The Editor, Sir:

I READ with mixed feelings your editorial of the 13th instant, titled "Don't be railroaded by fundamentalists". No sane person could disagree with you that "the bottom line is that capital punishment cannot be the answer to the ineptitude of the constabulary".

But, regrettably, your editorial displays the popular ignorance of or the widespread failure to deal with the teaching of the New Testament on capital punishment.

In Romans 13:1-7 the apostle Paul made it clear that government had been instituted by God to reward good citizens and also to punish wrongdoers. In verse 4, he wrote: "But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he (the constituted government authority) does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute His wrath on the wrongdoers."

capital punishment

The sword in question was the symbol of capital punishment. It signified the power of life and death, which the higher Roman magistrates had in their hands. Professor C. K. Barrett made some telling comments on the verse:

"God's wrath belongs properly to the Day of Judgement. But it can be brought into the present. One means by which this is done is the magistrate's sword. The action of the State was an aspect of God's providence. In this, His wrath finds a place, for it represents His resistance to evil. So the State takes its place as avenger, bringing the wrath of God Himself to bear upon evildoers. It is thus, paradoxically, an instrument of God's patience, for through this partial manifestation of His wrath, the power of evil is restrained and its final judgement and defeat deferred."

Professor Barrett was certainly no "fundamentalist purveyor of Old Testament theology". He has been described as the doyen of British New Testament theologians. Nor was Paul. This apostle, the leading New Testament theologian of his day, knew more of the grace, mercy and love of God than any of us.

Jesus and the rest of the New Testament forbade the individual to take revenge. This should be left to God's wrath. The punishment of evil is God's prerogative and during this present age He acts through His appointed agent, the State.

I am, etc.,

(Rev) EVERARD G. ALLEN

Brown's Town,

St Ann