By David Tieche
The thing I remember most about the day that Timothy McVeigh was executed by the U.S. government via lethal injection in 2001? There wasn’t much to see.
The place where it happened, Terre Haute, Indiana, is an unremarkable Midwestern town. Before the execution, probably the most interesting thing to happen in Terre Haute was Larry Bird playing college ball.
The building where it happened, the United States Penitentiary, is an unremarkable red brick structure off State Route 63. It looked like the crayon factory near my grandparents’ home in northern Ohio, only with barbed wire and guard towers.
David Tieche is a teaching pastor at Westgate Church, co-host of the Two Gen X Dads podcast, and a YouVersion content partner.
I was there trying to cover the execution of the Oklahoma City bomber as a freelance journalist, and a recent college grad.
At the time, officials expected a throng to descend on the grounds. But there wasn’t much to see there either. No massive crowds of protestors. I remember maybe 150 people on one side, protesting the execution in principle. Maybe 50 people on the other side, in favor of it. The journalists covering the event outnumbered them all.
THE DEATH CHAMBER
The execution happened near the rear of the facility, in a small room called the death chamber that was outfitted with large windows so witnesses could watch.
There were 24 people present: Ten members of the media, 10 survivors and family members of victims chosen by lottery, McVeigh’s lawyer, and three others he’d chosen. Inside the actual room was only McVeigh, strapped to a black gurney; the prison warden; a US Marshal; and the medical team that administered the injection.
Some 650 miles away, in a secure Federal Bureau of Prisons building in Oklahoma City, approximately 230 family members and survivors gathered to watch a live feed. It was transmitted over secure and encrypted lines directly from the death chamber in Terre Haute.
None of us gathered outside this building could see anything.
The whole process took less than 15 minutes. The warden gave a public statement outside roughly 30 minutes later to the gathered media, confirming that McVeigh was dead.
That was it.
Really, nothing to see.
MODERN DAY PARALLELS
Last week, the Pentagon announced that Nidal Hasan will be executed by firing squad at Fort Hood on Dec. 3, 2026 at 1 p.m.
On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan, then an Army psychiatrist, opened fire at Fort Hood, killing 12 soldiers and one civilian before he was shot, severely wounded and arrested. He was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder and sentenced to death in 2013.
Hasan said it was an effort to stop the soldiers from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims, and he made almost no effort to defend himself at trial.
Until a few days ago, the plan was for Hasan’s execution to be livestreamed for the global public to see.
Back in 2001, the feed of McVeigh’s execution was encrypted and secure. It had to be, legally. Federal regulations strictly prohibited the recording or public broadcasting of executions.
But why?
A DEATH SPECTACLE
Federal regulations aimed to prevent executions from becoming public spectacles or media events.
The attorney general at the time, John Ashcroft, reiterated this, saying, “As an American who cares about our culture, I want to restrict a mass murderer’s access to the public podium.”
The day before McVeigh’s execution, the Supreme Court refused, without comment, a request to videotape the execution. The Justice Department argued that recording would sensationalize the execution and raise privacy concerns. In a separate case, the prison’s warden warned that broadcasting executions turns them into “sport,” dehumanizing everyone involved.
Officials made the case, in different ways, that turning an execution into something the public could watch would degrade … all of us.
Right now, much of the debate online centers on the death penalty itself.
But I think Christians should ask a different question first: What would watching this have done to our souls?
It’s a question many of the early Church Fathers asked, as well.
Athenagoras of Athens (c. AD 177)
Athenagoras, a skilled philosopher and defender of Christian thought, argued that Christians must avoid watching executions because witnessing a killing risks moral complicity and compromise. His immediate concern wasn’t a legal or moral argument for abolishing capital punishment, but deep concern for the effects of viewing and participating in public killings on Christians.
Tertullian (c. AD 200–220)
Tertullian, a North African theologian from Carthage, argued that Christians should not hold public offices requiring them to condemn or execute people.
The Apostolic Tradition (traditionally attributed to Hippolytus, early 200s AD)
This manual for people preparing for baptism requires soldiers not to kill, even if ordered, and rejects certain military and governmental roles as incompatible with entry into the Christian community.
Lactantius (c. AD 304–313)
Lactantius maintains that God's prohibition against killing also applies to forms of killing that society considers perfectly legal, including warfare and judicial executions. He writes, “It is always unlawful to put to death a man, whom God willed to be a sacred animal." Perhaps most surprisingly to modern readers, he also argues that even bringing a capital charge that will result in someone receiving the death penalty is morally wrong.
Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430)
Augustine argues that God's commandment against killing admits exceptions when the killing is commanded by God or legitimately exercised by public authorities. But his later writings reveal the other side of Augustine. Writing to a Roman official named Donatus about people who had committed violent acts against Christians, Augustine asks him not to impose the death penalty. "We beg you ... to forget that you have the power of capital punishment." Augustine then explains that Christians desire the offenders' repentance, not their execution.
I want to be clear: These sources do not establish that every Christian in the first three centuries opposed capital punishment. But rigorous opposition to Christian participation in judicial killing was a substantial strand of early Christian thought.
Reading these primary sources, I was struck by a deep disconnect between the Church Fathers' theology and what I see today.
First, there was a deep concern with non-retaliation. This trait was central to how early Christians understood and presented their faith. In a world of Roman power and cruelty, Christians were to be marked by forgiveness and the meekness of Christ.
Second, there was a deep concern about how retaliation, vengeance and violence changes us. The emphasis was, “This will malform us into people who don’t look like or live out the Way of Jesus.”
One example I found shocking: This sentiment is so strong that Augustine warns Donatus that Christians may stop reporting violent crimes if reporting them results in someone being put to death.
Today, I hear Christians ask whether an execution is deserved. Few seem to be asking what cheering for such a thing reveals about our faithfulness to the Way of Jesus.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I went to the Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute 25 years ago hoping to write a story that would provide some insight.
But there was nothing to see.
I just remember the heavy, somber sense of sadness from everyone. Even just that – just knowing that a mass murderer had been executed a short distance away from me – stayed with me.
I didn’t even see anything. And I’m very glad I didn’t.
Early Church Fathers (and other thinkers through the ages) have wrestled with this issue, and have said we should approach the death penalty by asking first what it does to our souls.
We also should take the time as the execution is about to take place praying for the families of the 13 victims. Praying for Hasan’s repentance. And reflecting on these two verses:
EZEKIEL 33:11
As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.
ROMANS 12:19
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.
If God doesn’t delight in Hasan’s death, Christians shouldn’t make it a news spectacle or worse, entertainment. And if vengeance belongs to God, then bloodthirst is off-limits, too. That frees us to want what God wants: not Hasan’s death, but his repentance.
In the end, we pray the same prayer our brothers and sisters have prayed for centuries.
“Come, Lord Jesus”
