Author: Wes Spears-Newsome

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost begins a process of prefiguring, a form of change-making that is often overlooked in the tapestry of organizers and activists in North America today. We can often call to mind the change-making strategies of activism and organizing and many of us work in one or the other. Activism in protests, marches, emails, phone calls, etc. gets us in the streets advocating for a change. Organizing involves building power to make change with policymakers and maintain coalitions. Prefiguring is something different entirely. More or less, it’s acting as if the world you want already exists and living accordingly. 

Peter’s speech and the radical acts of community-building that follow prefigure the kind of world God wants to see, that God intends for the world. Peter recalls one of the masters of prefiguring, the Hebrew prophets, Joel. Joel and Peter claim that God will pour out the divine spirit on all people, a great equalizing and liberating act, which is what happens not just at Pentecost but throughout the Acts of the Apostles. In the sharing of possessions, the inclusion of new people, and the literal demolishing of prisons, God’s reign breaks into the world in the midst of the apostles living as if it was already here. 

The same task is before us now. We won’t abolish the systems of prison and policing tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start living in the alternatives we imagine today. What can your community do to live in the future God wants to see? How can your community live in a world beyond punishment and retribution? What can you put into place now that shows us the world God wants? 

Pentecost began early in the morning, so there’s no need to delay. 

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.

Acts 1:6-14

What is the Holy Spirit? It is mysterious, uncontained, uncontrolled. Though Christian orthodoxy declares the Spirit a coequal member of the Trinity, one with God, far less ink (and blood) has been spilled to define and defend the Holy Spirit.

I am struck here by these simple instructions from Jesus: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that God has set by God’s own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth.”

What is this Holy Spirit we have been given? It gives us power. It travels with us. It wills us to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. It draws our eyes from the skies towards the earth. 

I take immense comfort in the unknowability and invisibility of the Spirit. So much of our work takes place out of sight. Whether it is organizing in the depths of maximum security prisons, the confidential work of transformative justice that can never come to light, or just the boredom of meetings and Zoom calls and everything else that makes the movement turn. But nevertheless the Spirit is at work. Especially when we cannot see it or feel it. 

The “abolition spirit” (borrowing from Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd) is not contained by one faith, in fact it is the remaking of faith traditions in the crucible of struggle. We do not have to look to heaven to find God’s Spirit, we turn our eyes to the earth and to each other. The Holy Spirit of abolition and transformation does not ask for our comprehension, just our acting in power and our witnessing to the truth.

Rev. Jay Bergen is a pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, and a volunteer organizer with the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), a campaign fighting to end life sentences and heal communities across Pennsylvania.

Acts 17:22-31

Continuing in Acts this week, we find Paul preaching to the intellectual elite in Athens. The rhetorical strategy in this sermon is worth reflecting on. First, he appeals to a point of connection, noting that they are religious and worship an “unnamed God.” When he describes the unnamed God, he uses philosophy they would recognize and admire, even quoting one of their poets. Basically, Paul is speaking “elitism,” showing them that he is fluent in their epistemological discourses. This is clearly a way to gain credibility with the crowd and secure their attention, but he doesn’t continue pandering to them. He uses his connection and credibility to unsettle their worldview, calling them to repentance in anticipation of the arrival of the person God has appointed to judge justly… a person their justice system had recently condemned. Finally, he up-ends their expectations by saying that the “proof” of this is God raising this man from the dead. 

That last statement would be shocking to them, because resurrection was not something the Greco-Roman educated elites hoped for. It was the hope of the uneducated masses and oppressed Jews, and represented a perspective that the intellectuals would deride as utopian, magical thinking. Resurrection was not an epistemological proof this audience would have recognized. Paul begins by wooing them, but quickly makes it clear that he is more interested in the kind of justice the oppressed hope for than their disembodied philosophies. His imagination is not fettered by their rationalism or pragmatism. His knowledge has been transformed and freed by the vision of a condemned, executed man vindicated and raised by the God who defines all reality and upholds all existence. There is no justice beyond God’s judgment, which is entrusted to a criminal. 

