Foreword / Jean Bethke Elshtain -- Religion and capital punishment : an introduction / Erik C. Owens and Eric P. Elshtain -- 1. Cathloic teaching on the death penalty : has it changed? / Avery Cardinal Dulles -- 2. Can capital punishment ever be justified in the Jewish tradition? / David Novak -- 3. The death penalty : a Protestant perspective / Gilbert Meilaender -- 4. Punishing Christians : a pacifist approach to the issue of capital punishment / Stanley Hauerwas -- 5. The death penalty, mercy, and Islam : a call for retrospection / Khaled Abou El Fadl -- 6. Categorical pardon : on the argument for abolishing capital punishment / J. Budziszewski -- 7. Biblical perspectives on the death penalty / Michael L. Westmoreland-White and Glen H. Stassen -- 8. Christian witness, moral anthropology, and the death penalty / Richard W. Garnett --