Robinson

The Editor, Sir:

One of the saddest of our current realities is the retreat into religious scare tactics by otherwise intelligent and compassionate people when faced with complex problems not amenable to quick fixes.

Hence, threats are splashed all over our newspapers courtesy of the Rev Al Miller, who asserts that the death penalty is God's command and our intelligence is assailed by several follow-up inanities including:

"Governments, he said, represent the authority of God to dispense justice in the land, and so capital punishment would not be considered murder when dispensed for justice. 'If Government doesn't exercise it then they will not be carrying out their role'."

No commands from God

First, God has not made one single command to man, His creation, and persistent assertions to the contrary are the resort of perplexed religious leaders with no real solutions falling back on allegations that can neither be proved nor disproved (they think). But, two things with which all religions and religious leaders concur (until they have the need to conveniently forget them) are that man was made in God's image and granted free will by God.

Omnipotence does not become a God who gives free will out of one side of His mouth and commands out of the other. The set of principles which a human author (divinely inspired, no doubt) has called 'The Ten Commandments', if read carefully, will be exposed as nothing of the sort. If it weren't for free will, there would be no murderers. So, it follows, unless God is an inconsistent god and regardless of how painful this may sound, that the existence of murder and murderers are all part of God's majestic plan.

Gov'ts represent people, not God

Second, governments represent people not God. This nonsense that any politician is appointed (or anointed) by God is a particularly dangerous and insidious assertion which can only cause trouble when a flock, blindly following a religious leader, is duped into believing that the Government must somehow be bound by the 'rules' set out in the Bible. In some countries, it is expressed in their written Constitution that there must be a separation of Church and State.

Complex issues such as high crime rates are not resolved by violence of any kind. Violence only begets violence. So there must be some other way. And, while the nation grapples with this complex, long-term problem, some of its people, me included, would appreciate not being called 'dunces' by religious leaders clearly out of tune with reality and who have only baseless Old Testament threats to throw about in defence of their vacuous ideas. What did Jesus say about Church and State? What did He say about capital punishment?

Those of us who believe in a God of love are prepared to take refuge in His promise that, once you love the Lord with all of your heart and all of your mind and love your neighbour as yourself, then "thou shalt not kill".

I am, etc.,

GORDON ROBINSON

Kingston 10