Month: January 2021

Deuteronomy 18:15–20 and Mark 1:21–28

In comparing two of this week’s readings, we notice something about the character of God, a character that — if emulated by the church — will lead to abolition. 

In Mark, 1:21-28, the power and authority of Jesus is put on full display. This authority was obvious to the synagogue’s attendees based on his teaching alone, Mark notes that “he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Again, Jesus as God’s prophet is put on full display as he heals one who is demon possessed. 

In this interaction we can see what God meant when, in Deuteronomy, he told the Israelites that he would raise up a prophet from their own people. God’s promise, that prophets would come and that some would evidently have his authority while others — either those who presumed to speak in his name or those who spoke in other’s name — would die.

Turning back to Mark, we see that the demon also recognizes Christ as God’s prophet. “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” Jesus then rebukes the demon and casts him out of the person. But it’s the demon’s phrase before this that should catch our eye and juxtapose itself with God in Deuteronomy. 

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”

The demon accuses God of being a destroyer. But turn to Deuteronomy, 

“Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable.” 

Here, in the Old Testament where anti-Semitism has driven Christians to often accuse God of being violent and destructve, God declares that accountability will be had. This is in contrast with destruction. Accountability does not destroy individuals, it instead restores and elevates them. This is a vision of abolition. Punishment and carceral systems can not fulfill the vision of God, which is a vision of accountability. 

Lastly, God’s warning that those who do not heed the prophet will be held accountable is a restraint on those of us who would feel a white-hot rage at those systems and those who perpetuate them. Don’t forget that Godself will be holding them — and us — accountable. When we feel a desire for vengeance and want to destroy those who advance such inequalities, God wants to bring them to account and build a better world for all.

Mitchell Atencio (he/him/his) is a discalced writer and photographer based in Arizona.

Psalm 62

In Psalm 62:5-12, the Psalmist dually interprets God as a refuge and a hope, and as one with a power to complete God’s work.

The work of abolition is not our work joined by God, it is God’s work joined by us. For those on the outside, and especially for those whose lives have not been touched by the carceral system, we need to remember that this is God’s work, we simply join in. This means that we ought to be especially careful not to see ourselves as doing charity work, or as bringers of salvation, because that power belongs to God. And, as Jesus makes clear in Matthew 25, God is first found in those outcast and downtrodden by our society. 

When this Psalm refers to God as a refuge, rock, and fortress, they are calling us to see God as the primary source for this work. Not theory, not theology, but God, the everlasting power and might that repays all according to their work. 

And lest we miss this as a warning and caution, the Psalm exhorts the reader to “put no confidence in extortion, and set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.” This warning is not just for individuals, but for systems and communities. This is a warning for our racial capitalist systems, where riches are built off extortion and oppression. 

Mitchell Atencio (he/him/his) is a discalced writer and photographer based in Arizona.

1 Corinthians 6:12–20

The reading from 1 Corinthians this week at first glance seems not to have much to do with abolition — but perhaps there is a liberating truth under the (difficult) surface.

First, though, it is important to name the harm done by this passage, and particularly its problematic treatment of sex workers. Paul filters what it means in practice for our spirits to be united to the Lord (6:17) through his particular cultural and personal opinions about sexual ethics. (Thanks to Rev. Lura Groen for this insight.)

But nonetheless his emphasis on bodies is instructive. Bodies do not only have to do with sex, but with the importance of material realities. If our bodies are made members of Christ (6:15) then the liberation of Christ is intended for our bodies, not only for our souls. This is an essential insight in resistance against the carceral state which derives its power from perceived control over bodies — both physical and social ones. Perhaps the most central concept in doing Christian theology for abolition is that we should not unite our bodies to the carceral state, but that instead we should live out in practice now, with our physical bodies and social bodies, the liberation that we believe Christ has already accomplished for our souls and for the entire creation at the end of history. As Wesley Spears-Newsome wrote last week, we should understand ourselves entirely baptized, not reserving some part of us for the service of empire — or of prisons. 

