Being pro-life to me means a consistent ethic of life. When I hear rhetoric about "the sanctity of life from conception to natural death," I take it at face-value. All life is valuable and no human being has the right to take that life away. I admit tough cases: self-defense or the protection of others/society. However, the death penalty, in most cases in modern America, falls very clearly on one side of this line. It is no longer about self-defense or defense of society, but rather about retribution, couched in language of "justice."
Hopefully, I don't need to point out the ways in which this pastor is wrong. Asher shared this article with me a few weeks ago; give it a read-through. A Southern Baptist seminary president makes the case that the death penalty supports the sanctity of life. Why? Because it affirms the value of life. The article does not make clear in its quote exactly how Albert Mohler supports this claim by any logic, probably because no valid logic really can support his position.
Let me be clear: when we decide as a society that we can kill someone who has committed a crime, we act from revenge and retribution, not justice or self-defense. And most assuredly not from a desire to affirm the sanctity of all life.
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