Guest commentary by Dwyn M. Mounger
Last month, the state of Georgia ended Kelly Gissendaner’s life. That was despite her conversion to Christianity and her earned certificate in theology. Despite pleas for clemency from both Pope Francis and the German Reformed “theologian of hope” Jürgen Moltmann, who became her friend and correspondent.
Yes, notwithstanding the repeated protests of her sister inmates who came to faith under her behind-bars ministry. And even in the face of the tearful urgings of Gissendaner’s own children, whose father she once, in a different place in life, successfully arranged to be murdered.
What is the unforgivable sin? Jesus mentions it only once: “blasphemy against the Spirit” (Matthew 12:31; Mark 3:29). To their concerned parishioners, imperfect like themselves, pastors have often preached complex homilies trying to explain it. But the best definition I’ve ever heard is for a person utterly to deny God’s power to pardon sin—either his or her own, or someone else’s.
Professional counselors and clergy often find themselves face-to-face with people obsessed with guilt. At times it is false guilt, as when a victim of sexual abuse, especially one abused as a child, suffers self-blame long afterwards. On the other hand, some people, having actually committed a grave transgression or crime, convince themselves that they are beyond the reach of God’s mercy.
In the latter category was Kara Stephens, whom Gissendaner befriended in prison, as she did numerous other inmates who also pled in vain for her life to be spared. Once suicidal and placed on lockdown for her own protection, serving 10 years for armed robbery, Stephens said that “Kelly . . . breathed life and hope back into us; . . . urged us to get up and not give up.”
Stephens has now completed her sentence and serves on the staff of Mercy Junction Justice and Peace Center, a ministry in Chattanooga of the Presbytery of East Tennessee and one of the emerging 1001 New Worshiping Communities.
Not just Christianity but all three of the world’s great monotheistic religions affirm that pardon freely is available to anyone who repents. “Adonai is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,” sang the Jewish psalmist.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest,” cried Jesus.
Among the 99 names for God in Islam are “The Exceedingly Compassionate,” “The Exceedingly Merciful, and “The Much Forgiving.”
And yet in states such as Georgia and my own Tennessee, which still practice the death penalty, the law assumes that some offenders are incapable of redemption–at least in this life. In effect we brand them as beyond hope of change, even by the Holy Spirit’s power!
Legislators, boards of clemency, and governors should mark the words of Pope Francis to prisoners with whom he recently prayed in Philadelphia: “All of us have something we need to be cleansed of, or purified from. I am first among them.”
What an impact for good lay theologian/pastor Gissendaner might have exerted on her sister inmates had she been spared to minister to them until natural death behind bars came for her! Kelly’s conversion and continuing inspiration sprang not only from reading the Bible but also the works of two men who, like her, had undergone incarceration. They were Moltmann, who served as a young Wehrmacht prisoner of war in Scotland after World War II, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor martyred by the Nazis.
Deeply repentant of her crime even in death, Gissendaner sang “Amazing Grace” as the toxic mixture entered her veins. And perhaps she remembered the handkerchief of his own that Moltmann sent her for drying her tears after the denial of one of her petitions for clemency. Maybe she recalled, too, that 89-year-old theologian’s words, “God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.”
And precious to her also, I hope, was Bonhoeffer’s farewell to his fellow inmates as his Nazi executioners led him to the gallows 70 years ago. “This is the end – for me, the beginning of life.”
DWYN M. MOUNGER is a retired PC(USA) pastor living in Knoxville, Tennessee. Married with two grown children and four grandchildren, he enjoys continuing to be active the peacemaking committee of the East Tennessee Presbytery.
