Content area
Full Text
The death penalty remains a controversial issue. Since many practitioners and students base their opinions of capital punishment on their religious beliefs and/or the Bible, knowledge of the Bible's content on these issues is of value for teachers of criminal justice. People often cite specific verses of the Bible to justify a particular position on capital punishment, but these passages are frequently acontextual, failing to consider the significance of the passages containing these verses or the Bible as an entire document. The purpose of this paper is a review of the Bible on the subject of the death penalty.
The death penalty remains a controversial ideological issue in criminal justice. Teaching the ideological or ethical ideas surrounding the death penalty can be difficult, even for the most experienced of criminal justice educators. Most teachers have heard "an eye for an eye," or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," quoted as justification for a particular position on capital punishment. Criminal justice professors often downplay or ignore the significance of religion as the source of policy orientations. Whether out of ignorance of the subject matter, personal discomfort, or ideological difference, this choice may be unwise since according to the most recent Gallup survey approximately ninety percent of Americans indicated a religious belief of some kind (Gallup 1998). In addition, sixty-seven percent of people said they were members of a church or synagogue, and sixty-one percent considered religion very important in their lives. Of those indicating a religious belief, eighty-seven percent identified with the major Christian denominations, including: Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Mormons, Eastern Orthodoxies, and others. The pollsters say that these numbers have been consistent over the past thirty years.
These statistics and the previously described classroom situation demonstrate the relevance of religion to an informed intellectual discussion of the death penalty. Interestingly, both supporters and opponents of capital punishment may derive justification for their position from their religious beliefs. Students will often quote "an eye for an eye" or "ye who is without sin, let him cast the first stone" as justification for his or her position. However, when people use specific verses or passages of the Bible to justify a particular position on capital punishment, the references...