Statement from the Board of Bishops of The A.M.E. Zion Church on the Proposed Public Livestreamed Execution of Nidal Malik Hasan and the Sanctity of Human Dignity Before God

The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, standing for more than 219 years as “The Freedom Church,” has never been silent in the face of injustice, and we will not be silent now. We speak today not as advocates for any act of violence, and not as defenders of terror. We unequivocally condemn the horrific mass murder carried out by Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009, in which 13 lives were taken, and more than 30 people were wounded. We hold in sacred memory the fallen, and we continue to pray for the survivors, the families, and all who carry the wounds of that terrible day.

We speak today as servants of the God who declared in Ezekiel 33:11 (NRSVUE), “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.” We speak as a people who believe that the way a nation exercises its power over life and death reveals the content of its character, and that no act of state violence, however legally sanctioned, is beyond the scrutiny of the moral and prophetic community of faith.

We therefore call upon the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, and all relevant authorities to immediately reverse the decision to publicly livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, scheduled for December 3, 2026.

The A.M.E. Zion Church was born among a people who know intimately what it means when the state turns the suffering and death of a human being into a public spectacle/lynchings. Our ancestors were made to witness such spectacles as instruments of terror and control. We refused then, as we refuse now, to sanctify the theater of death.

We are deeply aware that the condemnation of this decision has come from across the political and religious spectrum. Republican Senator Thom Tillis declared plainly that public executions are what oppressive dictatorships do and that such a thing should not be happening in America. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has stated that public executions constitute a form of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has called the plan barbaric. These are not the voices of those who sympathize with Hasan’s crimes. These are the voices of conscience, and the Freedom Church adds its voice to theirs without hesitation or apology.

The Prophet Isaiah warned in Isaiah 10:1-2 (NRSVUE): “Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right.” When the instruments of state power are deployed not for the genuine administration of justice but for the display of dominance and the satisfaction of public appetite, the prophetic tradition of the Church demands a response. We respond today.

We name specifically our opposition to this decision for the following reasons.

First, it transforms a human death into a public event without precedent in modern American democratic life, and in doing so, moves this nation closer in practice to the very authoritarian regimes it claims to oppose. When Senator Tillis says that public executions are what oppressive dictatorships do, he is not wrong, and the Freedom Church agrees.

Second, it places the imagery of violent death before millions of viewers, including children and young people who, under the existing law, are barred from witnessing executions, without any meaningful gatekeeping. Once a livestream begins, it cannot be contained. It will be recorded, shared, replayed, and used in ways no authority can control or anticipate.

Third, it does not serve the families of those killed at Fort Hood. It exploits them. Genuine closure, where it can be found at all, does not come from watching a man shot to death on a screen. The families of the fallen deserve pastoral care, genuine community, and dignified mourning, not a spectacle broadcast to millions of strangers.

Fourth, it grants Nidal Hasan exactly the kind of global platform that serves his purposes, not the purposes of justice. Making this execution public gives a convicted terrorist exactly what he wanted from the moment he opened fire, which is maximum public attention.

Fifth, it degrades the soldiers of the United States military who will be ordered to carry out this firing squad. Those men and women who serve this nation with honor deserve not to have their solemn duty transformed into a broadcast event.

Proverbs 24:17-18 (NRSVUE) cautions: “Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the Lord will see it and be displeased.” The wisdom literature of Scripture understood long before the age of social media that the spectacle of an enemy’s destruction corrodes the soul, not only of the one who falls, but of the one who watches with satisfaction.

The Freedom Church was founded by people who understood the Cross of Jesus Christ not just as a symbol of triumphant power, but as the ultimate revelation of what happens when the state places the execution of a human being on public display for the satisfaction of the crowd. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified publicly, in full view of jeering onlookers, not to serve justice, but to serve the appetite of empire for spectacle and control. And the Church was born in the aftermath of that very spectacle, declaring that the state’s theater would not have the final word.

We do not compare Nidal Hasan to Jesus Christ. We do not minimize what he did. But we say without apology that the God who raised Jesus from a public and humiliating death has something to say about public executions, and what God says is this: human death is not a performance. The state does not have the authority to turn the ending of any human being’s life into a livestreamed national event.

As Jesus declared in Matthew 5:9 (NRSVUE): “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

As the Apostle Paul proclaimed in Romans 8:31 (NRSVUE): “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”

And as the Prophet Amos declared to the powers of his day in Amos 5:24 (NRSVUE): “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Justice is not a livestream. Justice is not vengeance dressed in the language of accountability. The Freedom Church has always known the difference, and we will continue to speak that difference into the public square, for as long as God gives us breath.

We are praying for the families of the Fort Hood fallen. We are praying for the soul of this nation. We are praying that those in authority will step back from this decision before it is too late. But our prayers, as they always have been in the history of this great church, are accompanied by proclamation. We Speak Out. We Stand Up. And we remain, as God has always called us to be, a voice for the voiceless and a witness to a justice that does not perform but transforms.

Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us.

Your Servants in Christ,

This 14th Day of October, in the Year of Our Lord 2026

The Board of Bishops of The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

Bishop Daran H. Mitchell, President
Bishop Darryl B. Starnes, Senior Bishop
Bishop W. Darin Moore
Bishop George D. Crenshaw
Bishop Hilliard Dogbe
Bishop U.U. Effiong
Bishop Brian R. Thompson, Sr.
Bishop Eric L. Leake
Bishop Anthony N. Witherspoon
Bishop Melanie Miller
Bishop Dwayne A. Walker
Bishop Bernardo J. Ngunza
Bishop Seth O. Lartey, Located
Bishop Joseph Johnson, Retired
Bishop Marshall H. Strickland, Retired
Bishop Nathaniel Jarrett, Jr., Retired
Bishop George W. C. Walker, Sr., Retired
Bishop S. Chuka Ekemam, Retired
Bishop Warren M. Brown, Retired
Bishop Kenneth Monroe, Retired
Bishop Dennis V. Proctor, Retired
Bishop Michael A. Frencher, Sr., Retired

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
Romans 12:17-18 (NRSVUE)