New DPIC Podcast: Evangelical Pastor Rich Nathan Discusses How a ​“Culture of Life” Informs His Opposition to the Death Penalty

In the September 2023 episode of Discussions with DPIC, Anne Holsinger, Managing Director of DPIC, speaks with Pastor Rich Nathan (pic­tured), found­ing pas­tor of Vineyard Columbus, an evan­gel­i­cal Christian church based in Ohio. Mr. Nathan shares how reli­gious teach­ings inform his posi­tion on the death penal­ty. 

​“For me, the oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has just been a nat­ur­al exten­sion of our pro-life posi­tion of build­ing an inclu­sive soci­ety, a soci­ety that wel­comes every­one into the human fam­i­ly and says. ​‘Listen, your worth is not depen­dent on whether some­body wants you or not.’ God’s giv­en you human dig­ni­ty, God’s giv­ing you worth, and so we just want to stand on the side of the Lord,” says Mr. Nathan. 

Mr. Nathan explains that at the core of the pro-life belief is that the ​“the right to life isn’t earned, so that it could be for­feit­ed, but it’s a gift from God and it’s found­ed on God’s image. So our pro-life posi­tion regard­ing the inher­ent worth of every human being from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death applies to every­one … whether you’re in the womb or you’re already born, or you are severe­ly dis­abled or insti­tu­tion­al­ized due to Alzheimer’s or you’re con­vict­ed of mur­der, the Bible invites us to imag­ine a world that is as inclu­sive as possible.” 

Evangelicals, and their reli­gious lead­ers, have influ­en­tial roles in the death penal­ty debate. Mr. Nathan empha­sizes that evan­gel­i­cals, as ​“Bible peo­ple,” should edu­cate oth­ers on bib­li­cal teach­ings regard­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. He pro­vides the infa­mous ​“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” pas­sage as exam­ple, clar­i­fy­ing that ​“vir­tu­al­ly all schol­ars are agreed that this was nev­er meant to be prac­tice.” Instead, the pas­sage was ​“was meant to be a lim­i­ta­tion on vengeance, said Mr. Nathan, “…in its actu­al con­text, it’s actu­al­ly bent towards mer­cy, and towards the mar­gin­al­ized.” 

The human cost of the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem does not end when the pris­on­er is exe­cut­ed because cor­rec­tion­al staff, jurors, wit­ness­es, exe­cu­tion­er, and oth­er crim­i­nal legal staff are involved in the process. Mr. Nathan express­es con­cern, stat­ing: ​“If you’re a fol­low­er of Jesus, and you’re sen­si­tive to … what hap­pens to oth­er peo­ple’s hearts? What hap­pens to their souls by putting anoth­er human being to death? That’s some­thing we want to pro­tect peo­ple from. And so, again, it’s not only a con­cern for those con­vict­ed, it is that, but it’s also con­cern for every­one who has to oper­ate in a sys­tem like that.” 

With an abo­li­tion bill cur­rent­ly in Ohio’s leg­is­la­ture, Mr. Nathan encour­ages pro-life leg­is­la­tors to ​“be con­sis­tent­ly pro-life. You’ve tak­en a coura­geous stand to stand for the unborn, when there’s lots of soci­etal pres­sure to do oth­er­wise. I just want to encour­age you to … have the same courage regard­ing peo­ple at the oth­er end of life. Let’s build a soci­ety. Let’s build a cul­ture of life in America.”