Overview

This book rigorously examines the controversy over the death penalty with clarity and cogency. After Dr. Ron Gleason lays a thorough groundwork in history and law, he defines ethics philosophically, and then presents the Biblical mandate. For the secular reader, he illustrates the positions of leading thinkers on both sides of the issue and examines their arguments down to the foundational premises. For Christians both for and against capital punishment, Dr. Gleason identifies the governing Scriptures and illustrates them with commentary from the confessional statements of the historic reformed church and some of the foremost voices in the church today. Proponents on both sides will find the issues in focus and the arguments framed for more meaningful discussion. But as he homes in on the heart of the matter, the reader may find himself drawn persuasively to Gleason's conclusion. This book rigorously examines the controversy over the death penalty with clarity and cogency.

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9780979673672

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Reviews

Fuzziness on ethical issues is the bane of modern thinking. Happily, there is a voice of clear reason on the scene. Dr. Ron Gleason brings genuine moral clarity to the issue of capital punishment by his illuminating survey of American History. The reader will be most appreciative of Dr. Gleason s masterful discussion of the objections to the death penalty. This book is a must-read for all lawyers, judges, and law officers. Pastor Carl Robbins, Senior Minister, Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Greenville, SC Gleason makes a bold and compelling case that the death penalty is the biblically mandated punishment for murder. While it is true that capital punishment was used in biblical days for a host of crimes, including Sabbath breaking, blasphemy, witchcraft, and belligerent children, Scripture teaches, he argues, that the death penalty for murder is for all time. A major point of the book is that while all murder is killing, not all killing is murder as in the case of self-defense, just wars, or the death penalty (59, 100). Genesis 9:5 6 is a foundational text (24) because the covenant made with Noah was unilateral, universal, and everlasting (25 26). This text also provides the reason premeditated murder is a capital crime. Murder is a capital crime because man is made in the image of God. Being God s image bearer gives man a particular value that can never be eradicated (26). Man s divine creation provides the moral basis for the sanctity of human life. Murder is punished with death because to kill another human being is to destroy one who is a bearer of the divine image (27). Thus, murder is a direct assault upon God himself. Although Gleason does not address differences among theologians as to what extent God s image remains in sinful man, Genesis 9:5 6 direct us to the inherent value that every human being has due to the fact that he is created in the image of God (27). Calvin Theological Journal

Fuzziness on ethical issues is the bane of modern thinking. Happily, there is a voice of clear reason on the scene. Dr. Ron Gleason brings genuine moral clarity to the issue of capital punishment by his illuminating survey of American History. The reader will be most appreciative of Dr. Gleason s masterful discussion of the objections to the death penalty. This book is a must-read for all lawyers, judges, and law officers. <strong>Pastor Carl Robbins</strong>, Senior Minister, Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Greenville, SC

Author Information

Dr. Ron Gleason, born 1945 in Charlotte, NC, earned his B.S. in Bus. Admin. at The Citadel in SC. After his time in the Army as a tank commander and instructor, he worked at Pfizer Labs in Knoxville, TN. Then in 1973, he experienced his call to serve the Lord.Ron earned his M.Div. from Gordon-Cornwell Theological Seminary in MA and his doctoral degree in Systematic Theology under a Dutch government grant at the Theological Seminar of the Reformed Churches in The Netherlands.Back in the US, he earned a PhD from Westminster Theological Seminary in PA. He pastored a Dutch church in Holland till 1985, then pastored Bethel Canadian Reformed Church, Toronto until 1994. He is currently the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Yorba Linda, CA.He lectures internationally and in the US, and has authored numerous books and articles. He publishes a weekly newsletter on ethics, entitled Ethos. Among his titles are children s books, books on sports (baseball and wrestling), and his biography of the late Dutch Theologian, Herman Bavinck (1854 1921), released by the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. in 2009. Ron is presently the Stated Clerk of South Coast Presbytery of the PCA. He is the President of California Exodus, an organization that encourages parents to remove their children from public schools.

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