The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment

In this very important work, Ron Sider returns to his roots as a church historian to offer an exceedingly careful, measured study of the literary evidence left by the early church on the morality of killing. This volume is entirely free of propaganda or polemics, following the evidence where it leads. This deceptively brief, highly disciplined study should prove to be authoritative in this field.

—David P. Gushee, distinguished university professor of Christian ethics, Center for Theology and Public Life, Mercer University

In a most helpful way and with an evident knowledge of the primary sources, Ronald Sider presents in translation a comprehensive sourcebook of early Christian statements on the issues of abortion, capital punishment, and military service. . . . Sider confronts the reader with the relevant texts themselves and so allows us to make our own independent judgment on the important question of the early church’s position on these difficult and yet highly relevant themes. This book will be an asset in the libraries of pastors and laypeople alike and a welcome text in college and seminary classrooms.

—William C. Weinrich, professor of historical theology, Concordia Theological Seminary

The question of ‘killing’ has been a contested and debated issue from the earliest years of the church’s history. May Christians serve in the military? Is abortion ever justifiable? What of the question of capital punishment? Ron Sider has produced an invaluable handbook of primary source material from an ancient Christian perspective that can serve the entire church well as we continue to face these thorny and often heartrending questions in a modern context.

—Christopher A. Hall, chancellor, Eastern University

In a time when violent death is all too common and wars of choice are undertaken all too readily, it is bracing to be reminded by this cloud of witnesses from the early church of the value that early Christians placed on human life and the severe judgments they issued on those who took it without cause.

—Harold W. Attridge, Sterling Professor of Divinity, Yale Divinity School