THE expression of educational theology in human experience is well illuminated by combining a number of the high themes of Professor Andrew Davison’s article with the subterranean realities of prison life and ministry.
There is a surfeit of suffering in and across the criminal justice system. Victims of crime are a place to begin for sympathy, but other innocent families and youngsters can be damaged by the results of crime.
One of the less obvious causes of pain is the law’s delays. Every week, on the wings of HM Prison Pentonville (north London’s Dickensian, 182-year-old jail, holding greater than 1000 prisoners on remand), I meet men who’re waiting between 18 months and two years in custody simply to have their cases heard. Statistics show that, once they get their day in court, 40 per cent of them shall be found not guilty, or have their cases dropped by the CPS, or be released immediately due to “time served”.
When I used to be a law student within the Sixties, I used to be taught the axiom “Justice delayed is justice denied.” The Christian challenge is the way to deal with such gargantuan delays; to endure them, and even be strengthened by suffering within the prison context.
IN THE New Testament, there are 46 mentions of prison, and 12 of prisoners. One or two of the latter were real rogues (Barabbas, for instance), but some were saints, comparable to John the Baptist, Paul, and Peter. And we should always always remember that Jesus spent the night before his crucifixion in a jail cell, at the home of the High Priest.
While I actually have not myself quoted St Irenaeus or St Gregory of Nyssa in a jail sermon, their teaching that the sufferings of Jesus must be imitated by his faithful followers can actually resonate with prisones. And, occasionally, I do check with Martin Luther’s words: “Sometimes it’s in our pain and our brokenness that we come closest to Christ.”
When, in 1999-2000, I served my 18-month sentence for perjury in HM Prison Belmarsh and other establishments, I got here progressively to know that the experience of incarceration was enriching my spiritual life. Perhaps that was why, after release, I headed for an establishment that looked as if it would serve worse food and have more uncomfortable beds than a jail: an Anglican theological college — Wycliffe Hall, in Oxford.
Great Wycliffe teachers comparable to Alister McGrath, Michael Green, and Graham Tomlin, inspired me to serve Christ as a layman, but ordination was not on my agenda. The Hound of Heaven had other ideas. He chased me for 15 years after leaving Oxford, until I used to be ordained as a jail chaplain in 2019.
THE challenges of prison ministry are sometimes overwhelming. Yet I like this field of God’s work, precisely due to resurrection dimension. Prisons aren’t empty tombs — they’re overcrowded, often despairing, occasionally dangerous, black holes of poor mental health and sadness. “He descended into hell,” the Apostles’ Creed says. And so do many prisoners, particularly when the early shocks of prison life first dawn on them.
So, where does our hope come from? Eastertide is a very good time to go looking for it. Our Lord’s resurrection was unique, and yet it could spawn individual human resurrections.
At this time of yr, my favourite service within the prison chapel is Maundy Thursday’s washing of the feet, when the acting out of the liturgy can produce astonishment, tears, cleansing, repentance, behavioural change, and stirrings of the soul towards latest beginnings.
THERE isn’t enough deep Christian theology in prison life, and there are too few challenges to the secular mindset that prisons must be centres of punishment. Sometimes, yes: sometimes, they rightfully protect the general public from dangerous offenders. But such fears shouldn’t hold us back from being willing also to see prisons as places of redemption.
Although the redemption of prisoners is a lonely road, I like finding the strength to walk along it with my fellow sinners. Failure and disappointment are my constant companions. But — “Hold the front page!” as we used to say in old Fleet Street — Jesus taught us, in his disturbing parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25. 31-46), that we should always reach out to the least of those our brothers and sisters.
Prisoners of the state who’ve been caught are sometimes not much worse than prisoners of sin who haven’t yet been caught. Lay theology fumbles around on this area with soundbites like, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Real, practical theology shall be getting somewhere when, with a genuflection to first-century Irenaeus, it starts to encourage effective rehabilitation on either side of the prison partitions in our twenty first century.
The Revd Jonathan Aitken has been Chaplain of HM Prison Pentonville since 2018. He can also be an Assistant Priest at St Matthew’s, Westminster, and St Peter’s, Notting Hill, within the diocese of London.
