WASHINGTON — The largest coalition of U.S. evangelicals has stepped away from its pro-death penalty stance which it embraced for the past 40 years.
The board of the Washington-based National Association of Evangelicals announced Oct. 19 that evangelicals who both support and oppose the death penalty can legitimately ground their beliefs in Christian ethics.
The decision, made by resolution, reflects a larger societal shift away from the practice, though it does not reverse the earlier support for the death penalty.
The Southern Baptist Convention continues to support the death penalty.
The softening of evangelicals’ support for the death penalty is particularly significant in light of their strong support compared with other religious groups.
A report from the Public Religion Research Institute from September 2014 found that 59 percent of white evangelical Protestants — more than any other religious group surveyed — preferred the death penalty to life in prison with no chance of parole for those convicted of murder. But nonwhite evangelicals part with their white co-religionists on the issue.
Most U.S. states, 31, allow the death penalty, though the number rejecting it has increased in recent years. The Supreme Court is set to revisit the issue this session, with several death penalty cases on the docket so far.
And though none of the death penalty cases directly asks the question, two justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer — have challenged the constitutionality of capital punishment.
(RNS)
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