Romans 8:12–25
This passage from Romans promises the liberation of creation. In the promise that the creation will be set free from “bondage to decay” and will “obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (8:21) we see the abolition of death-dealing systems and powers such as policing and incarceration. Ruth Wilson Gilmore reminds us that abolition requires “changing everything.” Changing everything is the picture painted in this passage of the creation that is being renewed — although the form of renewal we see right now is that of the struggle for justice we are engaged in, “groaning in labor pains” (8:22). The acts of resistance by which incarcerated and criminalized people stand up for their own dignity, by which allies support them, and by which we all demand better systems of communal care rather than criminalization and “organized abandonment” are the labor pains of new creation. The renewal of creation encompasses more than prison-industrial complex abolition, but it does not encompass less. The abolitionist struggle is a making-real and visible of the labor pains of the new creation.
Renewal is not yet accomplished. Abolition puts us in the business of “hoping for what we do not see” (8:25). But what does it mean to wait for it with patience (8:25)?
Surely it does not mean that we cease our striving. Justice delayed is justice denied! Our patience is not a willingness to wait for the world to catch up with the demands of justice. Instead I wonder if patience here goes back to the Latin root of the word, suffering (like the Passion of Jesus). We hope for what we don’t see with the willingness to endure the suffering that is part of the labor pains.
I’ve given birth twice. My experience of the nature of labor pains is that yes, while they cause great pain, they are also unstoppable. The process proceeds whether you are ready to endure it or not. As we hope for the world we don’t yet see, I hope our patience takes the form of enduring that unstoppable force. As we participate in the building of a world without police or prisons, we are sharing in the unstoppable labor of God; we are groaning as we suffer under state violence and in solidarity with those targeted by state violence but all our groaning is part of an unstoppable wave of liberation. And our endurance makes us willing to stay in solidarity, to remain committed, to keep demanding a better world of accountability and care rather than becoming resigned to death-dealing systems of control and punishment.
Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for Abolition.