A.

Critically read and understand the two articles using the websites below and be able to answer
the questions listed below?
A.What makes human life sacred?.
Human life is sacred because ultimately it belongs to God. Human beings were created to reflect His
glory. It is His by right of creation and, for those who have professed faith in Christ’s sacrificial death and
Resurrection, by virtue of redemption. No greater value than this can be assigned to human existence. The
incarnation of God’s own Son fully affirms the sacredness of human life. Jesus took upon Himself the
form of a servant. He was born in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7). He willingly forfeited His life to
redeem men and women from the consequences of sin and death. Thus, God has confirmed the sacredness
of human life in both the birth and death of His Son.
At the 1981 General Council in Anaheim, California, the members of The Christian and Missionary
Alliance adopted a Statement on Abortion. That Statement, representing the consensus of the
denomination, affirmed the historic Christian conviction that life begins at conception. It expressed
opposition to abortion-on-demand as a violation of human dignity and the moral law of God. An
exception was made only when the life of the mother was threatened. All human beings, regardless of
race, gender, age, mental capacity or physical condition, born or unborn, rich or poor, educated or
uneducated, young or old, reflect God’s image. The value of human life is infinitely greater than the
relative worth currently ascribed to it by a secular society. Human life has intrinsic value because of its
worth to God. Contrary to widespread contemporary belief and materialistic views, men and women do
not own themselves.

B.In what particular ways Human life is violated?

Killing newborn children who are unwanted or disadvantaged. Illusions of personal sovereignty, human
autonomy, and unfettered choice outside the parameters of God’s law are false. They inevitably lead to
bondage, purposelessness, and separation from the Creator The intentional destruction of a human
embryo for purposes of contraception, or for stem-cell research, whether by surgical abortion or use of
drugs or devices intended to terminate unborn life or prevent its implantation and growth following
conception, to be immoral. Abortion-on-demand must be opposed as a violation of human dignity and a
moral evil precisely because it forcibly terminates the life of a human being fashioned in God’s image.
Abortion may be an option only in the rarest instances, when it is impossible to save the life of both the
mother and the unborn child. Since human life is a sacred gift from God, the termination of life by
euthanasia, suicide, or assisted suicide is morally and biblically unacceptable.
Euthanasia (” mercy killing”) is a deliberate act of killing somebody diagnosed with an incurable illness
or injury. The decision to remove life support from a terminally ill patient is not generally understood as
such an act. Euthanasia and removing life support are inherently different. The first is the deliberate act of
ending life; the second is not artificially extending life. Discontinuing medical procedures that are
burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome may be legitimate.
Through advancements in medical technology, doctors are now able to extend the life of patients by
artificial means. The fact that such contrived means are available does not create a moral imperative to
extend life indefinitely. Family members are often required to make decisions whether to prolong the life
of a loved one. These decisions are difficult ones to make. They require careful reflection upon Scripture
as well as consultation with pastors, medical personnel, and on occasion, legal experts.

C. Explain clearly and substantially using Scriptures and Church Documents why those mentioned
violations are against human life.
Our Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent God has pronounced His blessing upon the life of a child,
according to Psalm 127:3–5. Since all life exists for God’s purposes and all human lives are equally
sacred, it is our belief that the life of the unborn child is blessed of God and must be preserved and
nurtured.
God’s Word reveals that He is Creator of all. The material universe did not come into being by itself. God
spoke it into existence. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Therefore,
all that exists has its origin in God’s creative act. He brought into being both plant and animal life. Lastly,
God created human beings in His own image, thus differentiating humankind from the rest of the animal
kingdom. So, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and
female he created them (Genesis 1:27).
With reference to those in the Old Testament who entered into covenant relationship with Him, God said,
now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured
possession; for all the earth belongs to me. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a
kingdom of priests and a holy nation . . . (Exodus 19:5). That same promise is echoed in the New
Covenant. Those who likewise have entered into a covenant relationship with God through faith in Christ
are God’s particular possession: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s
special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his
wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9). Do you not know, Scripture says, that your bodies are temples of the Holy
Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a
price (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
He was born in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7). He willingly forfeited His life to redeem men and
women from the consequences of sin and death. Thus, God has confirmed the sacredness of human life in
both the birth and death of His Son.
God asserts His sovereignty over all human life in Deuteronomy 32:39: See now that I myself am he!
There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life . . .. It is He who determines the length of our
lives (Psalm 139:16). For everyone who trusts in the sacrificial death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ,
willingness to submit to God’s timing for death is accompanied by a joyful recognition that physical
death is not the end of life. It is a transition from living on earth to living in glory. Being absent from the
body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6– 8).
Biblical passages such as Genesis 9:6, Numbers 35:16, and Romans 13:3-4 have been used to support
capital punishment. At the same time, passages such as Romans 2:1-4 and 2 Peter 3:9 speak of the
awesome responsibility of human judgment and the riches of God’s “kindness, tolerance and patience,”
intended to lead all people to repentance.
Some have used the commandment translated in the King James Version of the Bible “Thou shalt not
kill” as a prohibition of capital punishment. The commandment, however, refers to murder and is
accurately translated “You shall not murder” in modern translations.