Abolitionists need to walk this kind of line as well. Even as we familiarize ourselves with the most current research, we cannot be afraid to look foolish. We must engage the intellectual elites. We must engage the pragmatists and rationalists. Yet we also cannot allow that to keep us from boldly proclaiming the gospel of the resurrection of an executed criminal, a man who will come in power and overturn the state’s version of “justice.” Abolitionists pay attention to the insights that can be gained from science, philosophy, and secular academic institutions, but we first and foremost give attention to the hopes, dreams, and knowledge of the people languishing in prisons and poverty.

Sarah Lynne Gershon (she/her) is an MDiv/MTS student, DOC pastor, and lives at the Bloomington Catholic Worker. 

Acts 7:55-60

It is not difficult to see carceral logic at work in the Acts of the Apostles. The frequent response of Roman authorities to the activities of early Christians was prison. Prison existed (as it does today) not just as retribution for alleged criminal activity, but to silence dissent, break up movements, and stifle leadership in marginalized communities. The same logic is at work in Stephen’s execution. The response to a potentially dangerous ideology is to destroy the source. In that way carceral logic comes for everyone, not just those we may consider different from us (i.e., s criminals, actually guilty or not). 

Before any further reflection in that direction, a word about the anti-Semitism present in the Acts of the Apostles is required. Throughout the Book of Acts, we see references to “the Jews” and their supposed spiritual deficiencies and even their “jealousy” of the Christians. The author is communicating these stories with a strong ideological bias and we need to be aware of it. Luke has a perspective that requires the Christian sect to be religiously triumphant and he wants it to become the main expression of Jewish faith (as does Paul who wrote most of the New Testament books). Over time, that has been used in anti-Semitic ways and has led to violence and persecution of the Jewish people. We need to critique Luke when preaching Acts in this respect, because much of the carceral logic at work Luke lays at the feet of the Jewish community rather than the ones actually practicing, enforcing, and supporting incarceration: the Roman state. Be cautious when critiquing the prisons and practices of incarceration in Acts so not to fall into anti-Semitism by mistake. The Jewish community was not in charge of the violent mechanisms of the state. 

Rather, consider directing the question of the persistence of incarceration and retribution at ourselves. Luke says that Stephen’s audience “covered their ears” to avoid hearing the truth of what Stephen had to say. How often do we neglect the cries for justice from prisons? How often is it more convenient for us to ignore stories from death row? How often do we cover our ears to avoid hearing the truth? Abolition of prisons is the inevitable conclusion of our Scriptures, especially in Acts where God is quite literally tearing down prisons. Often, however, it’s easier to cover our ears and ignore it.  

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3 (NRSVUE)

Rarely, if ever, do our dreams really come true. In part, yes. Indirectly, yes. But the long history of radical political imagination is one of freedom dreams deferred, or at least truths told slant. The abolitionists of the 19th century dreamed of a new economic system not based on the exploitation of Black bodies; what rose from the ashes of chattel slavery was sharecropping and apartheid (not to mention the continued expansion of the US empire). The movement against the Iraq War in 2003 failed to stop that invasion, but it did make the future invasion of Iran politically impossible.

History teaches us that we see only through a glass darkly. The dialectic never resolves as we expect it to. And yet, we are called to dream. God has given us “a new birth into a living hope,” “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” The flame of faith we are called to tend lights our way forward, though the way twists and turns, though the road may be rough and uncertain. The mystic Thomas Merton once prayed by saying, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going…, Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You.”

We do not know what world we leave to our children and grandchildren. We can only move forward in faith, trusting that our dreaming and our acting contains a truth “more precious than gold” which will bring all people one step closer to the Kindom of God.

