Does the government have the moral authority to inflict capital punishment?
Contrary to what many suppose, there is not a consensus in the Christian community on the morality of capital punishment. Although a majority of evangelicals probably endorse CP, at least in the case of premeditated murder, a significant minority oppose it. For example, representatives of the American Baptist Convention adopted this resolution in 1960 concerning CP: “Because the Christian believes in the inherent worth of human personality and in the unceasing availability of God’s mercy, forgiveness, and redemptive power, and Because the Christian wholeheartedly supports the emphasis in modern penology upon the process of creative, redemptive rehabilitation rather than on punishment and primitive retribution, and Because the deterrent effects of capital punishment are not supported by available evidence, and Because the death penalty tends to brutalize the human spirit and the society which condones it, and Because human agencies of legal justice are fallible, permitting the possibili