B.I do believe Activity?

We are all aware of what is capital punishment is, this is a form of punishing someone in which you’re
going to punish that person by killing the person who committed sin in order to pay what sin he/she made
and this punishment is made by human and not by our God. I strongly disagree with death penalty
because I believe that no one has the right to take one’s life and it is against the law of God and i am
scared of the fact that sooner or later some innocent people will get killed because of mistakes or flaws in
our justice system. Death penalty has its advantage and disadvantages but statistically speaking it is more
on the downside because first it against the law of God, second it is a contrary of the human rights, and in
my opinion when punishing someone it doesn’t need to be carried out with brutality and what if the
person who is executed is innocent you cannot longer take back the life you have stolen. On the other
hand, there is a part of me that wishes that death penalty should be applied in our law because as what I
observed from the other country that uses death penalty as a way of punishing someone the people there
are more discipline and more responsible towards their actions compare to us, people here in Philippines
are not scared to commit sins because they know they can just pay money to bail out from the prison so
apparently justice system here always fails. But here are some of the five articles that support my stand
against death penalty. Here are some of the published book that tells us that Death Penalty would not
solve criminality, first is the book In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Redemption
written by Wilbert Rideau, an award-winning journalist who spent forty-four years in prison, delivers a
remarkable memoir of crime, punishment, and ultimate triumph.
After killing a bank teller in a moment of panic during a botched robbery, Wilbert Rideau was sentenced
to death at the age of nineteen. He spent several years on death row at Angola before his sentence was
commuted to life, where, as editor of the prison newsmagazine The Angolite, he undertook a mission to
expose and reform Louisiana's iniquitous justice system from the inside. Vivid, incisive, and
compassionate, this is a detailed account of prison life and a man who accepted responsibility for his
actions and worked to redeem himself. It is a story about not giving up; finding love in unexpected places;
the power of kindness; and the ability to do good, no matter where you are.
Second book is the book Against the Death Penalty written by Stephen Breyer Does the death penalty
violate the Constitution? In Against the Death Penalty, Justice Stephen Breyer argues that it does; that it
is carried out unfairly and inconsistently and, thus, violates the ban on "cruel and unusual punishments"
specified by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.
“Today’s administration of the death penalty,” Breyer writes, “involves three fundamental constitutional
defects: (1) serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably long delays that
undermine the death penalty’s penological purpose. Perhaps as a result, (4) most places within the United
States have abandoned its use.”
This volume contains Breyer's dissent in the case of Glossip v. Gross, which involved an unsuccessful
challenge to Oklahoma's use of a lethal-injection drug because it might cause severe pain. Justice Breyer's
legal citations have been edited to make them understandable to a general audience, but the text retains
the full force of his powerful argument that the time has come for the Supreme Court to revisit the
constitutionality of the death penalty.
Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty is a book written by Maurice
Chammah, A deeply reported, searingly honest portrait of the death penalty in Texas—and what it tells us
about crime and punishment in America

“Remarkably intimate, fair-minded, and trustworthy reporting on the people arguing over the fate of
human life.”—Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road: Inside the
Mind of an American Family
To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee a book that will give a gripping, heart-wrenching, and
wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of
great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local
lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
and lastly Against the Death Penalty: Writings from the First Abolitionists it is a book in 1764, a
Milanese aristocrat named Cesare Beccaria created a sensation when he published On Crimes and
Punishments. At its center is a rejection of the death penalty as excessive, unnecessary, and pointless.
Beccaria is deservedly regarded as the founding father of modern criminal-law reform, yet he was not the
first to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. Against the Death Penalty presents the first English
translation of the Florentine aristocrat Giuseppe Pelli's critique of capital punishment, written three years
before Beccaria's treatise, but lost for more than two centuries in the Pelli family archives.