Author: Hannah

Luke 2:22–40

And a sword will pierce your own soul too.

One of Australia’s greatest contributions to Christmas is the Paul Kelly song, How to Make Gravy. The song, for those unfamiliar, is sung in the voice of Joe who is in prison and calling a man named Dan. Joe is apologising for missing the family’s Christmas celebrations and asks Dan to pass messages on to his kids and partner. It is a heartbreaking song with a good beat and touching specificity, capturing the pain caused to one’s self and loved ones when folks are removed from their families and communities by isolation and imprisonment. 

Simeon rejoices in the sight of Jesus, Israel’s Messiah. Having taken Jesus in his arms and praised God for the gift of getting to see, so late in life, the salvation of his people, he turns to the child’s parents and offers them a blessing. He then directs his attention to Mary, offering a sobering word: ‘a sword will pierce your own soul too.’ 

So far in Luke, Mary has been filled with great hope for the future her son will bring and the work her God will accomplish. Consider the opening to the Magnificat: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.’ Simeon, though, alerts Mary to the fact (one she is likely aware of but is possibly trying to avoid out of understandable fear) that Jesus’ mission to (in Mary’s words) bring down the powerful, lift the lowly, send the rich away empty and fill the hungry with good things will not be unopposed: the powerful are generally uninclined to give over their thrones. Proclaiming release to the captives (Luke 4) is received as good news by many… just not the captors. Jesus’ ministry makes enemies and provokes the ire of the violent machinations of the State, and it ends with his death on a cross – where nails pierce hand and foot, spear pierces side, and Mary – in living to see such an end for her beloved son – a sword pierces her own soul too.  

Mary then, in this moment as at the foot of the cross, stands as a figure for all mothers (and beyond that all who parent, nurture, and raise) who have had to witness violence wrought on their children by oppressive governments, violent policing, and unjust sentencing and imprisonment. All mothers who have seen their children die on the street at the hands of police, who have lost years waiting for their child to return from a prison too far away for them to visit, who have felt the pang of looking at an empty chair at the table on Christmas lunch. By the power of the Spirit, Mary is there, present and grieving in those moments, present and standing strong when mothers lament, protest, and rage against deaths in custody and miscarriages of justice. Her soul is pierced with (and thus tied to) all mothers (and more) who have felt the stab of this unkind sword of woe. Just as Jesus was not spared the violence of inhumane systems of justice and powers bent on suppressing the call of true justice (and thus can be said to stand in true solidarity with the world’s suffering) so too the mother of our Lord was not spared the hurt of seeing her beloved boy brutalised, removed, and extinguished. There might be comfort in this, maybe hope too; it might not be enough everyday, but hopefully, a little more at Christmas. 

If I dare, I’ll attempt to extend this connection more broadly, (though without wanting to conflate the general with the specific) this year, swords of varying degrees will pierce the sides of many family members who are unable to be together on Christmas due to COVID restrictions. Who have not seen or held beloved children, siblings, or parents in almost a calendar year. We too may draw comfort from the understanding presence of Mary and her son. But more than this, perhaps the character of this Christmas provides us an opportunity to develop further empathy for those who COVID or no would have been kept from loved ones. Provides us an opportunity to practice a more pointed remembrance for those who are in prison as if we were there with them (Heb 13:3). Perhaps this year can further set us on the course of abolition so that the many Joe’s of the world can feel the warmth of family and friends as they make the Christmas gravy. 

Christmas has long been recognised as a mixed season – grief and joy intermingling in ways far too messy to predict – and this year will intensify the bluer feelings. Yet Scripture offers consolation: even the first Christmas season was marked with frustration amidst the joy of arrival, fear amidst the hope of redemption, grief amidst the blossoming of a new future, but this did not stop the work that God was and is and will do in the life and love of Jesus – a boy nurtured by a mother whose soul was pierced by Rome’s sword but whose spirit rejoiced in Israel’s God. 

Liam Miller (he/him/his) is an ordained Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church in Australia. He currently serves as a New Growth Minister on Darkinjung land/Toukley, New South Wales, Australia. He also hosts the Love Rinse Repeat podcast where he interviews theologians, ministers, artists, and activists.

Luke 2:1–20

“Because there was no room for them at the inn.”

An abolitionist perspective forces us to recognize prisons and policing not as a necessary consequence of trying to build safe communities, but instead as a social construction intended to draw boundaries around those who are worthy of compassion and a place in an accountable human society, and those who are excluded. The logic of prisons and police is the logic of “no room at the inn”: 

• no room to hold in our communities those who have done harm as they fumble toward accountability, but only to banish them and lock them up; 
• no room for those who are criminalized by the intentional acts of those in power to define harmless acts as crimes in ways driven by racial inequity and anti-Blackness; 
• no room for entire communities that have been subjected to what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “organized abandonment,” considered unworthy of investment but only to be threats to be policed. Prisons and policing are about who counts as a community member, and who is considered “social pollution” (Rima Vesely-Flad’s term), subject to exclusion and control.

