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Author: Tanya Erzen
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807089982
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
An eye-opening account of how and why evangelical Christian ministries are flourishing in prisons across the United States It is by now well known that the United States’ incarceration rate is the highest in the world. What is not broadly understood is how cash-strapped and overcrowded state and federal prisons are increasingly relying on religious organizations to provide educational and mental health services and to help maintain order. And these religious organizations are overwhelmingly run by nondenominational Protestant Christians who see prisoners as captive audiences. Some twenty thousand of these Evangelical Christian volunteers now run educational programs in over three hundred US prisons, jails, and detention centers. Prison seminary programs are flourishing in states as diverse as Texas and Tennessee, California and Illinois, and almost half of the federal prisons operate or are developing faith-based residential programs. Tanya Erzen gained inside access to many of these programs, spending time with prisoners, wardens, and members of faith-based ministries in six states, at both male and female penitentiaries, to better understand both the nature of these ministries and their effects. What she discovered raises questions about how these ministries and the people who live in prison grapple with the meaning of punishment and redemption, as well as what legal and ethical issues emerge when conservative Christians are the main and sometimes only outside forces in a prison system that no longer offers even the pretense of rehabilitation. Yet Erzen also shows how prison ministries make undeniably positive impacts on the lives of many prisoners: men and women who have no hope of ever leaving prison can achieve personal growth, a sense of community, and a degree of liberation within the confines of their cells. With both empathy and a critical eye, God in Captivity grapples with the questions of how faith-based programs serve the punitive regime of the prison, becoming a method of control behind bars even as prisoners use them as a lifeline for self-transformation and dignity.
Author: Tanya Erzen
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807089982
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Get Book
Book Description
An eye-opening account of how and why evangelical Christian ministries are flourishing in prisons across the United States It is by now well known that the United States’ incarceration rate is the highest in the world. What is not broadly understood is how cash-strapped and overcrowded state and federal prisons are increasingly relying on religious organizations to provide educational and mental health services and to help maintain order. And these religious organizations are overwhelmingly run by nondenominational Protestant Christians who see prisoners as captive audiences. Some twenty thousand of these Evangelical Christian volunteers now run educational programs in over three hundred US prisons, jails, and detention centers. Prison seminary programs are flourishing in states as diverse as Texas and Tennessee, California and Illinois, and almost half of the federal prisons operate or are developing faith-based residential programs. Tanya Erzen gained inside access to many of these programs, spending time with prisoners, wardens, and members of faith-based ministries in six states, at both male and female penitentiaries, to better understand both the nature of these ministries and their effects. What she discovered raises questions about how these ministries and the people who live in prison grapple with the meaning of punishment and redemption, as well as what legal and ethical issues emerge when conservative Christians are the main and sometimes only outside forces in a prison system that no longer offers even the pretense of rehabilitation. Yet Erzen also shows how prison ministries make undeniably positive impacts on the lives of many prisoners: men and women who have no hope of ever leaving prison can achieve personal growth, a sense of community, and a degree of liberation within the confines of their cells. With both empathy and a critical eye, God in Captivity grapples with the questions of how faith-based programs serve the punitive regime of the prison, becoming a method of control behind bars even as prisoners use them as a lifeline for self-transformation and dignity.
Author: Jr. Payne
Publisher: Xulon Press
ISBN: 1622304403
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Book Description
Prisons are an institutional altar God has placed in communities all around us. In this book, the author is giving an invitation for the outside churches to minister in such a way that Jesus can say: I was in prison and you came to me. Prisons are mission fields in which God has brought the world to our back yards. Any given prison in America houses inmates from all nations around the world. This book is also a call to the Church to answer Jesus Christ's Great Commission: to go into all the world and make disciples. After thirty years as a prison chaplain and assistant program director, the author has a keen insight into this rewarding ministry. He draws that knowledge from personal experiences, writing policies, and training staff and volunteers. He has ministered with and to the inmates on every level of the system, including Death Row. This book is essential for serious readers who are seeking to improve relationships with wardens, correctional officers, chaplains and inmates, their family, and the victims. Leonard M. Payne, Jr. was just a country preacher with a PhD (Praying Hard Daily) when he applied for the chaplain position at the West Virginia State Penitentiary, Moundsville, WV. He was the only staff member allowed to go with Governor Arch Moore to the negotiations during the 1986 riots at the West Virginia State Penitentiary. He has authored two books: Un-redeemer Son and Daughters and My People Yesterday, Today and Forever, a history of the Glorious Churches of God in Christ, in which he presently serves as National Director of Chaplaincy. He holds a Doctoral degree from the United Theological Seminary, a Master of Divinity and a Master of Arts from the Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio. Leonard lives in St. Clairsville, Ohio with his wife, Charlotte
Author: Andrew Woodrow
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781928965299
Category : Prisoners
Languages : en
Pages : 96
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Book Description
Author: Ken Lamberton
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 081653327X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
“I hole up in my own cozy cubicle and write, considering ways to make the approaching Thanksgiving holiday not just another day in this place. In prison, hope faces east; time is measured in wake-ups.” Time of Grace is a remarkable book, written with great eloquence by a former science teacher who was incarcerated for twelve years for his sexual liaison with a teenage student. Far more than a “prison memoir,” it is an intimate and revealing look at relationships—with fellow humans and with the surprising wildlife of the Sonoran Desert, both inside and beyond prison walls. Throughout, Ken Lamberton reflects on human relations as they mimic and defy those of the natural world, whose rhythms calibrate Lamberton’s days and years behind bars. He writes with candor about his life, while observing desert flora and fauna with the insight and enthusiasm of a professional naturalist. While he studies a tarantula digging her way out of the packed earth and observes Mexican freetail bats sailing into the evening sky, Lamberton ruminates on his crime and on the wrenching effects it has had on his wife and three daughters. He writes of his connections with his fellow inmates—some of whom he teaches in prison classes—and with the guards who control them, sometimes with inexplicable cruelty. And he unflinchingly describes a prison system that has gone horribly wrong—a system entrapped in a self-created web of secrecy, fear, and lies. This is the final book of Lamberton’s trilogy about the twelve years he spent in prison. Readers of his earlier books will savor this last volume. Those who are only now discovering Lamberton’s distinctive voice—part poet, part scientist, part teacher, and always deeply, achingly human—will feel as if they are making a new friend. Gripping, sobering, and beautifully written, Lamberton’s memoir is an unforgettable exploration of crime, punishment, and the power of the human spirit.
