are offered and when information about each option is provided. In a 1993 national study, for example, public support for the death penalty dropped from 77% to 41% when such options were given. At the heart of the death penalty debate are three questions: 1. Does the state have the right to take a life for a life? 2. Does the death penalty enhance or demean the value of life? 3. Is the death penalty a necessary way to express society's moral condemnation of murder? The first question is a moral one, not directly susceptible to scientific scrutiny. Sound evidence does cast doubt upon the state's ability to take life fairly and equally. Given its concern for equal application of justice and for the sacredness of human life, the biblical perspective raises real questions about this right. The second question also is fundamentally moral, but empirical evidence lends support to the likelihood that the death penalty communicates the wrong message. The message of capital punishment is that life is expendable, that life ceases to be sacred whenever someone with the power to take it away decides there is good reason to do so. By using capital punishment we say that violence justifies violence. The third question is an important one. Society must express its deep moral revulsion for murder; we must say firmly and clearly that murder is wrong. But do executions in fact do that effectively? Are there not more constructive alternatives for communicating that message? When the state kills as a response to killing, does it not adopt and reinforce the killer's values? For Christians, there is still another fundamental question: Do we believe in the possibility of repentance and forgiveness? And if we do, can we ever take away that possibility? We have choices. We can choose death for offenders. If we do we must be prepared to kill some by mistake, others arbitrarily, and all at very high cost, without making society any safer. At best, we give ourselv...
