From Christianity Today – a small rise in the number of people against capital punishment
Capital Doubts | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction
While the issue before the Supreme Court is narrow, the national mood on capital punishment itself seems to be shifting. New Jersey became the 14th state to outlaw executions in December 2007. And a Pew Forum poll taken last August found that public support for capital punishment has dropped to 62 percent from a high of 80 percent in 1994. White evangelicals are still the death penalty’s strongest supporters, with 74 percent approval, but that is down from 82 percent in 1996.
Some Christians have been disturbed by the disproportionate number of poor and African American prisoners on death row, said John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a conservative civil liberties organization. According to a January poll done by NationalChristianPoll.com, a research service of CT parent company Christianity Today International, about two-thirds of active Christians who oppose capital punishment are troubled by mistakes in the legal system that could lead to the execution of innocent people.
"It’s anti-evangelical to kill people," Whitehead said. "Christianity is redemptive. But you can’t redeem people by extinguishing them." Whitehead believes opposition to the death penalty will gain momentum in the future. "Young Christians are seeing right away that, hey, the meek and mild Jesus—would he pull the lever? Would he put the hood on and pull the lever? I don’t think so."
The numbers may support Whitehead’s theory. Only 55 percent of Americans ages 18–29 support the death penalty, according to David Masci of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. But Masci isn’t ready to call it a trend. "I don’t think we can tell," he said. The live-and-let-live attitude of youth may change as they get older, he said.
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