Author: Lennie Spitale
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 0805424830
Category : Church work with prisoners
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
Empowering any pastor, educator, or lay leader in doing effective prison ministry by providing a thorough inside-out view of prison life.
Author: Michael Hallett
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317300602
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
Corrections officials faced with rising populations and shrinking budgets have increasingly welcomed "faith-based" providers offering services at no cost to help meet the needs of inmates. Drawing from three years of on-site research, this book utilizes survey analysis along with life-history interviews of inmates and staff to explore the history, purpose, and functioning of the Inmate Minister program at Louisiana State Penitentiary (aka "Angola"), America’s largest maximum-security prison. This book takes seriously attributions from inmates that faith is helpful for "surviving prison" and explores the implications of religious programming for an American corrections system in crisis, featuring high recidivism, dehumanizing violence, and often draconian punishments. A first-of-its-kind prototype in a quickly expanding policy arena, Angola’s unique Inmate Minister program deploys trained graduates of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in bi-vocational pastoral service roles throughout the prison. Inmates lead their own congregations and serve in lay-ministry capacities in hospice, cell block visitation, delivery of familial death notifications to fellow inmates, "sidewalk counseling" and tier ministry, officiating inmate funerals, and delivering "care packages" to indigent prisoners. Life-history interviews uncover deep-level change in self-identity corresponding with a growing body of research on identity change and religiously motivated desistance. The concluding chapter addresses concerns regarding the First Amendment, the dysfunctional state of U.S. corrections, and directions for future research.
Author: Charles W. Colson
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 9780842352451
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Something clearly is wrong with the current justice system in which repeat incarceration is high, injustice is rampant, and 25 percent of African-American males can expect to spend time behind bars. Colson's biblical ideas for reform have the potential to turn the system around, keep innocent people out of prison, and give victims some relief.
Author: Mary D. Looman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190211032
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
Weaving together sociological and psychological principles, theories of political reform, and real-life stories from experiences working in prison and with at-risk families, Looman and Carl form a foundation of understanding to demonstrate that prison is a culture, not purely an institution made up of fences, building, and policies.
Author: Tony Evans
Publisher: Moody Publishers
ISBN: 1575673134
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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Book Description
Picture this: it’s Saturday afternoon, and you’re putting the finishing touches on tomorrow’s sermon. You’ve been thinking, researching, and praying about this message all week, and thankfully, feel prepared. That is, except for one small detail—you aren’t sure how to begin. For more than 30 years, Tony Evans has been connecting with audiences around the world. Now his tools are available for you. Don’t leave your listeners to connect the dots. Let Tony Evans’ Book of Illustrations help you illustrate your point in a way they can’t forget.
Author: MR Bill Dyer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781619619173
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
True crime stories provide the foundation of this prison memoir. Bill Dyer was robbed and shot at an ATM. In Doing Time with God, you go into prison with him and other victims of violence to meet with convicted felons who will be facing their worst and greatest realizations, before they are released. Nothing is predictable when victims and offenders come together and share their stories of the true crimes that have devastated their lives...and reshaped them. Victim-survivors remember their losses and feel their pain; Offenders come face-to-face with the hurt they have caused, and open wounds from their own past. Walls of defensiveness and fear are knocked down by empathy and compassion, vulnerability and tears. Raw emotions flow. The way to peace is often intense, turbulent, and heartbreaking. Even when it's not pretty, the journey is beautiful in its honesty... miraculous in the way it unfolds...divine in how it transforms lives. This Amazing Process Opens the Heart, Touches the Soul, and Renews the Mind
