In an effort to save space, I'm not going to quote the above post and respond to it point-by-point; I'll just say what I think in response to it in as brief a space as I can.

I think one point where we fundamentally differ is what human government is for. My interpretation of Romans 13 is that the government is here to a) protect us from criminals and b) endorse right over wrong. Most other people seem to agree on a); however, we disagree on how b) should work. Some say b) means meteing out on wrongdoers a sentence equal to their wrongdoing; eye for eye, based on the principle of payback justice. I, on the other hand, say b) means that we try to make every citizen of the country as "good" as we possibly can; I believe the purpose of the prison system should be rehabilitation, not punishment.

This means that I am also starkly against those who say "let's throw murderers in jail for life because they'll suffer more that way". My DP views stretch to my views on the whole law enforcement system. I'm one of those who stands for criminals' rights (yes, I think they have rights, at least as much as any other human being has rights under human law). I'm one of those who believes a prison should not be a squalid, disgusting, painful place to be but a businesslike, supportive environment of healing; *not* a paradise, *not* a place you'd want to stay forever, but a place that's focused on helping the criminal change for the better, not on beating him down. (Changing and being encouraged to change is, yes, a very unpleasant process in and of itself already; that is the natural consequence of sin. Ask people who've been through rehab clinics, even the nicer ones.)

There are those who'd say this would only encourage criminals; I believe there was someone who said he'd like to live in Europe because then he could shoot someone and get free meals for the rest of his life.

While they have a point, albeit one based on what I would call a very cynical, one-sided view of human nature (then again, they'd accuse me of having a very optimistic, one-sided view of human nature, so we're even), just from a pragmatic standpoint I'd like to note that the US criminal justice system is probably the most punishing in the First World, yet our violent crime rates are also the worst in the First World. (Most countries in the Second or Third World with crime rates worse than ours also have justice systems more punitive than ours. Check out Nicaragua or the PRC or Iraq.) Seems to me that, valid as that plan for free meals may be, fewer people in Europe take that bet than in the US. And, if you stop to think about it, our prison system probably is responsible for creating more hardened criminals than it can effectively put away; few who come out of our prison systems come out rehabilitated, and we're steadily running out of room to hold the ones who *don't* come out.

And before you say anything, Dave, I'm a native-born US citizen and I don't even have any *ancestors* from Europe. :)

And, one more thing, just to clarify, my perhaps overly-optimistic POV is based on just two ideas:

1) People can change.

2) People are valuable enough that we should give them a chance to change (as far as it's in our power).

BTW, I don't see how Jesus would've phrased the "judge not lest you be judged" as a threat if that's what he meant. I don't think he meant, "You can't judge 'cause you're not saved yet, but once you're saved, go to town."

God *doesn't* judge us in the strict sense of "judge". He judges us *differently*; he judges Jesus in our place. There's no action any of us took to become saved; we just accepted Jesus' sacrifice. None of us has the right to judge anyone by his or her sins, because none of us are going to be. All we can judge or discern is whether someone is saved and whether someone is fit to be a spiritual partner or leader for us, as Paul said. But notice he never advocated the Church taking it upon itself to administer capital punishment to anyone. All he said was that if someone is not of Christ she should not be in the Church. She is outside the Church's protection and the Church's jurisdiction, and belongs to the world. (The idea was that Christians were expected not to press suit against other Christians when crimes were committed against them; only non-Christians without the Spirit were to be given over to the world's courts. This is, sadly, a principle many Christians seem to be lacking in.)

You could make the argument that, well, in that case, the world says McVeigh should die and that's that. But (and this is a whole other issue) I think that in a democratic society, I have the duty and the right to participate in the society's lawmaking, *especially* as a Christian; though McVeigh was not in the Church, he *was* in a society that I am a part of, and as a part of that society I have the right and the duty to express and even to fight for my opinion regarding what should be done to him based on God's Word. And my opinion is that while I may be allowed to judge him and say, "No, he is not part of the Church and should not be treated as such", I, and we as a society, are *not* allowed to judge him and say, "Because of his sins he deserves to receive punishment and be sent to Hell."

Might I add that I see only a rhetorical difference between condemning to Hell and condemning the unsaved to death. True, it wasn't our judgment that determines his eternal destiny, but it was our judgment that denied him an opportunity to repent. And the Bible tells us that we will be held accountable for those who failed to receive the Gospel as a result of our (in)actions; their blood is on our hands. In fact, I find it interesting that on the one hand you say that you see nothing wrong with assuming that his death led to damnation but on the other hand you say we have no responsibility for what awaits him after death, even though we were the agents of that death.

Look, here's what I think I'm permitted, just for myself: I'm permitted to say that McVeigh did many, many things that were wrong. I'm permitted to say that these things are worth the fires of Hell. I'm permitted to say that *but for* the saving grace of Jesus Christ he would have no destiny but Hell.

But I am *not* permitted, in the light of God's mercy to me, to say that, given two possible outcomes, McVeigh's salvation or his damnation, that his damnation is the preferable possibility. Nor do I think I could conscience myself going along with steps to make the latter possibility the more probable one. That's my interpretation of "judge not". God didn't see my damnation as the preferable possibility, and neither should I see anyone's damnation.

While I certainly don't think this was everyone's attitude, I have seen a distressing amount of that attitude about Hell, not only here on the board but elsewhere. (I remember someone saying "good riddance". I can only reply that he may be rid from this world and from your life, but he isn't rid from existence, nor from the consciousness and the love of God, and the screams of anguish of a child of God will be ringing through the universe for eternity, in some measure as a result of our decisions. Try as I might, I find it hard to take joy from that, when I really think about it. This is why I think saying "Go to Hell" is one of the worst things you can ever say to anybody, worse than "F*** you"; it means more.)

I sympathize; I understand how they feel and I wouldn't argue with their emotions, *especially* those of the victims; I've gone through far less in my life and still felt the rage against another person, the desire to see someone burn. But I don't think it's right. Ultimately it's between them and God, of course, but I still don't think it's right. Nor is it good, for anybody; no one who really thought about and understood what Hell meant could gain any closure or comfort from the idea that McVeigh had gone there. No one who thought the way I do, anyway.

Ar"has too much sinners' blood on his hands already to want any more"thur