A recent poll by NationalChristianPoll​.com found that two-thirds of active Christians who oppose the death penal­ty are con­cerned about judi­cial error that could lead to an inno­cent per­son being exe­cut­ed. The poll also found that of Christians who do sup­port the death penal­ty, 60% do so because of bib­li­cal teach­ings. According to a Pew Forum poll from 2007, the strongest sup­port­ers of the death penal­ty are white evan­gel­i­cals, with 74% approval. However, John Whitehead, pres­i­dent of the con­ser­v­a­tive Rutherford Institute, remarked , ​“It’s anti-evan­gel­i­cal to kill peo­ple. Christianity is redemp­tive. But you can’t redeem peo­ple by extin­guish­ing them.”

Overall sup­port for the death penal­ty is at 62% accord­ing to the 2007 Pew Forum poll. Most Protestant church­es and the Roman Catholic Church oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, though many of their mem­bers sup­port it.

James Skillen, pres­i­dent of the Center for Public Justice, not­ed that many peo­ple do not under­stand the bib­li­cal his­to­ry behind the use of the death penal­ty and how that his­to­ry has been mis­used. He said, ​“My sense is that his­tor­i­cal depth and think­ing through the prin­ci­ples of moral deci­sions about this mat­ter isn’t done.”
(“Capital Doubts,” by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Christianity Today, February 19, 2008). See Religion and Public Opinion.

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