Early Church on Killing - Paperback

by Ronald J. Sider (Editor)

What did the early church believe about killing? What was its view on abortion? How did it approach capital punishment and war? Noted theologian and bestselling author Ron Sider lets the testimony of the early church speak in the first of a three-volume series on biblical peacemaking.

This book provides in English translation all extant data directly relevant to the witness of the early church until Constantine on killing. Primarily, it draws data from early church writings, but other evidence, such as archaeological finds and Roman writings, is included.

Sider taps into current evangelical interest in how the early church informs contemporary life while presenting a thorough, comprehensive treatment on topics of perennial concern. The book includes brief introductions to every Christian writer cited and explanatory notes on many specific texts.

Back Jacket

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, Yale Divinity School

"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, Eastern University

"In recent years some have argued that the church of the first three centuries might have been somewhat ambivalent in its opposition to war and killing. Ron Sider's excellent and comprehensive sourcebook shows once again that, even though the practices of individual Christians might have deviated at times from what Christians are called to be and do, the uniform voice of the church before its rise to political power was one of unconditional rejection of war and killing in all its pluriformity."
--George Kalantzis, The Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies; author, Caesar and the Lamb: Early Christian Attitudes to War and Military Service

"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, Center for Theology and Public Life, Mercer University

Author Biography

Ronald J. Sider (PhD, Yale University) is the founder and president emeritus of Evangelicals for Social Action and professor of theology, holistic ministry, and public policy at Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. He is the author of many books, including the bestselling Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience.