Life, Death, And God’s Texas Jury

I have a fantasy that comes to me in my dreams at night, and then lingers in the corners of my mind throughout the long shadows of the day. It is a wondrous dream, filled with hope and elation and, eventually, bitter resentment and terrible regret. In my dreamworld, I live and work and walk amongst a citizenry composed of my peers, who see the world though a lens of reality and who pursue Truth in life through rational thought and logic. We work together in this Utopia to solve the world’s problems, to help lift up its less fortunate and to rip down its tyrants. It is a magical land, where happiness is attainable through merit and where superstition has been replaced with reason. Then, I wake up and realize I’m still in Texas. Dammit!

The latest Texan effrontery to rationality and logic comes in the form of a sentence handed down from by a jury that consulted the Bible to determine the proper punishment for a man named Khristian Oliver. Possibly out of resentment for how his parents inserted an unnecessary ‘h’ into his first name, Oliver turned to a life of crime back in the ’90s. In 1998, when Oliver was twenty years old, he and three other individuals decided that it would be a good idea to break into an old man’s house to pillage it for the fabulous wealth and prizes one might expect to find in the mothball-scented dwelling of a sixty-four year old man living in Nacogdoches, Texas. When the elderly gentleman in question came home and surprised the young hooligans stealing all of his Geritol and velvet Elvis portraits, a scuffle ensued and Oliver shot and killed the nice old man. A year later, Oliver was tried and convicted, then sentenced to death by lethal injection. All’s well that ends well, right?

Well, not exactly. The jury stepped outside the rule of law and consulted the Book of Numbers in the King James Bible to figure out whether they should recommend that Khristian get a prison sentence or take the Big Jab and get his doctorate in applied chemistry at the dripping end of a lethal syringe. Obviously, the Bible told them to kill the miserable bastard rather than allow him to live out the rest of his days in the warm and cozy comfort of a maximum security prison cell. The passage cited by the jurors during Oliver’s appeal was Numbers 35: 16-19:

The victim, Joe Collins, was shot in the face and beaten with the butt of a rifle. This apparently made Khristian Oliver an exceptionally murderous murderer because the bullets could be interpreted as stones, and both they and the rifle are made of steel, so that covers the iron. The rifle butt was made of wood, so there’s your hand weapon of wood to complete the trinity of homicidal qualifications. Clearly, the jury had little choice but to opt for the death penalty. God himself declared it right there in the black and white of the King James version of the Old Testament Book of Numbers!

Forget for the moment that God did not sit down between rounds of blessing and smiting to scribble out the Bible on a lazy Tuesday afternoon. It was written by many men over many, many years. Books were included and thrown out, modified, translated and retranslated, and in all other ways completely mucked with over the centuries by members of the Funny Hat Boy’s Club. This particular bit from Numbers is talking about what to do with people who kill other people. Murder is, not surprisingly, looked down upon in the Bible (unless, of course, it’s done to spread God’s glory or to claim land in the name of His chosen people). However, there are provisions made to allow some murderers to seek refuge in specific cities if they unwittingly killed their victim. Involuntary manslaughter would be the term today, but we don’t seem to consult the Bible to determine whether we should allow drunk drivers to seek refuge in the cities of Canaan rather than spend years of their lives confined to a jail cell…

On that note, I wonder what this esteemed panel of jurors would have done if this had been a divorce case rather than a homicide. Stone the adulterer to death? What about catching an employee of McDonald’s flipping burgers on a Sunday? Death by stoning, by the whole community! (A good case for working at Chick-Fil-A…) Disobedient son? More stoning, this time by all the men of the community. Blasphemy? DEATH. Homosexuality? DEATH. Being a witch? DEATH. Not being a virgin on your wedding night? DEATH! Adultery? DEATH! (Ok, maybe He has a point with that one.) Aside from stoning, the Bible also allows people to be put to death by burning, hanging, or tossing their sorry hides off of mountains. Peace be with you on your fast trip to terra firma, brother!

