Many mainline Christian denominations make use of the Revised Common Lectionary which offers scriptural readings for each Sunday. For the upcoming Sunday, August 5, the lectionary reading from Ephesians 4:8-10 is a text redolent with the imagery of abolition:
Therefore it is said,
“When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
he gave gifts to his people.”(When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.)
This somewhat mysterious passage makes more sense when read in an abolitionist light:
- Jesus ‘making captivity itself a captive’: author Lee Griffith places this passage in light of Jesus’ victory over the powers and principalities of this world – understood to include not only sin and death but also prisons, writing: “Biblically understood, prisons are based on the spirit of death. Biblically understood, liberty is based on ‘the Spirit of the Lord” (Luke 4:18). When Jesus’ proclamation of liberty is viewed in the light of the resurrection, it can be said that Christ led captivity captive or that he captured captivity” (The Fall of the Prison 109). Just as Roman generals held parades dragging the captives of their conquest behind them, Griffith writes, so Jesus carries captivity itself in his train, a sign that he has utterly conquered and defeated it. But he has done so not by giving in to the spirit of violence or conquest but through the cross (The Fall of the Prison 110). That is, Jesus has conquered through the mystery of his death which destroyed death and his identification with criminals which destroys the notion of “criminals” as outcast or separate from the rest of us.
- The emphasis on Jesus’ descent into the lower parts of the earth: This text has one of the few references to the concept which later became known as the descent into Hell or the Harrowing of Hell (another reference is 1 Peter 3:18-22 which refers to Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison). The descent into Hell also makes its appearance in the Apostles’ Creed and in many icons of the resurrection, which show Christ taking Adam and Eve by the hand and leading them out, breaking the gates of Hell behind him. In this image, we see again the central theological significance of abolitionist imagery: the resurrection of Christ is not just his physical reanimation, but literally the freeing of those imprisoned! Naming this central symbol as a prison-abolitionist one has two consequences: first, to strengthen the practical work of abolition by recognizing its theological and eschatological significance, so that every policy change we can carve out to set some people free forms part of the ongoing work of Jesus’ resurrection towards God’s final victory on earth; second, to deepen our understanding of the mystery of Christ’s resurrection by giving it concrete significance in the freeing of prisoners on earth. This is the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection: that all those in prison have already been set free, and our job is to make the world recognize and live out that liberation that God has already accomplished in fact. And the descent into hell offers a further hope as well: the hope of the salvation and restoration of all. After all, if Christ can descend “into the lower parts” to “preach to the spirits in prison” and set them free, how can we continue to insist that any will be eternally separated from God’s mercy? God is the god who sets prisoners free: we believe this to be true in prisons as they exist today and in eternity. So our work for the abolition of prison here and now is also a profession of our belief in, ultimately, a universal salvation.
P.S. If you’re inspired by this text on August 5 and want to take concrete action thereafter as a sign of Christ’s victory over prisons and death here, the ACLU is organizing a California Lobby Day for important criminal justice reform bills in Sacramento – including SB10, a step toward abolition of cash bail – and you can join them.