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Mr. Marsh wasn't referring to Bush's ringing defense of faith-based organizations in addressing poverty and other social problems, or his crucial and timely defense of the Christian drug counseling and treatment organization Teen Challenge, when it was under legal and bureaucratic assault. These might plausibly count as attempts to "bring Jesus into the public square" in a responsible manner.

No, the proof offered for Mr. Bush's trivializing of Jesus is his stance on the death penalty: "If Bush allowed 'the philosophy of Jesus' to permeate his political views, he might begin to see the contradictions between Christ-centered forgiveness and the Texas death-row massacre he proudly oversees."

Given the rather hysterical rhetoric (massacre!) one might conclude that it would be impossible for a Christian to be serious about taking "the philosophy of Jesus" into the public square and still favor the death penalty. But what about someone who says something like this?

The same divine law which forbids the killing of a human being allows certain exceptions as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when he gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time. Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, "Thou shall not kill," to wage war at God's bidding, or for the representatives of the State's authority to put criminals to death, according to law or the rule of rational justice.

Or what about this:

[B]oth divine and human laws command such like sinners be put to death. … Nevertheless, the judge puts this into effect, not out of hatred for the sinners, but out of the love of charity, by reason of which he prefers the public good to the life of the individual. Moreover, the death penalty inflicted by the judge profits the sinner, if he be converted, unto the expiation of his crime; and, if he be not converted, it profits so as to put an end to the sin, because the sinner is thus deprived of the power to sin any more.

Here are two characters whose views are a tad different from Mr. Marsh's, at least on the moral permissibility of capital punishment. It is fair to say that Augustine and Aquinas thought a little bit on what it meant to take "the philosophy of Jesus" into the public square. But—like Governor Bush, and unlike Marsh—they didn't perceive any fundamental incompatibility between a public official's commitment to "Christ-centered forgiveness" and his belief in capital punishment.

For the sake of ecumenical balance, it is worth pointing out that even the early Anabaptists didn't speak so uncharitably of the civil magistrate's application of the death penalty as Mr. Marsh speaks of Bush. Consider, for example, this passage from the Schleitheim Articles:

Concerning the sword we have reached the following agreement. The sword is ordained by God outside the perfection of Christ. It punishes and kills people and protects and defends the good. In the law the sword is established to punish and to kill the wicked, and secular authorities are established to use it.

I offer these classic Christian texts simply as examples of the overwhelming moral-theological consensus of the church. As Steven A. Long says in his outstanding article, "Evangelium Vitae, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Death Penalty" (The Thomist, Vol. 63, No. 4 [1999], pp. 511-52), "It is nearly the unanimous opinion of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church that the death penalty is morally licit, and the teaching of past popes (and numerous catechisms) that this penalty is essentially just (and even that its validity is not subject to cultural variation)." Similarly, Oliver O'Donovan has noted that the moral-theological tradition of the Church is "almost unanimously permissive of the death penalty" (O'Donovan, "The Death Penalty in Evangelium Vitae," in Ecumenical Ventures in Ethics, p. 219). George Bush stands foursquare within that tradition.

In his apparent judgment that a belief in "Christ-centered forgiveness" is radically incompatible with the application of the death penalty, it is Marsh, not Bush, who takes a stand outside that moral-theological tradition. You might even say that Gov. Bush is far more ecumenical on this issue—if the moral- theological tradition of the church is to count for something—than Mr. Marsh.

Now, Mr. Marsh is entirely free to dissent from the Christian tradition on capital punishment. (One clever way to pull this off would be to call a "change" or a "contradiction" in the teaching a "development," which seems to be the strategy of Pope John Paul II.) But wouldn't a basic respect for the "near unanimous" theological moral consensus of the church call for a more responsible, charitable, less mean-spirited, and less-partisan attack on a Christian politician who stands firmly within it?

If Mr. Marsh can't resist the "prophetic" urge to venture into the realm of partisan politics, perhaps he can employ his rhetorical skills attacking politicians who advocate and promote policies that are more clearly at odds with the Church's moral-theological tradition. You know you are living in a morally topsy-turvy world when one of the candidates for president, a professing Christian, stands up foursquare for the legalization of infanticide (partial birth abortion), and yet the primary example of a bad Christian political witness is that of the opposing candidate because he endorses the death penalty for cold-blooded murderers!

Keith Pavlischek
Fellow, Center for Public Justice
Washington. D.C.

Quite apart from geography, the problem is proselytism itself, defined as aggressively seeking to draw members from one Christian community to another. This practice necessarily implies denial of the other community as a locus of grace and salvation.

As an Orthodox Christian, I believe that there is another way. It is a way which places the accent on truth as love for Christ and love for the brethren, yet without compromising the essential intellectual contour of the witness of the New Testament—about God, humanity, salvation, gospel, church, and sacraments. For the sake of him who said, "Love one another as I have loved you," I will continue to announce and explain the fullness of the gospel as I understand it, but will not secretly press for the conversion of other Christians to Orthodoxy. I say to them: you are part of the larger family; let us dialogue in love and freedom of the Spirit without mutual pressures and expectations of victory; let us listen to one another; let us learn from and enrich each other, and let the risen Christ by the power of his Spirit convert us all to the wholeness of his life and truth.

In fact I would say to individuals thinking of conversion: please, do not leave your community and convert to Orthodoxy unless you truly hear the Spirit's call from within and are doing so in love for Orthodoxy and your present community. Frankly, in my most spiritually lucid moments, I believe that a similar Christian approach applies to all people on this earth.

Fr. Ted Stylianopoulos
Needham, Mass.

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