Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501250079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA LAFAY LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: JARRATT LENGTH: Medium
He wanted to be baptized.
``If I am to be deceased, I want to be ... with my father in heaven,'' Edmonds said Tuesday. ``The Bible teaches us that we must be baptized to be received by the father. And so I want that opportunity to be received.''
But prison officials refused the request, saying Edmonds had been baptized, and that one baptism is enough.
``He was baptized at the Mecklenburg Correctional Center in March of 1992,'' said Department of Corrections director Ron Angelone.
``If you read the Bible, it says that if you're baptized as a Christian, you only have to be baptized once.
``The man has been baptized. You're baptized, you're baptized. We have met his religious needs, and we have met them throughout his incarceration.''
Angelone said he offered to let Edmonds ``reconfirm'' his baptism with a chaplain in his cell. But Edmonds wanted an immersion ceremony in one of three baptismal pools at the Greensville Correctional Center, where he was executed.
His Mecklenburg baptism, he said, wasn't a true sacrament.
``I believe that when I was baptized, I was still struggling and truly wasn't baptized,'' he said. ``I wasn't really ready. I just want to be baptized again.''
Russ Ford, a Southern Baptist minister who has worked with Edmonds for 10 years, said Tuesday that Angelone's decision came as a surprise to him.
``In the past, the state has always allowed us to administer sacraments of faith,'' Ford said. ``This is the first time such a request has been denied. We've baptized in the past. We've married men in the past.
``Dana is a Christian, following the religious tenets of his faith. He's trying to be obedient to Christ. He doesn't mean this as a rebel or a radical. His request was the request of a sincere person.''
Christian sects take two approaches to baptism, according to David Lanier, an associate professor of New Testament at the Southern Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
``Mainline Protestant and Catholic churches practice infant baptism,'' said Lanier. Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Roman Catholics and Episcopalians baptize at infancy and believe that once baptized, you are forever baptized.
``Free church traditions such as the Mennonites, the Amish and the Baptists practice believer's baptism. They believe you should be baptized as an adult after making a profession of faith.''
In general, said Lanier, free church traditions require only one baptism. But some charismatic sects believe that a person can lose salvation and must be born and baptized again.
Among non-charismatic sects, it is unusual, but not unheard of, to undergo more than one baptism, said Wayne Blythe, an associate pastor at Freemason Baptist Church in Norfolk and former prison chaplain.
``Biblically, one baptism is sufficient,'' he said. ``Some people, in their own subjective view, feel their baptism was not valid in terms of their own spiritual preparation and readiness for baptism.
``It's true that some people have been baptized so many times, they've made a mockery of it. But I'm not in any position to tell this fellow that his baptism was or wasn't valid. And I don't know that the state is, either. It's not the place of the Department of Corrections to argue theology.
``It seems to me a small thing to ask for a fellow who's about to be executed.''
Edmonds spent Tuesday in his death house cell, receiving visitors and writing ``a goodbye letter to everyone.'' Two chaplains came in the morning, and a brother, brother-in-law and cousin visited in the afternoon.
``They kissed me on the cheek and took some pictures,'' he said.
by CNB