“BLACK JESUS AND FREEDOM TO THE PRISONERS”
When we
moved from Norfolk to Nashville late in 1980, I began working for the Southern
Coalition on Jails and Prisons(SCJP), whose purpose it was to work on prison
reform. I also wanted to transfer my
ministerial membership from Norfolk Presbytery to Middle Tennessee Presbytery
(both have since changed names). Middle
Tennessee Presbytery was deeply divided at that time, much like the country is
now, with only a few votes making a difference in each important issue. This was also prior to reunion with the
former UPCUSA (1983), so I expected and got an extensive grilling on the floor
of the Presbytery meeting. One of the
opponents to my being received into the Presbytery read a quote at the meeting
from the brochures of the SCJP to the effect that our ultimate goal was the
abolition of prisons in the USA.
He asked me
(lots of “he’s” at that point) if SCJP really believed that prisons should be
abolished, and if I believed it. I
wanted to keep my answer simple and persuasive at the same time, so I said that
it was biblical, that Jesus had said in his first sermon in Luke 4, that he
come to free the prisoners. So, yes, I
believed in the Bible, and I believed that Jesus was being literal when he said
that. He had come to free the
prisoners. There was a fair amount of
murmuring in response, but I did squeak into the Presbytery by a few votes.
I was
reminded of that episode this week when a multiracial (African/Hispanic) friend
of mine wrote me to ask about the mass incarceration rate in the USA. In specific, he was wondering about Jesus and
prisons. He had noticed that Jesus
talked about prisoners a lot, and he remembered Jesus’ sermon from Luke 4 about
bringing liberty to the captives. He was
noting that most people believe that the purpose of prisons is a response to
crime, and did Jesus want to abolish prisons?
He was wondering why Jesus and the Bible itself looked at prisons and
the judicial system in such a different way, ending with this note: “They seemed to have no trust in the judicial
system.”
My response
was that we must remember that Jesus was an oppressed and marginalized person,
born into imperial Rome. He had no
rights as a citizen and from Rome’s point of view, he was merely a commodity to
be used by Rome. In this sense, I usually refer to the Black
Jesus, not because of the color of his skin or even his racial classification,
but because of his socio-economic status at the margins of Roman society. It is no accident that the historian of the
four Gospel writers, Luke, places the birth of Jesus squarely in the shadow of
the Roman Empire. Black Jesus would
understand that the Roman prisons did not exist as a response to crime but as a
tool of social control. Jesus’ view of
prisons was similar to the views of those people held as slaves – they would
have no trust in the judicial systems of the masters.
It is in
this context that we must reflect on the imprisonment of the children of
immigrants, separating them from their families, no matter what their age. Even the proponents of this horrid doctrine
defend it not as a response to crime but as a deterrent to certain
behaviors. Multiply this by a thousand
times, and you will get a sense of the mass incarceration of millions of
African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans.
Prisons are not a response to crime in the United States – if they were,
there would be so many more people classified as “white” held in our jails and
prisons. If they were, there would be so
many fewer people of color held in our jails and prisons.
I grew up
with Jesus as a white, middle class man, and because of that context, it was
easy for my forbears to take a passage like Isaiah 61:1-4 and spiritualize it
and individualize it. They made it into
a passage about becoming free from sin and getting into heaven when I died, and
I believed that teaching. Seeing the
Black Jesus, however, has helped me understand that the Bible and Jesus did not
mean for this idea to be spiritualized.
They meant for Roman (and Babylonian and Egyptian) prisons to be emptied
of their brothers and sisters so that justice could be done.
Would I
abolish prisons if I could?
Absolutely. What would I put in
their place? A system where those who
have been oppressed and marginalized could be brought into the center of life and
society, a system involving recognition and repentance and reparations and
recovery. Would there be any prisons
left? Yes, likely, for those rich and
others whose core beliefs seem to involve robbing and hurting others, but even
the goal for them would be rehabilitation.
To quote the Apostle Paul from the beginning of the 5th
chapter of his famous letter to the Galatians:
“Freedom is what we have. Christ
Jesus has set us free – stand then as free people, and do not allow yourselves
to become slaves again.” As long as we
have prisons, we will have slaves, and we all will be slaves.
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