By Dale Recinella (February 2010)
Last month I traveled to Louisville, Ky., to address folks at a nationwide conference on capital punishment. My topic was the misuse of Scripture by Christians to claim support for the American death penalty. The question-andanswer phase of the presentation was enlightening. A young woman from Virginia expressed bewilderment. “Every time I try to approach one of our elected officials on this subject, they quote „life for life‟ from the Old Testament and that‟s the end of it. They won‟t even talk to me. It does not matter what political party they are in or what faith they are. That‟s all I get.” The truth of the matter, I explained, is those folks probably are well-intentioned and think that they are applying the holy Scriptures. But in fact they are not.