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Death Penalty
The following article originally appeared in Salt of the Earth. It is posted here for private use only. It may not be reprinted in whole or in part without the permission of Salt of the Earth magazine.
Strengthening the religious voice
ALTHOUGH MOST MAJOR RELIGIOUS denominations in the U.S. have strong statements of condemnation of the death penalty," a new interfaith organization notes, "there has not been an effective, united religious effort to try to end this barbaric practice. Many members of religious groups are unaware that their denomination has an anti-death-penalty position, and rarely have they been challenged to discuss this issue from a faith perspective."
To remedy this situation, this new group, Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty, is planning a two-phase organizing project this year. The project will provide resources, networking help, and education activities for religious groups interested in anti-death-penalty work.
In its first phase, from February to June, the organization will work with diverse religious and abolitionist organizations to establish study groups. These study groups will use Dead Man Walking (both the book and the movie) along with a discussion guide the organization has developed. The groups, which will meet once a week over a four-week period, will explore the death penalty from a faith perspective, with particular emphasis on the experiences of victims' families as well as those of death-row inmates and their families.
Feedback from these study groups will be compiled to guide the agenda for the second phase of this project, a national conference November 14-16 in Washington, D.C. The conference will bring together religious leaders and laypeople and has as its goal to further the education of people of faith on the issue of capital punishment as well as to form a more effective, united, national religious coalition calling for the abolition of the death penalty.
For more information on this project and ways to participate or to order the discussion guide for study groups, contact: Pat Clark, American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102-1479. Phone: 215-241-7130. E-mail: pclark@afsc.org.
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