This is the story into which Jesus is born at Christmas. Christmas is the story of those who are turned away from shelter, from love, from community, because there is no room for them at the inn. The story of Christmas begins with this fact: the light shines in the darkness, but the world does not know it. How often, as a society, do we close our hearts, our country, our communities, our homes, and leave the Holy Family with no room at the inn?

But this is not the end of the Christmas story. Because the Christmas story tells us that God makes a way. When there is no room at the inn, God is born into the world in a stable and laid in a manger. When people would not receive Mother Mary and her holy child, the animals brought gifts. We sing that favorite old carol “The Friendly Beasts:”

                        Jesus our brother, kind and good

                        Was humbly laid in a stable rude

                        And the friendly beasts around him stood

                        Jesus our brother, kind and good

                        Thus every beast by some glad spell

                        In the stable dark was glad to tell

                        Of the gift he gave Emmanuel

                        The gift he gave Emmanuel.

In the story of this hymn, every animal offers the baby Jesus a gift: the cow the manger to cradle his head, the dove a song to sing him to sleep.

When human justice and community fail, God makes another way.

But this is the judgment against the ways of our world: when we ignore the way God is making and look for safety in structures that exclude and criminalize, we miss Jesus.

There’s a beautiful story by Ray Bradbury in The Illustrated Man, called “The Man.” In it, a starship captain arrives on a faraway planet – but the people there are not interested in him, because a far more important man, a miraculous healer bringing peace, has just been there. At first the captain is skeptical that anything so good could be true. But when he is finally convinced that the coming of “the Man” has been real, he demands to know where he went, and how he can catch up with him. Refusing to stay behind in the healed community of peace he has found, he gets back in his spaceship, determined to catch up to “the Man.” But as one of the bystanders says after the captain leaves:

“Poor man, he’s gone. And he’ll go on, planet after planet, seeking and seeking, and always and always he will be an hour late, or a half hour late, or ten minutes late, or a minute late. And finally he will miss out by only a few seconds. And when he has visited three hundred worlds and is seventy or eighty years old he will miss out by only a fraction of a second, and then a smaller fraction of a second. And he will go on and on, thinking to find that very thing which he left behind here, on this planet, in this city—” [The Illustrated Man, p. 52]

We are always too late. There is no room for the holy child Jesus in the inn of our hearts. 

But God makes another way. God’s way is the way of that healed community of peace left behind by the Man. God’s way is the way of abolition: the way that does not look up to heaven, or beyond the sea for the word of God, but recognizes that “the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart” (Deut. 30:14). The presence and peace of God occur when we live out God’s justice in our own communities of reconciliation. The hard work of community accountability for harm — of restorative, compassionate accountability — which allows us to imagine a world without prisons is the work where God becomes present to us. 

And, God promises, he is present as well, in a special way, with those who are oppressed: with those who are poor, homeless, or imprisoned (Matt. 25:31–46). Abolition derives from our recognition of the reality that Jesus comes among us as a prisoner. Jesus is closest to those who are imprisoned, criminalized, excluded, and constructed as socially polluted. If we look to the communities of solidarity being built for liberation — in prisons and more broadly in our punitive and carceral society — we will find him there.

If we look for Jesus within the confines of communities that exclude, we will always be too late, and we will always miss him. But if we look for him among those seeking liberation— 

If we look for him in the work of abolitionist accountability and reconciliation in healed communities—

Then we will surely find him there, because that is where he dwells, God with us. 

Jesus is born in us, born among us, born on the side of those who are left outside, because God has made another way of liberation—because there was no room for them at the inn.

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

Luke 1:26–38

Mary’s song of justice, commonly referred to as the Magnificat, does not accept the status quo. The powerful are brought down low. The rich are sent away empty. Mary’s words prefigure the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man later in Luke 16.

The song is powerful and convicting, but the words of Mary hinge on her ‘yes’ to God in our Gospel reading for this week. God is going to shake some things and break some chains. An angel comes to Mary, a messenger of the Lord who probably looked more like a steampunk villain (with wheels and heads and strange words) than a glowing figure with white wings. Mary is scared but she does not run. Mary is confused but she does not doubt. She doubts in herself, not in God. She asks the angel “How can this be?”

And then we have the answer that comforts Mary and should open our eyes to the radical possibility of prison abolition and society being remade. Gabriel starts with giving the deets about the Holy Spirit and Elizabeth and then says, “For nothing is impossible with God.”

