Because I don’t necessarily say I am a Christian, I am comfortable in supporting the death penalty in the most extreme cases, but the risk of murdering an innocent person is a very serious concern. I am a bit uncomfortable with the tendency to restructure the death penalty to seem less like DEATH and more like a painless medical procedure, for two reasons: 1. It IS death, and making it seem like sleep will only lead to lessened diligence in sparing the innocent; and 2. It seems immoral to bring physicians into the act of execution – A. giving the convict a medical exam in order to determine the proper dose of drugs to paralyse his lungs and stop his heart, B. placing tubes in his arms to accommodate the poisons, C. measuring out the “correct” mixture of chemicals, and D. either administering the drugs himself or supervising a technician who will administer them, technically sparing the physician from violating the Hippocratic Oath to “First do no harm.”

On every level the death penalty is a travesty in the modern world. Hundreds of years from now it will be seen as something barbaric.

I could rant about this for hours and hours but I won’t. I will say:

As far as Christians go. . .Thou shall not murder (kill). Seems pretty straight forward. Condoning the murder of a murderer, is, well, hypocritical and non Christian.

Those who quote Exodus 21:23-27 “an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth” as biblical justification of capital punishment are, in my opinion, stretching God’s teachings to fit their naive political agenda. If the bible said “a life for a life” then perhaps a religious argument would be warranted. Even then the apparent contradiction with the ten commandments should lend caution to error on the safe side. But since it doesn’t say “a life for a life” and it does say “Thou shall not murder.”

So if you are a Christian and you use the bible as your moral guide then I’d say you would have to be against the death penalty.