Paul does not only use the language of sex here in relation to bodies, but also the language of food: “[You say] ‘food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food.’” We might paraphrase that, in light of our concern for abolition, in terms of justice: “You say ‘the prison is meant for justice, and justice for the prison’ — and God will destroy both one and the other.” But in truth “God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.” The reality of resurrection life is the reality of a justice which leaves no place for prisons, neither here nor in the world to come. God has raised us, our physical and social bodies, to the new life of union with the risen body of Christ. We are members of the liberated social reality of Christ’s body.

A final important concept in an abolitionist reading of this passage is the idea in 6:20 of being “bought with a price,” a reference (as Lee Griffith and André Trocmé have written at length) to God’s role as the “kinsman-redeemer” for God’s people, the one who pays the ransom to liberate them from captivity. God, as kinsman-redeemer, pays the bond to free every one of God’s people. We are “not our own” to rededicate ourselves to carcerality, but are instead committed to the work of abolition that God has started in us. I want to also call out here that this language of bondage, that we are “not our own” in relation to God, remains problematic! But again, I hope that perhaps there is a liberating truth to be uncovered under Paul’s perspective. What I would emphasize here is our own personal commitment to the liberation God has given us, and to the idea of God’s paying of ransom for us as a liberation that has real concrete consequences for how we act. The way we “glorify God in our bodies,” the way we construct our material realities toward liberation, is a response to the liberation accomplished by God who “bought us with a price.”

God has made liberation real, but we are the ones with bodies to put it into practice. The way we use our bodies and the way we construct our social bodies make bodily present the promise of abolition begun by God.

Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for the Abolition of Prisons.

Mark 1:4–11

“John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Mark 1:4-5)

On this Sunday every year, I recall a parable about soldiers and baptism. 

Once there was an emperor who demanded all his soldiers be baptized in a peculiar fashion. The emperor wanted the favor of God, but he also wanted to wage war against his neighbors. Knowing deep down that these desires were incompatible, the emperor told the priests to baptize his soldiers by full immersion—except for their sword hands. In doing so, the soldiers of his great empire could commit the emperor’s misdeeds with the only part of their body not pledged to God. 

This story probably doesn’t have any historical grounding, but as a parable it strikes me as painfully true. Despite warnings that we cannot serve two masters and admonishments to cut off our hands if they cause us to sin, many Christians still go about their lives as if their sword hands had not been baptized. 

Abolition Lectionary contributors come from a variety of Christian traditions with different theologies and practices of baptism. In my Baptist congregation, we baptize like they do in the parable—but we make sure your sword hand goes under the water, too. Like John’s baptism in today’s Gospel reading, our baptismal rites involve renunciation and repentance. Borrowing from sibling traditions, we have baptismal candidates renounce “the powers of evil and death” before they can be baptized. We emphasize that your life as a Christian demands full loyalty and accountability to God, not just in part but the whole. 

In conversations about the abolition of police and prisons, many Christians act as if they believe repentance and a total loyalty to God are unnecessary. Someone must do the work of policing our communities and keeping prisoners away from the rest of us, the line of reasoning goes. Someone must be baptized in all but their sword hand so the rest of us can live peaceably. 

That’s not how John the Baptist puts it, though. That’s not how Jesus’ baptism goes. When Jesus undergoes his baptism, the heavens tear apart and a beatific vision occurs. This event launches a ministry that ends in death perpetrated by law enforcement. Nowhere do any of the Gospels endorse a piecemeal approach to our baptisms. Nowhere does it say that our baptismal vows only apply some of the time.

One of the first axioms of conversations about abolition (and any Christian ethic!) is that discussions should take place in terms of our loyalty to God, not in terms of ‘practical’ or utilitarian solutions. When considering abolition in the context of baptism this week, ask yourself: which is more important to you and your community—your baptism or your commitment to prisons and police?

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his)is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina. You can find more of his work at wespearsnewsome.com.