Paris, Tenn.–Broken Beyond Repair: A Conversation About the Death Penalty with Reverend Stacy Rector will take place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, February 22. Sponsored by First Christian Church, the event will be held in the church fellowship hall, 101 S. Poplar Street in Paris. Rev. Rector also will speak the following Sunday morning at the church’s 11  a.m. service.

Sharing facts about the failures of the current system, Rector offers an analysis of the death penalty, as well as alternate approaches to address violent crime. These methods include the support needed by surviving families of murder victims to ensure that their healing does not rely on the outcomes of the individuals who have caused them harm.

A Presbyterian minister and Executive Director of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP), Rev. Rector will provide both a theological and policy framework for the conversation about Tennessee’s death penalty system.

“We are grateful to Stacey Rector for joining us in Paris for this important discussion,” said Rev. Caren Teichmann, First Christian Church. “I don’t know anyone who hasn’t wrestled with this topic. As Christians around the world begin Lenten journeys prior to Easter, questions surrounding the death penalty loom large. First Christian Church invites everyone to join in the discussion with this remarkable individual and fellow West Tennessean.”

A native of Dyersburg, Reverend Rector is a graduate of Rhodes College and Columbia Theological Seminary, and an ordained Presbyterian minister. She served as Associate Pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville for nine years. In 2006, she became Executive Director of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an organization whose mission is to honor life by abolishing the death penalty, preventing violence, and supporting those who experience harm. Rev. Rector served as spiritual advisor to Steve Henley, an inmate on Tennessee’s death row, who was executed in 2009.

Rev. Rector has served as vice-president of the national board of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty and on the boards of UKIRK Nashville (Presbyterian Campus Ministry) and Community Shares Tennessee. She is currently active in the Presbytery of Middle Tennessee and serves on the Presbytery’s Social Justice Committee.

For more information on these events, call 731-642-3181 or email svandyke@firstchristianparis.org. Find more about TADP at www.TennesseeDeathPenalty.org.