Archive Entry #6: February 1, 1989

Posted on July 25, 2014.

In the original schedule I created for this archive, today’s entry was to be a May 2002 commentary on the seemingly perpetual conflict in the Middle East. Timely was that scheduling, I believed, given the current fighting between Palestinians and Israelis in Gaza.

But Wednesday night, yet again one of our states botched an execution of a convicted murderer. Into the body of Joseph Wood the state of Arizona introduced two drugs that were supposed to kill him within 10-15 minutes; it took nearly two hours. Journalists witnessing the execution reported seeing Wood gasp for air more than 650 times, the way fish struggle for life when out of water.

The Arizona failure follows controversial outcomes earlier this year in Ohio and Oklahoma where condemned inmates actively struggled as they verbally reported unanticipated and harsh side effects of the administered pharmaceuticals. In response to what happened both Wednesday and earlier this year, and in protest of what happens in death chambers across our country throughout the year, I offer today’s archive entry that was originally scheduled as the September 23 archive entry.

Though at heart I am intensely politically partisan, I permit that partisanship almost no air time in my ministry. I implement clear boundaries when I refuse to advocate for candidates, comment or engage people in our church on proposed legislation, or even allow campaign signs from causes I endorse to be placed in our home’s visually strategic corner property. Throughout my FCCEM ministry, when engaging political matters in “And from Bill...” columns or Sunday morning conversations, I have purposefully restricted my approach to expressions of respect for all views and heartfelt encouragements to people to vote.

But on two issues I have chosen not to be silent: the death penalty, and one that is scheduled for a September 26 archive debut. No issue grieves my spirit and riles my conscience more than the death penalty. I wrote today’s entry in the aftermath of the January 1989 electrocution in Florida of Theodore Bundy, the serial killer who had confessed responsibility for the deaths of 30 people, and likely killed many more. No doubt, Bundy did evil things. But as this column makes clear, for me two evils have never made a right.

 

 

 

 

COMING NEXT: From August 1992, a conversation with a dead guy.... Really. Find it HERE.