Claiborne - Executing Grace

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This compelling and thoughtful book is a must-read for people of faith who have in many ways been painfully silent about excessive punishment in America. Scripture, history, and conviction make Shane Claibornes writing essential for anyone serious about grace and mercy.

Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

Shane is my good friend. I love and respect him deeply, and I am so glad he wrote this book. I wish the whole Church would read it. As Christians, we know we believe in grace, but we must struggle with what that means when it comes to the death penalty, especially when we have a system that is as broken as ours is. So please read Executing Grace with an open mind and consider if it might be time for us to live without the death penalty. Might it be time for us to repent and turn from death to life?

John Perkins, author of Let Justice Roll Down

The best book on the death penalty since Dead Man Walking.

John Dear, author of A Persistent Peace

I recommend this clear and passionate book to all who want to follow Jesus, historys most famous victim of state violence.

Jim Wallis, author of Gods Politics

Shane Claiborne may well join the ranks of Rachel Carson and John Howard Griffinstorytellers whove pricked the conscience of our nation and nudged us toward a more perfect union.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, author of Strangers at My Door

Claiborne will not let us off the hook about the radicality of Gods grace. Nor will he look away from the social reality of barbarism masquerading as legality. One can only hope this vigorous, inescapable book will make the difference.

Walter Brueggemann, author of Prophetic Imagination

Intelligent, compassionate, and truly, truly important, by one of the most thoughtful moral voices alive today.

Brian D. McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christianity

Executing Grace may be the best book on the death penalty. An indispensable work.

David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Faith and Public Life at Mercer University

Powerful, urgent, and right. Solidly biblical and full of wrenchingly gripping stories; every Christian should read it.

Ronald J. Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger

Timely, relevant, inspiring, and compelling!

Brenda Salter McNeil, author of Roadmap to Reconciliation

Extraordinary. Shane delivers a heavy blow to the death machine. Read it at your own risk: you wont be the same when youre done.

Michael T. McRay, author of Where the River Bends

Should be regarded as a warning to those becoming involved in American ceremonial killings. In the middle of the night its just too late to reach out and blame it on the system.

Ron McAndrew, CPM Prison and Jail Consultant

This book will help lead to the abolition of the death penalty. I ask any Christian who promotes the death penalty to read this book. Best book on the death penalty I have read in the thirty years I have been working to abolish it.

Bill Pelke, president of Journey of Hope... From Violence to Healing

With razor-sharp insight, Claiborne rightly divides the Word with the compelling conclusion that our waning American love for executions cannot be attributed to the God of grace and mercy.

Dale Recinella, Catholic Correctional Chaplain in Floridas Death Row and Solitary Confinement

Executing Grace is about remembering our humanity in the midst of a culture of death. With no shortcuts or easy answers, Shane has called us to wrestle with capital punishment. An entire generation of evangelicals will find in this work the radical grip of grace.

Rev. Dr. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition

Unless otherwise noted, all biblical quotations are taken from the NIV Compact Reference, copyright 1989, Zondervan.

EXECUTING GRACE. Copyright 2016 by Shane Claiborne. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollins website: http://www.harpercollins.com

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Claiborne, Shane, author.

Title: Executing grace : how the death penalty killed Jesus and why its killing us / Shane Claiborne.

Description: San Francisco : HarperOne, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015042836 (print) | LCCN 2015048394 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062347374 (paperback)

EPub Edition May 2016 ISBN 9780062347367

Subjects: LCSH: Capital punishmentReligious aspectsChristianity. | Capital punishmentUnited States. | Executions and executionersUnited States. | Restorative justiceUnited States. | PunishmentUnited States. | BISAC: RELIGION / Christian Life / Social Issues. | RELIGION / Spirituality. | LAW / Criminal Law / Sentencing.

Classification: LCC HV8694 .C53 2016 (print) | LCC HV8694 (ebook) | DDC 261.8/33660973dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042836

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At first I thought that I was obsessed with death. But then I realized that I am obsessed with grace.

T here are some fourteen thousand books written on the death penalty, and I didnt want to write another one of those.

One of my favorite writers once told me, Dont write unless you cannot not write. Make sure it is a fire in your bones, a passion that cannot be contained.

This book chose me.

Growing up, I never questioned the rightness of the death penalty. I was raised in the heart of the Bible Belt, and capital punishment seemed to be pretty clearly ordained by God. I can remember arguing a few liberals into the ground over it. On one occasion, I even argued that homosexuality was a crime punishable by deathand I had verses to back it up.

Im not proud of that past. But it gives me some compassion for others who still feel the same way I did. Almost every day I get e-mails and letters from folks who have been passionately in favor of the death penalty and are rethinking things. I had one fellow in Texas confess to me, I want you to know, Im a redneck. Im a gun-totin, pickup-drivin, tobacco-chewin, whisky-drinkin backwoods redneck. Then he went on, But Ive been reading your stuff. And it has messed me up. Pray for me. Im a recovering redneck now. People change. Convictions change. So I want you to know that Im not writing this book from a place of self-righteous indignation. Im not on a soapbox. Im a bit of a recovering redneck myself. So dont worry about me getting all up in your face.