Rev. Jay Bergen is a pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, and a volunteer organizer with the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), a campaign fighting to end life sentences and heal communities across Pennsylvania.

“Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’” Matthew 28:5-7, NRSV

The connection between Easter and abolition of state-sponsored violence is quite clear when you take the story at face value, as the angel describes it in Matthew. Jesus was a victim of both brief incarceration and speedy execution at the hands of the state. And yet, God repudiates that violence and overcomes it in the resurrection. God did not defeat death for us to keep doling it out through the prison industrial complex and other state-sponsored violence like police forces and executions. God did not defeat death for us to keep killing people. 

One of my favorite aspects of Matthew’s telling of this event is that Jesus doesn’t wait at the tomb for everyone to catch up with what he’s doing. He has already gone ahead to Galilee. The disciples must play catchup. The movement of the Spirit is often like that, going ahead of where we are. God goes ahead of both our comfort and our comprehension. 

That reality is vital when it comes to the abolitionist imagination. So often the retort to calls to “defund the police” or “abolish prisons” is that it’s not practical or even possible. But that’s not what imagination is for. That’s not where Jesus meets us. Jesus meets us ahead of where we are and beckons us forward. Jesus meets us in the place that we can only barely imagine right now. If we can’t even entertain the idea, we will never arrive. So, Jesus calls us to Galilee where death has been defeated, the state has lost its power, and a new world has begun. 

This Easter, let’s get moving. Let’s go meet Jesus. For God did not defeat death for us to tolerate it further. God defeated death that we all might live.

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.

Numerous scholars have noted that Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem is an oppositional one. Pontious Pilate would have entered the city, as well, but elsewhere and with a different sort of fanfare. While Jesus did not enter Jerusalem with warhorses, chariots, and the might of the Roman Empire around him like Pilate, expectations were almost certainly high among those in the crowd. Matthew explicitly connects the procession with the restoration of the Jewish people after a prolonged period of exile, after all. 

In the text of Zechariah referenced by Matthew, we see a vision of a world that God is making right. God is toppling the empires of the day (Zech. 9:1-8). God is overturning hoarded wealth (vv. 3-4), arrogant and violent power (vv. 5-7), and the forces of slavery (v. 8). It’s hard not to think that Jesus is coming with the immediate power to overturn the social and political order right then and there. Only, that’s not exactly what happens is it? 

Instead, what we look toward in Holy Week, culminating in Easter, is the inversion of how we expect these powers to work, all bolstered by the defeat of sin and death. In that way, what Jesus accomplishes actually embodies the text from Zechariah quite well. After this litany of nations getting their just deserts, one might expect quite the retributive toll. Only, that’s not exactly what happens. 

Instead, we hear the promise of a king who is “righteous and victorious,” yes, but also “humble and riding on an ass (v. 9, CEB). He cuts off the chariot and the warhorse not just from Judah’s enemies, but from Ephraim and Jerusalem. “The bow used in battle will be cut off,” Zechariah vows (v. 10, CEB). The cycle of retribution and violence is broken, not continued. This promise is embodied in the defeat of sin and death at the end of this week, as well. The cycle is broken. Violence is not repeated. 

The breaking of this cycle of violence and retribution is central to a Christian theology of abolition. Police and especially prisons exist as perpetuators of these cycles of violence and retribution. We will never move beyond the social ills that our criminal justice system claims to address while we continue to perpetuate the violence at the center of crime. You cannot imprison a crime, but you can commit more injustice under the guise of doing so. 

This Palm Sunday, let’s acknowledge these cycles of harm, violence, and retribution. These are the things Jesus came to break. These are the cycles Zechariah said God wants broken. Let’s shatter them that we might live in the world God wants where the bows and chariots have no use to us. 

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.

8 for once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Walk as children of light, 9 for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. 10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness; rather, expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly, 13 but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, 14 for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Ephesians 5:8-14

A key part of the abolition movement is educating ourselves and others about the great injustices of the US criminal-legal system. There would be no need to abolish systems that work for everyone or that serve all of society well. That’s why we must “expose” the “unfruitful works of darkness” in the criminal-legal system (Ephesians 5:11).

