4 Christian Denominations With the Most Conservative Stance on Death Penalty

Laws governing whether a person should be put to death for committing a serious crime vary widely from one state to the next in the United States.

Alongside the differing laws, Christian denominations have expressed various viewpoints on the issue as well.

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Below are four faiths that trend toward the most conservative stances on the death penalty:

1. Assemblies of God

The Assemblies of God leaves the stance on the death penalty up to individual believers, but cites both Old Testament and New Testament permissions for capital punishment.

Within the Assemblies of God, there is a call for worshippers to balance the sacredness of life with the need for repentance.

The church states, “These truths must be balanced with the obligation of government to protect its citizens, helping them to live quiet and peaceful lives.”

2. Southern Baptists

Several sects of the Baptist faith, including the Southern Baptist Convention, have weighed in on the death penalty.

Leaders within the SBC have asserted the death penalty should only be used for proven cases of capital crime, as outlined in this SBC resolution, justly, swiftly, and fairly.

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The SBC refers to Romans 13:4 among other verses for justification of capital punishment.

"For government is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For government is God’s servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong," said the verse from the Holman Christian Standard Bible, the version linked from the SBC website.

3. Mormons

The only Christian denomination to punt on the issue, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' official position on capital punishment is that it is "a matter to be decided solely by the prescribed processes of civil law" and that it "neither promotes nor opposes capital punishment."

4. Evangelicals

While the National Association of Evangelical is not itself a denomination, it claims that it is a "body of believers made up of over 40 denominations and thousands of individual churches, organizations, universities and individuals."

Since 1973, the NAE has taken a position of instituting the death penalty for use as a deterent for "heinous crimes" and a standard as to not diminish the atrocity of said crimes.

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