Punitive Violence and Forgiveness
by Blake Hereth, on Theology, Pacifism, September 2013
Having been raised in the Deep South, I recall the teachings on war and violence: they were evils to be avoided, but occasionally killing a human person was morally justified. Aside from war, in which it was taken as given that killing was often justified, there was a slightly more controversial kind of case in which killing was allegedly justified: as punishment for severe crime. While there may have been…