When Feelings Matter in Christian Discipleship

by Dr Leong Tien Fock

The recent passing of the Syariah Criminal Offences Bill in the Terengganu State Assembly has evoked many reactions. This is only to be expected in multiracial and multireligious Malaysia. But one particular reaction caught my attention. Someone wrote to the online newspaper Malaysiakini (15 July 2002) questioning why there is such a hoohah over this Islamic bill (which prescribes the death penalty for adultery and apostasy) when the secular laws of Malaysia already uphold the death penalty. He called for the abolition of the death penalty altogether. What caught my attention is his claim that Christianity does not condone even the existing death penalty.

Since in Malaysia the death penalty applies primarily to convicted murderers and their equivalent, such as drug traffickers, he is claiming that Christianity does not condone the death penalty for even murder. Christianity certainly does not condone the death penalty for adultery or apostasy. But what about murder?

Many Christians claim that the death penalty, even for murder, is out-of-date. Or is it? In the Old Testament, the basis for the death penalty for murder is spelled out in Gen 9:6: "Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For [because] in the image of God He made man" (NASB). Thus for a Christian to say that the death penalty for murder is out-of-date is to say that human beings are no longer made in the image of God. No sensible Christian will affirm this.

Why then do many Christians oppose the death penalty for murder? They abhor it. They oppose it based on how they feel towards it, not based on what the Bible says. Some may deny that they oppose it based on feelings. They may claim that it is based on reason, the reason being that a human life is precious, perhaps even going so far to spell out that human beings are made in the image of God. So they are reasoning that the death penalty for murder is wrong because a human life (that of the criminal) is precious. But the Bible is reasoning that the death penalty for murder is right precisely because a human life (that of the victim) is precious, in fact sacred and priceless! A criminal must pay for his crime. What is the just payment for deliberately killing a being made in the image of God? The murderer’s own priceless life.

So unless a Christian claims that his own reasoning is above that of the Word of God or that his own wisdom is higher than that of God, his opposition to the death penalty for murder comes basically from his emotional discomfort towards it. In other words, his God-given conscience conflicts with the God-inspired Scripture. In pre-modern times, the individual as well as the collective conscience of even non-believers agreed with the Bible on the death penalty for murder. If we affirm that the Bible is indeed the standard for our beliefs and behaviour we have to say that the conscience of even Christians have been corrupted.

Paul exhorts Christians to stop being conformed to this world but instead keep on being transformed by the renewing of their mind (Rom 12:2). In the Bible the "mind" is not just the seat of reasoning but also the seat of feeling. Thus to renew our mind is not just about changing what we think about an issue but also how we feel towards it. Whatever the Bible says is wrong, such as greed, but we do not feel it is wrong, our mind needs renewal. Whatever the Bible says is right, such as the death penalty for murder, but we feel it is wrong, our mind needs renewal.

Our mind is an integrated whole. Wrong feelings concerning seemingly isolated issues reveal a corrupted mind. And it can lead to tangible and serious consequences. For instance, a wrong feeling towards the death penalty is rooted in a wrong feeling towards the sacredness of human life as well as a wrong feeling towards the severity of divine justice. These wrong feelings will in one way or another affect how we treat people. And how we treat people will have long term, if not also short term, consequences on our own welfare. We may mistreat people without realizing it; but we still reap what we sow. This in turn will have consequences on the welfare of the people we love, be they our parents, spouse or children.

My concern here is not that Christians go out and support the death penalty for murder. I have used the case of a Christian’s discomfort towards the death penalty for murder to highlight a very serious challenge to Christian discipleship today. Christian discipleship is about Christ’s followers learning to observe, in every area of their lives, all that He has commanded them (Matt 28:20). But in our daily lives, how we feel towards biblical teachings most often overrides what we profess. Thus Christian discipleship will be hindered when we do not feel the sacredness of human life (what is right) and the sinfulness of human greed (what is wrong). This may lead to the feeling that the Bible is not the absolute standard for beliefs and behaviour. Christian discipleship is then crippled.

There needs to be a paradigm shift in how we "do ministry" in the contemporary world. Disciple-making cannot be the same as when even non-believers supported the death penalty for murder as well as abhorred greed even in business. What more when there are Christians who feel (not necessarily profess) that the Bible cannot be accepted as authoritative over every area of a Christian’s life? We cannot "do ministry" as if we were still in the pre-modern world.

We need to consider the unseen challenges involved when a Christian decides to stop being conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of his mind. I have just highlighted one such challenge. Only then can we know how to pray and how to apply God’s Word in our own discipleship and then in our disciple-making.

Dr Leong Tien Fock is Research coordinator of Malaysia Campus Crusade for Christ.