Surfing the Inner N8

From the current issue of Christianity Today:

“It’s anti-evangelical to kill people.  Christianity is redemptive.  But you can’t redeem people by extinguishing them.”

– John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute

This seems obvious, yet so many people miss it.  As a white evangelical, it’s embarrassing that white evangelicals are the strongest supporters of the death penalty (with an approval of 74% according to the March 2008 issue of CT).  I honestly don’t understand how we can say that we believe Jesus died to pay for our sins, but other people have to die to pay for their own sins.