Psalm 119:105-112
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
The effects of the law in this section of Psalm 119 are intriguing (or at least should be!) to a society that claims to be governed by the “rule of law.” The Psalmist holds on to the law as a source of life and sustenance. They bring joy and serve as the inheritance that the Psalmist passes on. The role of Torah is complex in both Jewish and Christian circles, but the picture the Psalmist presents is clear: law should bring life for the psalmist and their community.
The “rule of law” does not frequently serve this purpose in our system of retributive justice. Following the law does not intrinsically bring you life and quite often it is used to bring about death, both for offenders and for those who exist at its whims. In the United States, from the beginning law was constructed to accrue advantage for some people at the expense of others—most obviously in the enshrinement of slavery. The legacy of such origins endures to this day, bringing life rather than bringing death.
For some, the first step toward PIC abolition is looking at the effects the law has now. When you live comfortably and, for the most part, don’t interact with the legal system, you don’t see these effects. But once you see them, you can’t unsee them. The laws we have make it expensive to be poor, keep people yolked to their incarceration long after release, and shield law enforcement from the laws they are supposed to enforce. Where Torah is meant to bring life to its followers, our laws so often do the opposite.
Abolition has an expressive goal that is quite clear and singular in our case, but it is connected to so much else that doesn’t work in our world. When preaching about the life that comes from the imperatives of our Scriptures, pastors should point out the ways in which the laws of the state that we actually follow fall short of God’s will for us. It’s those laws that create the systems we want to abolish and for some, the journey to becoming an abolitionist starts there.
Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.