The Search for God’s Opinion

“And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man.” (Bible: Genesis 9:5-6)

When one ponders the image of God, and what is God’s connection with worldly happenings, we must first bring ourselves into the shoes of the one being asked. In the book Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen Prejean writes about her experiences as a spiritual councilor to death row inmate Elmo Patrick Sonnier in Angola Prison in Louisiana. Patrick Sonnier was tired, convicted and sentenced to death in the electric chair for his involvement in the rape and murder of two of teenagers. Sister Prejean becomes involved with Sonnier after corresponding with him, and offers to meet to give him spiritual guidance. Prejean supports Sonnier through his trials of guilt and repentance, as she

This is a prime example of different ideologies conflicted over the interpretation of words, much like the on-going American battle over the right to bear arms. Though the Second Amendment does not specify that Americans may carry and possess firearms, it is widely argued that that is what the words imply. This type of institutionalized banter had grown within various institutions and has become a way of life. Ignorance is prevalent within such States of the Americas and continues to be a cause of ‘social sin’ and ‘collective blindness’. Social sin is the commission of sins by society at large, but without knowing that it is fundamentally wrong or that they are committing sin. As in Louisiana, the criminal justice system believes that the death penalty is an effective deterrent to violent crime, but rather it is not due to the fact that most violent offenders in that jurisdiction are either illiterate, ignorant, poor or all three (Prejean: Pg. 116-117). Within the justice system, and the mechanisms of justice that exist therein, the institutionalized fear of criminals has caused many Christian Americans to favour the death

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