Why is Kelly Gissendaner’s Spiritual Conversion so Important in Her Upcoming Execution and What it Means for the Church

As I sit here waiting to hear news on the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that could spare the life of Kelly Gissendaner, I am thinking about some of the words spoken in the last attempts made by her supporters and lawyers to save her life. Usually, this hinges on the lack of evidence or the credibility of a witness. But this case is different because this person’s life hangs in the balance because of a deep theological issue, one that, though recognized by the court, is hardly the place of the court.

As Ms. Gissendaner waits to be executed, her life depended just hours ago upon whether her lawyers could have convinced the court whether she had a conversion experience or not. It’s quite unique because I don’t recall ever following similar cases where spiritual issues were used as a point of contention in a stay of execution appeal.

I’m also interested in an issue that perhaps no one will think or care about: the efficacy of theology and the reality of doctrine. While prosecutors at this point will focus on justice and supporters of clemency will use theological languages of love and forgiveness, both have already seemed to not pick up on what is already in the rearview mirror: the spiritual lifeblood of the church seems to have already been judged.

No one would doubt that theology is a bizarre and strange place to build an appeal. But perhaps no more bizarre than a system that while based on Judeo-Christian ethics ignores the broader brushstrokes of the theological background out of which those ethics come. So in one article, we hear through Ms. Gissendaner’s bishop  that Kelly was a transformed person, her actions, her receipt of a theological degree, and her genuine attempts to change herself all tell the story of a converted Christian. Somehow this diligence also shows her experience to be more authentic than others of her inmates who made similar attempts, perhaps with less success, and therefore in the defense of her lawyers were not of the same kind as Ms. Gissendaner’s experience.

Yet in her defense’s defense, there is theological precedent for such a claim. After all, Jesus says “by their fruits you know them”, and Kelly’s fruits, at least insofar as all who knew her following her crime, blossomed voluminously in the testimonies of the people she touched. I do not doubt this. The practical spirituality preached by Jesus accords well with the empirical evidence required of courts to make difficult decisions.

On the other hand, we have a different story; this one comes from the prosecution, who rightly I might add, points to Ms. Gissendaner’s baptism in 1996, a year before the commission of the heinous crime. You can listen to that interview here:

http://www.11alive.com/story/news/local/2015/02/27/episcopal-priest-gissenbaner-murder-death-row/24159959/

So as a student of theology, we might ask what is conversion and what is baptism? According to the church and Ms. Gissendaner’s tradition, conversion is baptism. It is a transformative experience one in which the individual receives grace that both purifies and sanctifies. One is supposed to move out of darkness and into light, from ontological wrongness to rightness. The Catholic Catechism declares:

Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: "Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word.

Likewise, the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (Gissendaner’s tradition) describes baptism as “the full initiation by Water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body.”

So those who are asking why Ms. Gissendaner’s conversion is efficient now but was not in 1996 are working under a valid assumption and exposing some of the ways in which we excuse the logic of the doctrine because quite frankly not many of us live up to the expectations that are said to occur in baptism. And that’s the real theological issue here. If the doctrine initiates us into the body of Christ, if we are brought from death to life, and regenerated, then it is not at all unreasonable that one’s life would accord with such a decision.

In 1996, Kelly Gissendaner was an adult who made a decision that was consistent with her conscience at the time.  She was baptized. In 1997, Kelly Gissendaner as an adult made a decision that was consistent with her conscience at the time. She had her husband murdered. While the public at large instinctively recognizes that baptism is only as meaningful as the person who makes it, this is not the position of the Episcopal, Protestant, and Catholic Churches. The issue here really is theological, and more than an indictment of Gissendaner, it is an indictment of theology.