I’m never at a loss of appreciation for the ability of some so-called Christians to ignore the cognitive dissonance that comes with picking and choosing what parts of the Bible they believe in. On the one hand, they say it’s the literal Word of God and should be taken exactly as it’s written. However, when it comes to things like genocide and extermination or going to a restaurant after Sunday church, it’s less literal and more metaphorical. Just guidelines, really. Suggestions meant for another time, not today. We don’t stone children who revile their parents. We don’t execute people for claiming psychic powers and we don’t kill false prophets – instead, we take our kids to Disneyworld and worship at the big yellow-shoed feet of a cartoon mouse. We don’t think money lenders are evil and, as a nation, we gleefully support usury every time we swipe our credit cards. Cognitive dissonance – the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes. If the shoe fits…

None of this is to say that I think Khristian Oliver shouldn’t be punished for his crime. He brutally murdered an old man while robbing his home, and that cannot be overlooked. However, simply because he committed murder does not entitle anyone else to do the same to him. Give him a life sentence with no chance of parole. Let him live with his guilt and shame and misery. Let him die slowly behind the iron bars of an uncaring prison system – but don’t kill him. It’s just not necessary, especially when it’s being dictated by religion.

Khristian’s parents, Kermit and Katie, are having an art show this weekend featuring some of Khristian’s prison artwork. They suffer for what their son did, although they remain convinced of his innocence. Kermit painted a portrait of Christ’s resurrection using Khristian’s face for Jesus’ likeness. They are parents that now have to endure the knowledge that their son will be murdered and that there is nothing they can do about it. It’s an awful position to be in, and one I can’t imagine living through. Khristian’s mother, Katie, believes she had a vision of an angel taking her to the scene of the crime, where she claims she saw another man murdering him. It’s denial steeped in mythology and delusion, and it’s sad. It’s a mother reacting to the planned bureaucratic murder of her son, and it shouldn’t have to be this way. She should endure the pain of witnessing him held in confined captivity for the rest of his life, but not murdered by the state on November 5^th.

In the end, I wonder why some Christians pick and choose certain passages and ignore others. Turn the other cheek comes to mind. Vengeance being the Lord’s does, too. Judge not lest ye be judged. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, etc…

Then again, what the heck do I know? I’ve never murdered anyone and don’t plan on ever doing so. I’ve not known anyone who was murdered, and so I’ve never felt the need for revenge in the form of state sanctioned murder. However, if some punk killed my father, I’d probably feel differently. I’d probably want the sick bastard to suffer and die and pay for what he’d done – but that’s exactly why we have the justice system. It’s supposed to be dispassionate and impersonal. It’s supposed to be slow and steady, and governed by reason, logic, and the rule of law. The rule of man’s law, not God’s – otherwise where would we be? Most of the population would be put to death already, and we’d probably have a shortage of stones in the world. There would be no shopping or police protection or ambulances on Sundays. We’d have slavery and wars of genocide, and all television programming would be Davey and Goliath or BibleMan.

It’s time to reconsider the evangelical push to thrust the Bible into every matter of public discourse. It has its place, and religion can be a wonderful thing in one’s personal life. It inspires and uplifts and gives meaning to an otherwise meaningless and random existence. It cheers you up on a bad day and promises you eternal rewards if you follow the rules. In public though, as a means of government and of law, religion corrupts and destroys everything. The Crusades. The Inquisition. The genocidal rampages of God’s people in the Old Testament. Infanticide. Islamic Jihad. Ethnic cleansing. Adolph Hitler. Fred Phelps. Cobra Commander. Gargamel. Skeletor. Calgon, take me away!
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Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to have nice weather on my wedding day, so I have to go sacrifice a goat and then cut out the still beating heart of a virgin as an offering to Tonatiuh, the Aztec sun god. See you next week!

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