me sinners. He died for all. Unless we believe that every person, whether murderer or not, is redeemable and must have the chance to be redeemed, there is no real gospel. To deprive a person of the possibility of reconciliation to God and humanity -- or to end the life of someone who has received that possibility -- is the real tragedy of capital punishment. Is the biblical perspective relevant to the state? Christ's rejection of vengeance and his focus on nonretaliation seem clear on a personal level. But does this apply to the state? Does the Christian have anything to say to the secular world? The New Testament recognizes that human behavior in the world at large will not meet kingdom standards. It acknowledges a role for the state in maintaining order and does not assume that Christian standards will necessarily govern this realm (Romans 13, I Peter 2). The New Testament also implies, however, that the state has a specific function to perform and that it may exceed or violate its authority. The Bible notes that God's law is above all others and implies that there are responsible and irresponsible, useful and useless, ways to use the power that God allows the state (Romans 13, I Peter 2, Revelation 13). Christians have a responsibility to be a ferment, to be prophets. This includes calling the state to higher standards of behavior. Christ's ministry recognizes that his teaching has relevance to the larger world. Jesus was called Lord and King, and these were political names; his life and his cross were related to political issues of his day. When confronted with the woman accused of a capital crime, he made no distinction between civil and religious authority. He applied to that civil offense his own authority to forgive sins. And he suggested that no one -- civil or otherwise -- had the right to condemn her. The world is not immune to Christian moral influence, especially in a democratic society where citizens have some participatio...
