{"id":616,"date":"2009-11-11T09:39:17","date_gmt":"2009-11-11T09:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/11\/john-allen-muhammad-murderer-a.html"},"modified":"2009-11-11T09:39:17","modified_gmt":"2009-11-11T09:39:17","slug":"john-allen-muhammad-murderer-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/11\/john-allen-muhammad-murderer-a.html","title":{"rendered":"John Allen Muhammad: Murderer and Murdered"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the nation observed the killing of John Muhammad<\/a> last night (Live with Larry King!) I gathered with a small group of students, seminarians, and a Roman Catholic Priest to meet Rev. Caroll Pickett, who was the chaplain for prisoners about to be executed in Texas. \u00c2\u00a0We watched the documentary At the Death House Door<\/a>:\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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After his ministry of being present with 95 inmates in the last day and moments of life, Rev. Carroll Picket has come out against the death penalty. \u00c2\u00a0Rev. Pickett is no\u00c2\u00a0softy. \u00c2\u00a0When he started this work he was for the death penalty. \u00c2\u00a0Hs own grandfather was murdered, and while he was still serving as the pastor of a church two members of his congregation were taken hostage and murdered at the same prison where he would eventually serve as chaplain at the death house. \u00c2\u00a0His views changed over time, and last night he emphatically said that everyone can change, everyone can be redeemed – that includes the inmates, but also himself.\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Rev. Pickett’s reason to be against the death penalty are varied. \u00c2\u00a0One important one is that he believes that some of the men killed are actually innocent and that the death penalty leads to the miscarriage of justice which cannot be taken back if new evidence is uncovered. \u00c2\u00a0Another reason is that it doesn’t solve anything, that the death penalty offers no closure for the families of the victims. \u00c2\u00a0Another reason is that it doesn’t work as a deterrent. \u00c2\u00a0 Finally, Rev. Pickett just doesn’t believe that killing is right ever. \u00c2\u00a0Pickett is no liberal and he doesn’t have a lenient bone in his body – he wants people locked up for life with no\u00c2\u00a0possibility\u00c2\u00a0of parole in solitary confinement. \u00c2\u00a0In his view (and he has seen it) this is a far more threatening and feared penalty among the criminally minded than death. \u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Rev. Pickett ended his talk with asking us the question: Do you know what it says on the cause of death for those executed by the state? \u00c2\u00a0Death by murder. \u00c2\u00a0 John Muhammed deserved to have life in prison, in solitary confinement, without the\u00c2\u00a0possibility\u00c2\u00a0of parole. \u00c2\u00a0Instead, last night while the nation watched, he was murdered.\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
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As the nation observed the killing of John Muhammad last night (Live with Larry King!) I gathered with a small group of students, seminarians, and a Roman Catholic Priest to meet Rev. Caroll Pickett, who was the chaplain for prisoners about to be executed in Texas. \u00c2\u00a0We watched the documentary At the Death House Door:\u00c2\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christians","category-death-penalty-2"],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Allen Muhammad: Murderer and Murdered - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/11\/john-allen-muhammad-murderer-a.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"John Allen Muhammad: Murderer and Murdered - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As the nation observed the killing of John Muhammad last night (Live with Larry King!) I gathered with a small group of students, seminarians, and a Roman Catholic Priest to meet Rev. 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}