This one's for Harry
Preacher to hang for sin burnings
Nigerian high court has sentenced a Lagos preacher to death by hanging for setting fire to members of his congregation, killing one woman.
Emeka Ezeuko, better known as Reverend King, was found guilty on one count of murder and five of attempted murder.
In July last year, he accused six members of his Christian Praying Assembly church of sinning by having extra-marital sex.
He poured petrol over them before setting them alight.
Evil priests and capital punishment. What's not to like?
Nigerian high court has sentenced a Lagos preacher to death by hanging for setting fire to members of his congregation, killing one woman.
Emeka Ezeuko, better known as Reverend King, was found guilty on one count of murder and five of attempted murder.
In July last year, he accused six members of his Christian Praying Assembly church of sinning by having extra-marital sex.
He poured petrol over them before setting them alight.
Evil priests and capital punishment. What's not to like?
posted by Brit at 8:57 AM
5 Comments:
Well, while this story does confirm my argument that there are crimes committed in the name of religion that are inconceivable to a secular mind, the sketchy details also raise a touchier question, especially in regard to my diatribes on capital punishment over at Think of England.
Rev. King sounds as if he may be a Level 2 crazy.
Level 1 is ordinary religious mania. Level 2 is insanity sufficient to diminish responsibility.
I am not a big fan of diminished responsibility arguments. For example, if there is any evidence at all of trying to cover up or disassociate from the crime, I considered responsibility undiminished.
Here's an example of what I consider diminished (to the vanishing point) responsibility:
A man drove his car up the steep steps of the New Jersey Legislature, got out and threw a paper bag at the guards. It contained his mother's head.
Anybody who thinks he is Jesus Christ is at least a candidate for an insanity defense.
Of course, the question would then arise: was he organically insane, or did religion make him so?
And this is the nation that Virgina Episcopalians are turning to for leadership!
NPR has spent all week reviewing the American Catholic Church's position 5 years after the (most recent) sex scandal was revealed.
I missed all of it, except a priceless moment tonight, in which someone said that the church had made a mistake in its original reaction to the revelations.
Damned (no doubt) if I can figure out how an institution with a divine and unique authority to give moral instruction can make that kind of mistake.
What is perhaps more baffling is the characterization of an institutional policy spanning at least a decade as "its original reaction."
Tis is the Catholic church we're talking about Skipper. It took them 300 years to admit that Galileo was right. They have raised the art of retrodiction to an apex, they will never pronounce on a matter until experience and time have proven the right path beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's how they manage to stay "infallible".
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