This, at its heart, is why abolition is a faith issue. Prisons and jails and the justice system from the top down exist in an immanent continuum where the only justice is ours, where institutions are fixed, and where the imagination is limited by what we have seen before. As a society, we continually find ways of saying ‘no’ to God that only could come down to a lack of faith. We say ‘no’ or ‘not yet’ or ‘let’s be reasonable.’ We say, ‘what about so-and-so,’ describing the horrors that have happened in many people’s lives without questioning the system of justice that perpetuates horrors just as heinous. We perform whataboutism to God, like God is some online poster and we are internet trolls. 

Mary does not. Mary says yes to God. Mary says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

May it be so with us all. May we see a world beyond the status quo where we can say yes to God. Where we see the powerful torn down, and the captives go free. 

Rev. Wilson Pruitt is a Methodist pastor and translator in Spicewood, Texas.

Isaiah 61:1–4, 8–11

Those who have been involved in prison abolition are well aware of one of the first questions asked by those who are unfamiliar: “What will we do with criminals?” Abolitionists are well aware of the need to push back on several assumptions that this question holds. First, that any group of people can be separated as “criminals.” We are all one body, the children of God, and what a legal system labels one cannot impugn that those in prison are still our neighbors. Second, that the community’s role is that of punishing, rather than holding accountable. Still, the question behind the question is what abolitionists must answer: “What will be different from how we do things now?” 

The prophet Isaiah provides a template for how God answers that question. After forcefully declaring that God proclaims release for the imprisoned (a declaration Jesus would later name as the focus of his ministry), Isaiah spells out what God plans for “all who mourn.” 

“They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”

God’s vision, for all who mourn, is that they actively pursue the rebuilding and restoring of what’s been ruined. This justice of God is not a retribution, it’s restoration. The vision God has is for people – those who’ve been harmed and those who have harmed others– to rebuild. And God goes further than just seeing restoration for current wrongs, saying that the devastations of many generations will be repaired. 

In light of these prophecies, the church must communicate that abolition is for the good of all the community. When God is involved, God involves all in the work of resurrection, and the restoration goes back generations. For U.S. Christians, this also means supporting financial reparations for harms such as slavery, Jim Crow, and the drug war. Christians must involve themselves in giving land back to Indigenous communities, protecting current lands from unwanted development, and seeking to support expungement of marijuana crimes any time their jurisdiction seeks to legalize marijuana.

Christians follow in Christ’s steps by also embodying this prophetic vision that Isaiah lays claim to, and seeking to rebuild and repair all that has been broken.

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

Isaiah 40:1–11

We sometimes preemptively expect the comfort of God. I often find myself in situations where I almost say, “God, I am here, comfort me! I didn’t do anything; it would be great if I don’t have to and I can get the comfort without the mercy or justice.” Yet throughout the scriptures, the status quo of all societies (from the Egyptians to the Judges to the Kings to the Romans) rests upon injustice. The prophets were the voice of God for the people hurt again and again by those in power.

The comfort here comes in the midst of exile, and yet I want to lift up verse 6: “a voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?”” God is calling us this day, telling us to cry out. Do not be satisfied with the way things are. If these things of God are true, the structures and principalities are not eternal. The prison system is not eternal. Abolition is an act of faith in a better world, in a world possible precisely because every valley shall be lifted up. A voice says, “cry out.” Are you crying out? Are you seeing what God sees? Are you lifting up those society tears down? Are you seeking comfort before justice? Offer comfort to those seeking justice. Speak tenderly to those responding to the voice of God.

The Lord is coming, mighty in power. Let us not act is if this were a lie. Taking comfort in the status quo of our judicial system assumes an absent and indifferent God, but our God is on the side of justice. Our God is justice. A voice says, “cry out!” This advent, we have the chance to cry out with God at the injustice around us. We have a chance to speak tenderly to those who have been abused and hurt. We have the chance to welcome a savior who is making all things new. 

Rev. Wilson Pruitt is a Methodist pastor and translator in Spicewood, Texas.

Isaiah 64:1–9

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down! (Isaiah 64:1)

Most people think abolition is a fantastical idea—they always have. Abolitionists who wanted to end slavery in the United States heard again and again about how disruptive it would be. Those who sought to abolish Jim Crow, lynching, and discrimination at the ballot box heard again and again about how unsettling it would be. Today, calls for the abolition of police and prisons hear the same thing—it’s too troublesome, unruly, and even destructive! Abolition is an impossible consideration because it would upend everything.  

Yet, when we come to Isaiah this week the opposite impulse is on full display. The writer invites the tumult!

“Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”

“The mountains would quake at your presence!”

“The nations might tremble!”

Like much of the prophetic writings, here God is disruptive, unsettling, and troublesome. Instead of shying away from a wild, liberating God, the writer clings to the very things opponents of abolition fear. The writer knows that what some call disruptive and troublesome is actually freedom, justice, and deliverance.

