Hear the word “Baptist” and what words spring to mind: narrow, fundamentalist, bigoted, judgmental, moralistic? But Baptists, like every other religious group, represent a complex configuration of all things human.  Traditionally, Baptists have been America’s greatest defenders of religious liberty (yes, really) and, in theory at least, Baptist preachers are unrestrained by dogma or denominational hierarchy and are thus free to speak from conscience. 

Occasionally, we exercise that right.

As Bob Allen points out in an excellent article for the Associated Baptist Press, Americans–Baptists included–are gradually becoming disenchanted with the death penalty.  The Baptist Standard, the voice of Texas Baptists, picked up Allen’s article, which should tell you something.  True, they didn’t print the excellent chart showing that the southern states accounted for 87% of American executions in 2009 and 95% in 2008, and that Texas, as always, leads the parade.  But you’ve got to cut these guys a little slack–they’re writing for Baptists in Texas.

Baptists are associated with punitive policies because the hardline traditionalists in our ranks have done an excellent job of marketing their views.  Still, it is very difficult to make a consistent theological case for the death penalty or mass incarceration from the Bible.  Proof texts can be found for any position, but the overwhelming thrust of both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is in the direction of mercy, compassion and restoration.  Unfortunately, those of us who take the Bible straight have done a lousy job of getting the word out. 

Although Bob Allen doesn’t realize it, he is the first mainstream reporter in America (outside Mississippi) to publicize the case of Curtis Flowers.  Tom Mangold did an excellent report for BBC Radio, and I have spoken to several reporters who intend to do something with the Flowers story in the near future–but Allen is the first to mention Flowers by name, albeit in connection with the widely reported Troy Davis story.  Here’s the relevant portion of the article:

In August the federal Supreme Court ordered a hearing to receive testimony about whether new evidence establishes the innocence of Troy Davis, an African-American man on death row for the 1991 murder of a white police officer in Savannah, Ga.

Seven of nine witnesses who testified they saw Davis shoot and kill Officer Mark Allen McPhail later recanted, saying police pressured them into falsely fingering Davis. One of two witnesses who did not recant allegedly told family and friends that he is the actual murderer.

Supporters of the fallen officer say Davis was convicted on physical evidence and should be executed in the name of justice. But Alan Bean, an ordained American Baptist minister who runs a criminal-justice-reform organization called Friends of Justice, said manipulation of eyewitness testimony is a problem in the court system nationwide.

“Not only do police officers and investigators coerce ‘eyewitnesses’ into cooperating with the government’s theory of the case,” said Bean, a white man who helped bring national attention to a noose-hanging incident that revealed racial tensions in Jena, La. “There is growing evidence that even sincere and well-intentioned eyewitness testimony is far less reliable than is generally believed.”

Bean started Friends of Justice in response to an infamous drug sting in Tulia, Texas, in 1999, in which more than half of the town’s black male residents were arrested and convicted on the questionable testimony of a single undercover officer. Bean said he is monitoring the Troy Davis case because of its similarity to one involving Curtis Flowers, a black man behind bars for the 1996 execution-style slaying of four people in Winona, Miss., who has been tried five times without a final conviction by the state.