September 3, of former Presbyterian pastor Paul Hill, the first American to be put to death for anti-abortion violence.
As the debate within the Christian community continued, Hill supporters traveled to Florida State Prison to protest the execution of a man they declared a hero for the 1994 shooting of Pensacola doctor John Britton and his escort, retired Air Force officer James Barrett.
"I stand with him as a righteous man," said Rev. Michael Bray, a Jacksonville Lutheran minister, in an interview with The Alligator newspaper.
"He should be honored rather than executed," Bray was quoted as saying, referring to pro-life activists’ concern about what they see as the "murder" of tens of thousands of unborn children in the U.S. Neither Hill’s family nor the victims" relatives were among the 24 execution witnesses, reporters said. Hill, 49, reportedly went to the execution chamber without regret or remorse and suggested he would kill more abortionists if given the opportunity.
FORCE
"If you believe abortion is a lethal force, you should oppose the force and do what you have to do to stop it," Hill said. "May God help you to protect the unborn as you would want to be protected."
He also thanked "the Lord Jesus Christ for saving me from my sins and enabling me to persevere. I thank the Lord for my loving parents, my loving sisters. I also thank the Lord for giving me an excellent wife and three wonderful children, " a reference to his 18- year-old son and two daughters, ages 15 and 13.
As Hill ended his final statement, Florida State Prison Warden Joe Thompson was seen giving the order to begin the lethal injection taking out the life of the former church minister.
THUNDER
"Ominous dark clouds and loud clashes of lightning bolted across the sky just minutes after Hill was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m. – a sign from God, his supporters said," reported Nicole Janok from the Alligator.
"Abortion doctors commit premeditated, cold-blooded murder 10 or 20 times a day," the Rev. David Trosch, a Roman Catholic priest from Mobile, Ala, told the Orlando Sentinel newspaper. "What Paul Hill did was absolutely justified," he reportedly said.
Not everyone agreed. The President of the Southern Baptist Seminary, Albert Mohler, said that "Hill’s monumental moral error came when he assumed the roles of judge, jury, and executioner in killing Dr. Britton and his escort."
BIBLE
In a statement released on Crosswalk.com, a respected Christian news website, Mohler noted that "the Bible instructs Christians to "be subject to the governing authorities." in Romans 13:1.
"Christians are not to take the law into their own hands. The killing of unborn human infants is murder–but so was Paul Hill’s killing of John Britton and James Barrett," he argued.
But Mohler stressed that "Hill was certainly correct to call abortion the murder of an innocent unborn human life." Those who argue otherwise must claim that the unborn baby is less than fully human. Of course, this is the logic of the pro-abortion movement and of the U. S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion."
PROTESTS
Bob Brady, a 67 year old anti-abortion activist who still protests weekly in Pensacola where the shots were fired, seemed to agree with the assessment of Mohler and other Evangelical Christians. Hill was "dead wrong" in his call for more violence, Brady told the Orlando Sentinel.
"We’re against violence inside the clinic, which is what abortion is about," said Brady of Fort Walton Beach. "But we’re also against violence outside the clinics, the kind of vigilantism that Paul Hill represents."
Governor Jeb Bush denied last- minute appeals from those urging that Hill’s sentence be commuted to life in prison, reports said, apparently "to avoid the risk of triggering a new wave of clinic violence."
"INHUMAN"
Amnesty International and other human rights organizations as well as the Vatican have often criticized the United States for allowing the death penalty, calling it "inhuman" and "irreversible."
The Rev. Fred Morris, executive director of the Florida Council of Churches, told the Orlando Sentinel his group’s opposition to the Hill execution comes from a different direction.
"We’re opposed to it for two reasons," he said. "We’re opposed to the death penalty, period. We don’t think it solves anything. In this particular case, the execution will make him a symbolic martyr for those people who support his cause." He warned the execution will likely lead to more violence.
"The state of Florida executed Paul Hill last night, thus putting an end to his life, but not to the controversy he came to represent," observed Mohler.
