Yay! I'm published online at the Christian Century!

Greetings friends, I just wanted to let you know that my article, 'Faith in Jail,' has been published on the Christian Century's website and blog (called theolog.org).  This is my first of hopefully at least two.

 

You can see it, and all the comments folks have written, here:  http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/05/seminary-behind.html#more

 

You can also read just my article below.  Enjoy!

peace,

Le Anne

(madly working on that second article, book edits, oh, and final papers... :)

 

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Seminary behind bars

By Le Anne Clausen

I spent spring term of seminary in prison serving a 30-day sentence for civil disobedience at the School of the Americas.

Being a good seminarian as well as an activist, I'd hoped to take along Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers, King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Thoreau's treatise on Civil Disobedience.

But books, magazines and newspapers weren't allowed—only a prison-issued Bible produced by Prison Fellowship. There was a library, but we couldn't use it unless a guard could escort us personally, and most of the time they didn't want to. I realized I was in a theological desert, and begin to read and love crime novels again. They were slightly less disturbing than the endless hours of "true crime" television shows chosen for the prisoners by the guards.

The jail was in suburban Illinois, and nearly all the female inmates were white. We had an overflow population from the immigration detention center in the next cell block. Most people were there because they couldn't afford to bail out. Younger women were usually there for drug-related reasons; older women, alcohol-related.

I was surprised that the younger women saw me as old (I'm 30), and even more surprised that they sought me out for pastoral care. I established office hours from my cell. I worked with immigrants who had no access to translators for legal aid requests. I took dictation for women who wanted to write their families but couldn't do so on their own. It was as busy a pastorate as any I've known. The most common concern of the women was separation from their children—I'd hear loud wails from the phone area night after night.

I found myself filled with anger every time we had "church." A local fundamentalist group would show up. There were no hymns and the prisoners weren't allowed to speak. Instead we got a full dose of preaching about how awful we were and how we needed Jesus; and the dangers of non-Christian faiths and homosexuality. The prison-issued Bible and other "approved" religious books (http://www.celebraterecovery.com.au/) also came with similar agendas inserted in them. One leader made us read the Day of Atonement text (Leviticus 16) and commented, "This is what Jews have to do to get their forgiveness. Aren't you glad all you need is Jesus?" When I calmly suggested she consider some seminary courses, she took my remark as a compliment.

Frustrated, I talked with a friend who was Eastern Orthodox. She put it in perspective: "We may not agree with what they say, but at least they come. And it's our only chance to get out of this box for an hour or so, to sit in a real chair instead of a cold steel bench, and they care, or they wouldn't keep coming back. They write me cards. They take this seriously."

The new chaplain, however, gave me hope. She advised me to focus my Bible study on Paul's letters from prison, and reflect on how he ministered to others while himself a prisoner. She said she wished she could offer more ministry programs for inmates, but said possibilities were limited because McHenry County is a maximum security facility. She thought the next best approach was to work with the women after they were released, to offer a support circle similar to those the women formed inside—something many of them had never experienced elsewhere.

On the day of my release I met a group of local pastors outside the jail. By coincidence, they'd just visited with the sergeant to ensure access to their parishioners as well as immigration detainees. But although they'd been assured they could visit without restrictions, my fellow inmates and I had been told that if our pastor came to visit, we would forfeit a family visit for the week.

We agreed to work on this and other problems together. There is a lot of work to be done.

Le Anne Clausen is a senior M.Div. student at Chicago Theological Seminary. She blogs at Journal of a Young Activist (www.young-activist.blogspot.com).