The pervasive cultural narrative is that police, courts, and prisons are simply aimed at achieving “law and order.” In this narrative, police successfully investigate every significant crime, arrest the right person every time, and convict them swiftly — typically before the end of a 60-minute TV episode. The convicted criminal then receives the “just” punishment of incarceration to “pay their debt to society.” 

The problem with this narrative is that it isn’t true. The reality is far messier (at its best) and far more sinister (at its worst). Even the individuals in these systems who bring the best of intentions fail to get it right because the sinful systems are stacked against the accused. The truth is that, according to FBI data, police only make arrests on a fraction of all reported crimes, and less than half of reported violent crimes. Police and courts are demonstrably biased against Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people and against poor people. Convictions are sometimes rushed through using sloppy evidence and insufficient defense. And prisoners themselves experience horrible conditions in most carceral facilities, including economic exploitation, malnutrition, abuse from guards and other prisoners, torture such as solitary confinement, and even the death penalty. Ephesians tells us that “the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true,” and very little about the criminal-legal system fits that description (5:9).

Instead, the evils of the criminal-legal system are whitewashed with propaganda from the media, politicians of all stripes, and even religious leaders. But our calling is not to remain in the darkness; it is to step into the light of Christ, the light of the Holy Spirit. Again Ephesians says, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness; rather, expose them” (5:11). As Christian abolitionists, it is our responsibility to expose what is evil in our midst. It’s our responsibility to share the stories of people who have been chewed up and spit out by prisons, police, and courts. It’s our responsibility to commit ourselves to “speaking the truth in love,” when it comes to abolishing these unjust systems (Ephesians 4:15).

The Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda is the rector of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, GA, and the Missioner for Racial Justice of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.

Romans 5:1-11

Christians have spilled untold gallons of ink on the concepts of justification and reconciliation in Romans and elsewhere in the New Testament, but rarely do they consider the implications of God’s mechanisms of justice for their own “justice systems.” You could go to any number of theologians for the former, so let’s focus on the latter. In the United States, our “justice system” has its basis in retributive justice, the kind where punishment is the response to wrongdoing. That is not the pattern described in the New Testament.

Instead of exacting punishment to get justice, which our current “justice system” attempts to do, God’s mechanism for justice in the New Testament is justification followed by reconciliation. The goal is not simply to punish anyone, but to reconcile enemies. The whole point of justification and reconciliation is the elimination of enmity for the sake of our collective salvation and liberation.

 How does that compare to our “justice system?” Our system doesn’t eliminate enmity; rather, it exacerbates it:

• The removal of someone from society via incarceration as a punishment results in disruption to family and community systems, many of which may have depended on the incarcerated individual.
• The individual incarcerated suffers from increased economic instability, inequality, and distress, particularly in regard to legal discrimination toward the incarcerated in housing and employment.
• Whether it is between incarcerated people or between staff and those incarcerated, prisons are sites of further brutalization and violence—they do not stop violence. No one is reconciled, just punished and victimized.

 Consider, too, that “levels of imprisonment increased fivefold since 1973, crime rates have not dropped proportionately during this period.”* The massive prison industrial complex we’ve built has not achieved significant crime reduction or gains in public safety. Our system simply reproduces violence and increases enmity between persons. If the goal of God’s justice is to eliminate enmity and provide reconciliation, as Paul suggests in Romans 5, why do Christians so readily concede to a “justice system” that does the opposite?

When preaching about these theological concepts, keep in mind their implications for social organization. While Paul is not laying out a model for civil society explicitly, you can’t believe one thing when it comes to your own reconciliation to God and something completely different and disconnected for our reconciliation to each other.

* =Todd Clear, Backfire: When Incarceration Increases Crime

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.