The season of Advent compels us toward this vision of God. Mark’s Gospel this week begs us to keep awake and stay alert for God’s arrival, and Isaiah unflinchingly depicts the advent of God as something that upends the earth.

This upending will not be comfortable, as the writer of Isaiah suggests. God’s arrival unmasks our sins, revealing that “all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” Commitment to abolitionism likewise draws us to consider our iniquities. To challenge systems of incarceration and policing demands that we confront the prejudice, malevolence, and evil within ourselves that invented and props up these institutions. To advocate for abolition is to challenge national myths of freedom and greatness, instead pointing to the original sins of this nation.

But the disruption is good news! The writer of Isaiah reminds us that God can make a new thing in us. “We are the clay, and you [God] are the potter; we are the work of your hand.” God can make a new world among us—one that sees as its foundation mutual care, neighborly affection, and shared abundance instead of surveillance, punishment, and violence. If abolition is a fantastical idea, it is no more fantastical than the God we claim to serve.

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.

What is Abolition Lectionary?

Abolition Lectionary is an ongoing blog series for liberation. We will be following the Revised Common Lectionary — the sequence of scriptural readings used by many mainline Protestant and Catholic churches — to provide a devotional meditation or a preaching aid, reading one of the appointed scriptural texts for the Sunday in light of the abolition of policing and prisons.

This is a work of creative exegesis. Our goal is to bring our commitment to abolition to the biblical texts, and then let the biblical texts speak to it. What we will find is support for abolition and the liberation of all marginalized people all across the biblical texts. Structuring our series around a lectionary cycle lets us make abolition a constant devotional practice of study, around the liturgical year.

Posts will be published each Tuesday for the following Sunday, so that preachers looking to draw on these themes in their sermons can use #AbolitionLectionary as a resource. We are beginning next Tuesday, 11/24/20, with the readings for Advent 1, the first Sunday of the “new liturgical year” that begins each Advent.

Our contributors (for now) are: Wesley Spears-Newsome, Wilson Pruitt, Mitchell Atencio, Liam Miller, and me (Hannah Bowman). If you’d like to join us, please reach out!

We’re looking forward to seeing abolition all over the lectionary alongside you!

P.S. You may remember a pilot version of this earlier this year, before the pandemic disrupted it. We’re on a more sustainable footing now!

I wanted to highlight a new resource, an infographic on the interlocking systems of the prison-industrial complex besides simply jails and prisons. This helps express how policing and prison abolition are tied together too:

Most of the information in this infographic comes from Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law’s excellent book, Prison By Any Other Name.

Here’s a text version of the graphic, with some additional sources linked:

• Prisons and Jails
  • Economic interests: Prison Labor, Prison Guards’ Unions, Moving Capital to Rural Areas, Moving “Surplus Labor”
  • Ideological basis: Retribution and Harsh Sentencing, Racial Control and Disenfranchisement
  • Community Confinement and Control
    • Probation and parole
    • Home confinement and electronic monitoring
    • Civil commitment and sex offense registries
    • Economic interests: “saving taxpayer money”
    • Ideological basis: “Law and Order” politics of fear
  • Policing
    • Police Violence
    • Immigration Enforcement
    • Community Surveillance
    • Economic interests: Police unions, gentrification
    • Ideological basis: Anti-Blackness
  • “Treatment Industrial Complex”
    • Forced drug treatment
    • Forced psychiatric treatment
    • Economic interests: lack of accessible healthcare, nonprofit industrial complex
    • Ideological basis: Disregard for Autonomy
  • Criminalization of Survival
    • Survived and Punished
    • Criminalization of Homelessness
    • “Anti-trafficking”/Anti-sex-work
    • Ideological basis: Misogyny/Misogynoir/Transmisogyny
  • Criminalization of Parenting and Childhood
    • Child Welfare System
    • Criminalization of pregnancy loss and drug use in pregnancy
    • School-to-Prison pipeline
    • Ideological basis: Zero Tolerance Policies, Mandatory Reporting

I was honored yesterday to be invited to be part of the Institute for Christian Socialism‘s webinar on abolition, along with some amazing other voices on the relationship of anti-racism and abolition to Christianity. The entire 90-minute webinar was recorded and is available on Facebook Live: full video.

Edited November 2022: a new version of the toolkit is available here. I have also updated the links below to the new version.

What is accountability? How is it different than punishment? How do we practice taking accountability, and how can our spiritual practices support the practice of accountability? What does non-punitive community accountability work look like in cases of serious harm, and how do we prepare for that by practicing the skill of accountability and developing intentional relationships in our communities?

Drawing on the work of restorative and transformative justice practitioners, our new Accountability Toolkit is aimed at offering an introduction to the practices of transformative justice and non-punitive community accountability, specifically for churches and Christian communities. Download it here.

Some sneak peeks:

Download the full toolkit.