Capital Punishment, Covenant Justice, and the Cross of Christ: The Death Penalty in the Life and Death of Jesus

Darrin W.S. Belousek, Ohio Northern University

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to a distinctively Christian view of capital punishment within a peace church perspective. The present essay builds from the previous work of Mennonite-Anabaptist writers on this question—John Howard Yoder, Christopher Marshall, Gardner Hanks and Millard Lind. It offers a two-part argument concerning capital punishment, based on the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of John and the message of the cross in the epistles of Paul.