Lazarus Community and an interfaith effort against execution

Twenty-five wooden crosses stand along 23rd Street in Oklahoma City. Ten are red. One is green. The rest are white, awaiting a decision: green or red?

In June 2022, Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor called for the Oklahoma Court of Appeals to set execution dates for 25 people on death row. After a long delay, during which a stay had been granted so a federal judge could decide whether Oklahoma’s death penalty procedures violated the US Constitution, executions were scheduled to begin again.

By August, the Lazarus Community, along with other faith leaders and with the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (OK-CADP), erected 25 crosses - one to represent each scheduled execution.

The plan was to paint the crosses white. Then, as each scheduled execution either put someone to death or saw someone granted clemency, a cross would be painted greenfor clemency - or red, to represent bloodshed - and a completed execution.

Former Oklahoma Senator Connie Johnson stands with others among the painted crosses on the grounds of Lazarus Community in OKC.

“Oklahoma scheduled 25 men for execution,” said Rev. Bo Ireland, pastor at Lazarus Community in Oklahoma City. “One person a month for two years. This process has slowed, but only one person, Richard Glossip, has been given temporary clemency.”

Many of the people who have been executed were recommended for clemency by the Board of Pardons and Parole; even so, they were executed anyway.

Rev. Bo Ireland marches with Sister Helen Prejean in opposition to the death penalty.

“We’re following the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church,” explained Ireland. “Execution denies the redemptive power of God.”

Twenty-five crosses, each eight feet tall and four feet wide, are hard to miss.

Members of the Lazarus Community work alongside anti-death penalty leaders like Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote Dead Man Walking and was famously portrayed by actress Susan Sarandon; Shane Claiborne author and founder of The Simple Way and co-founder of RedLetter Christians; former Oklahoma Senator Connie Johnson; and groups like Death Penalty Action and the Interfaith Alliance.

They have met with families of people executed, plus people who have survived the death penalty. The group holds vigils around scheduled execution dates and paints crosses when outcomes are announced.

“We’ve gathered here as people of different faiths and different cultures,” announced Ireland. “We’ve gathered here to say, ‘This is not okay,’ in Oklahoma!”

“Emmanuel Littlejohn was executed by ‘We the People.’ And we, the people, stand in opposition to this, to remind the rest of ‘We the people,’ that this is wrong,” said Ireland at the vigil following the most recent execution in Oklahoma, which took place Thursday, September 29.

“We stand in front of an ancient method of execution, the cross. Today, we will mark the occasion of one more execution in the state of Oklahoma by painting it red with something that looks a whole lot like blood,”said Ireland.

Each participant then had an opportunity to dip their hands in the red paint. Whether by actively supporting death penalty legislation or by complacency, Ireland said the red paint will serve as a reminder that “we all have blood on our hands.” the help

Rev. Bo Ireland pours red paint on a cross to mark a completed execution in Oklahoma.