s mercy in judgment a sign of weakness? In part 2 of their capital punishment conversation, James Spencer and Ashish Varma ask whether the death penalty fits God's long-suffering.

Ashish Varma argues that Old Testament laws calling for death were less a mandate than an image of how serious sin is, an image fulfilled at the cross, which in his view takes capital punishment off the table for church and state. James Spencer agrees with the trajectory but not its cleanliness: Ruth shows mercy as the spirit of the law, yet Nadab and Abihu and Ananias and Sapphira show that God's long-suffering has limits.

Many Christians assume that a society without the death penalty looks weak and leaves victims' families without justice. James and Ashish answer that mercy in judgment is not weakness but still judgment, that vengeance belongs to God, and that vehement Christian support for the death penalty sits poorly with the logic of the cross. They end closer together than they began, with Bonhoeffer and the Hitler question still open.

Part 1: Should Christians Support Livestreaming an Execution?

In this episode:

• Is mercy in judgment a sign of weakness, or is it still judgment?
• Ruth, Nadab and Abihu, and Ananias and Sapphira on God's long-suffering and its limits
• Henri Blocher, Hosea, and reading Old Testament law as an image of God's love and judgment
• Victims' families, "vengeance is mine," and Genesis 9:6 in the death penalty debate
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Stanley Hauerwas, and who is fit to decide when mercy ends

Go deeper: Christians and Politics

Thinking Christian is hosted by Dr. James Spencer, president of the D. L. Moody Center and author of Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press). Each conversation reads the Bible as the final authority for life and faith, questioning the assumptions of our culture, even our Christian culture, so that we don't settle for a narrower vision than God's word offers.

Unsettling convention. Cultivating conviction. Episodes, articles, and questions: thinkingchristian.org About James Spencer: thinkingchristian.org/james The Thinking Christian Framework: thinkingchristian.org/framework Order Digital Discernment: amazon.com

Subscribe: YouTube · Apple Podcasts · Spotify Advertising and partnership inquiries: info@thinkingchristian.org

Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Jonathan Leeman — president of 9Marks and author of Political Church: The Local Assembly as Embassy of Christ's Rule — joins James Spencer for the eleventh episode in the faith and politics series.

Leeman uses "political" functionally rather than partisanly: all of life falls under the rule of Christ, and the local congregation is meant to exemplify what that rule looks like. His central image is the embassy. Soil is just dirt until an authority consecrates it as belonging somewhere — and when a congregation gathers in Christ's name, it becomes something like the temporary geography of his kingdom, holding a deputized authority to declare who belongs and what the gospel is.

From there: why the Bible functions as a constitution rather than a legal code, and Leeman's distinction between straight line and jagged line issues — those where the path from text to political conclusion is direct, and the far larger set where Christians can reason faithfully and land in different places. He argues most of the trouble in churches comes from treating the second kind as the first.

He closes on where political formation actually begins.

Go deeper: Christians & Politics

Thinking Christian is hosted by Dr. James Spencer, president of the D. L. Moody Center and author of Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press). Each conversation reads the Bible as the final authority for life and faith, questioning the assumptions of our culture, even our Christian culture, so that we don't settle for a narrower vision than God's word offers.

Unsettling convention. Cultivating conviction.
Episodes, articles, and questions: thinkingchristian.org
About James Spencer: thinkingchristian.org/james
The Thinking Christian Framework: thinkingchristian.org/framework
Order Digital Discernment: amazon.com

Advertising and partnership inquiries: info@thinkingchristian.org

Chapters:

00:00 9Marks and what it exists to do

01:33 Which church, and what "political" means

04:57 Philemon and resituating what's already there

08:43 Why an embassy

11:04 Consecrated soil and the geography of the kingdom

15:33 What church authority actually is

20:23 Delegated versus deputized

22:06 The scattered church as political threat

23:50 Telling governments their limits

28:03 The Bible as constitution, not case law

34:41 Sending people into political vocations

41:07 Wisdom from God to do justice

43:04 Straight line and jagged line issues

46:38 Where political formation begins

Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Should Christians support livestreaming an execution? James Spencer and Ashish Varma weigh capital punishment, the Bible, and spectacle.

James Spencer and Ashish Varma respond to the proposal to livestream the execution of a man who committed a mass murder, a plan later called off. They ask what the Bible says about capital punishment, from Genesis 9:6 and the image of God to why Israel's law prescribed death for crimes like kidnapping and cursing one's parents. They also test the claim that a public execution would deter crime.

Robert Jeffress, pastor of a large Baptist church in Texas, said there was no moral or biblical reason to oppose livestreaming the execution. James argues that there are such reasons, including what watching does to the audience and the dignity owed even to those who deserve punishment. James and Ashish then give their own, differing answers on whether a modern government should practice capital punishment at all.

Part 2 releases Friday.

In this episode:

• Is there a biblical or moral reason not to livestream an execution? A response to Robert Jeffress
• Genesis 9:6, the image of God, and what capital punishment signified in ancient Israel
• Does a public execution deter crime? Severity versus the certainty of being caught
• Spectacle and voyeurism, from Making a Murderer and the gladiatorial arena to the livestream
• Should governments practice capital punishment today? Two different answers, with the book of Hosea

Go deeper: Christians and Politics

Thinking Christian is hosted by Dr. James Spencer, president of the D. L. Moody Center and author of Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press). Each conversation reads the Bible as the final authority for life and faith, questioning the assumptions of our culture, even our Christian culture, so that we don't settle for a narrower vision than God's word offers.

Unsettling convention. Cultivating conviction. Episodes, articles, and questions: thinkingchristian.org About James Spencer: thinkingchristian.org/james The Thinking Christian Framework: thinkingchristian.org/framework Order Digital Discernment: amazon.com

Subscribe: YouTube · Apple Podcasts · Spotify Advertising and partnership inquiries: info@thinkingchristian.org

Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.