In the Book of Common Prayer, the first psalm appointed for daily prayer on the First Sunday of Advent is Psalm 146:
4 Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help! *
whose hope is in the LORD their God;
5 Who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them; *
who keeps his promise for ever;
6 Who gives justice to those who are oppressed, *
and food to those who hunger.
7 The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind; *
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
8 The LORD loves the righteous; the LORD cares for the stranger; *
he sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.
9 The LORD shall reign for ever, *
your God, O Zion, throughout all generations. Hallelujah!
The first thing we do, as we enter into the season of Advent, praying and waiting for the coming kingdom of God, is to pray God’s promise of liberation for prisoners.
The challenge for abolitionists during Advent is to see around us the world we are waiting for. After all, at the center of the Christian argument for prison abolition is the claim that freedom for prisoners is not only a promise for the world to come, but also for the world as it is now. Anglican theologian Fleming Rutledge talks about Advent as a time of “apocalyptic transvision,” when we see our world, into which Christ was born, and the world to come simultaneously. “Apocalypse” means revelation. Our apocalyptic imagination is our way of revealing God’s world to come in the midst of history. Where do we see the future without prisons that we await? How can our revolutionary imagination reveal it to us in the midst of our world of oppression and incarceration?
Micah Herskind recently shared thoughts from the “Making and Unmaking Mass Incarceration” conference. Over and over, he recounts, speakers shared the same point about the role of abolition in the present:
- Ruth Wilson Gilmore: “abolition is about building and what we build together”
- Ashon Crawley: “abolition is not an identity to claim, but about doing”
- Mariame Kaba: “Abolition is in the present…It’s not just a horizon we’ll arrive at some day. It’s constantly being made.”
- Elizabeth Hinton: “practicing abolition means creating communities of care”
What this means for us, as Christians, is that our Advent is not just about waiting for liberation “on the horizon” but about building as we wait. Perhaps, for abolitionist Christians, our apocalyptic transvision is not just about seeing the world to come alongside the world as it is, but about seeing the world to come already present in our world in the structures we are building together.
Psalm 146 places the liberation of prisoners (v. 7) at the center of God’s work: between God’s creation of heaven and earth (v. 4), and God’s promised reign forever (v. 9). As St. Paul writes: “Now is the acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation!” (2 Cor. 6:2). What our apocalyptic transvision reveals to us, in showing us the coming reign of God, is in fact, the truth of the world as it is now; the truth of the world—this world, our world—as a place of liberation where prisoners are set free, as we build abolition together.
Perhaps the most important thing for us to see, this Advent, is not the world to come but the world around us. No matter how much we wait and prepare in Advent, the dawn of redeeming grace at Christmas is always received as a surprise. Perhaps this surprise ties together the world we imagine and the world we know. How can we look at the world around us and see with surprise the seeds of liberation in it? How can we be surprised by the abolition we are building, by our own capacities for healing and liberation?
Abolition is not just a future promise. We see it, in this in-between Advent of waiting, in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our love for one another, in the welcome and reconciliation of our Christmas celebrations. Every part of our community-building and care for one another can be turned toward the liberation of all. Abolition, like the Christ Child, is “born in us today”.
All holiday blessings to you, and thanks for your support of Christians for the Abolition of Prisons in 2019.
Peace,
Hannah
P.S. If you’re looking for holiday gifts for the ones you love, don’t forget our T-shirts, tote bags, and mugs: https://teespring.com/christians-for-abolition