 3: onto himself on the cross. But the situation of the

1063
01:03:19,500 --> 01:03:23,070
Speaker 3: nation-state of the United States or any other nation state.

1064
01:03:26,470 --> 01:03:29,530
Speaker 3: Despite what some might have wanted to claim at various

1065
01:03:29,570 --> 01:03:32,530
Speaker 3: points in time, it's not covenant Israel, as you pointed out.

1066
01:03:32,590 --> 01:03:34,750
Speaker 3: It is not a covenant group that exists in some

1067
01:03:34,810 --> 01:03:40,430
Speaker 3: sort of overt theological relationship with God. But I want

1068
01:03:40,450 --> 01:03:46,630
Speaker 3: to say, if it's not something that God seemingly wants

1069
01:03:46,830 --> 01:03:50,450
Speaker 3: actually done and has already dealt with it within God's self,

1070
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 3: then to me, not even nations should be doing that.

1071
01:03:57,400 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 3: But I will take it a step further and say

1072
01:03:58,900 --> 01:04:03,960
Speaker 3: that I do think that there should be a prison system,

1073
01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:06,180
Speaker 3: but even the way that we envision a prison system

1074
01:04:06,440 --> 01:04:11,140
Speaker 3: as entirely penal to me misses the point to the

1075
01:04:11,180 --> 01:04:16,230
Speaker 3: degree that it's possible. We can never affect the hearts

1076
01:04:16,270 --> 01:04:19,970
Speaker 3: of people the prison system should also be rehabilitory. And

1077
01:04:20,010 --> 01:04:21,530
Speaker 3: I know that we talk in those ways, but it's

1078
01:04:21,570 --> 01:04:23,810
Speaker 3: not clear to me that we actually act in those ways.

1079
01:04:26,710 --> 01:04:29,310
Speaker 3: So I come to a similar conclusion to you with

1080
01:04:29,370 --> 01:04:31,370
Speaker 3: regard to not doing it, but I think I have

1081
01:04:31,410 --> 01:04:36,950
Speaker 3: a harder no upon my answer than you do. But

1082
01:04:37,310 --> 01:04:39,630
Speaker 3: that's all to say that that's why I actually appreciate

1083
01:04:39,650 --> 01:04:41,300
Speaker 3: the way that you come to a softer no.

1084
01:04:42,360 --> 01:04:45,920
Speaker 1: I think it'd be interesting to sort of delve into

1085
01:04:45,980 --> 01:04:48,270
Speaker 1: this a little bit more And so maybe we'll take

1086
01:04:48,290 --> 01:04:50,850
Speaker 1: the next episode to do that as well. I I'd

1087
01:04:50,890 --> 01:04:54,110
Speaker 1: like to think through what you just said. Um, but

1088
01:04:54,160 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 1: we are out of time. And so I want to,

1089
01:04:56,960 --> 01:04:59,200
Speaker 1: I want to revisit that in the next episode. I

1090
01:04:59,240 --> 01:05:01,900
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of good stuff there. Um, but

1091
01:05:01,940 --> 01:05:03,460
Speaker 1: I also have a couple of challenges I want to

1092
01:05:03,480 --> 01:05:06,320
Speaker 1: throw out there. So, um, yeah, please bring them, but

1093
01:05:06,350 --> 01:05:07,890
Speaker 1: we'll leave that my research.

1094
01:05:08,210 --> 01:05:08,410
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1095
01:05:08,450 --> 01:05:12,160
Speaker 1: We'll, we'll leave it for the next episode. So, um, Thanks, everybody,

1096
01:05:12,200 --> 01:05:16,140
Speaker 1: for listening. Hopefully this wasn't too crazy. I feel like

1097
01:05:16,160 --> 01:05:18,100
Speaker 1: we had a pretty good through line through the whole thing.

1098
01:05:18,420 --> 01:05:21,220
Speaker 1: And so give you a different perspective on at least

1099
01:05:21,430 --> 01:05:24,910
Speaker 1: some aspects of capital punishment and particularly the live streaming

1100
01:05:24,930 --> 01:05:29,170
Speaker 1: of that capital punishment. And appreciate you sticking with us

1101
01:05:29,210 --> 01:05:32,870
Speaker 1: this long. Ashish, great conversation as always. And we'll catch

1102
01:05:32,890 --> 01:05:34,590
Speaker 1: everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian.

1103
01:05:34,810 --> 01:05:35,130
Speaker 2: Take care.

1104
01:05:36,190 --> 01:05:37,669
Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team

1105
01:05:37,730 --> 01:05:40,140
Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the

1106
01:05:40,180 --> 01:05:43,780
Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find

1107
01:05:43,840 --> 01:05:47,220
Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got

1108
01:05:47,260 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.