Merry Christmas for Whom?
The Role of Churches in an Age of Mass Incarceration
About the author: Rev. Catherine Tobey is a PhD student in theological ethics at the University of Aberdeen. Drawing on Karl Barth’s theology, her research centers children as the dynamic, interpretive key to understanding and witnessing to the Kingdom of God. She is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and a resident at Tall Timber Ranch, a camp and retreat center in Leavenworth, WA.
If Karl Barth were preaching this Christmas, I wonder what he would say. I also wonder where he would say it.
Deliverance to the Captives includes three of Barth’s Christmas sermons, one of which was preached at the university where he was a professor. The other two, however, were given at a local prison. Barth’s interest in prisons and his understanding of the pastor’s role in them is not isolated. Even when he came stateside in 1962, Barth insisted on visiting three (so-called) correctional facilities deeming one of them “Dante’s inferno on Earth.”1 As I read his Christmas sermons this year, I wonder how he would respond to the mass incarceration that was yet to come.2
In 1954, Barth gathered his incarcerated friends with a prayer: “Grant today to the whole Christian Church and to the world as well that many may break through the glitter and vanity of the holiday season and truly celebrate Christmas with us.”3 “Amen!” we might think to ourselves, without recognizing Barth’s critique of the apparent church.4
When Barth shared Christmas communion in the Swiss prison again in 1958, he emphasized Christ’s presence with those who were held captive. I can imagine his insistence as he proclaimed: “[Christ] stands by you – and by you – and by you! When I point my finger at you, each one must know he is personally addressed. Yes, he stands by you!”5
“Of course God is with those in prison!” we might think, as if that means we don’t need to be.6 But this disconnect, between those who are free and those who aren’t, was not lost on Barth. Maybe it was even evident on the faces of the prisoners, causing Barth to slow and soften his speech as he continued: “You may ask now: ‘Who is he who really wants to stand by me?’ … ‘Is there some one, or perhaps is there no one who is willing and able to stand by me? Perhaps nobody cares?’”7
Earlier this year I was struck by an email newsletter from Underground Ministries about their work pairing congregations with incarcerated neighbors.8 I have not been able to shake the words of Alvin, the One Parish One Prisoner program director:
In a few days, I'll have to do the worst part of my job. I have to send a letter to incarcerated applicants—men and women writing to us from prison cells, whom have we have pre-approved, whom we deem from their vulnerable applications that they are genuine and ready—telling them that we couldn't find a church willing to assemble a 7-person One Parish One Prisoner reentry team for them.
I'll explain that this isn't anything to do with them personally—not their conviction history nor anything they wrote in the application. Because, unfortunately, none of the churches in their release region got far enough along in the conversation to even learn such messy specifics about their hypothetical new friend. It's just that the churches said, "This is not the right time."
Barth’s Christmas sermons seem to share a similar compassion for those in prison and disappointment with local congregations. In fact, in his 1954 Christmas sermon, Barth presents a striking alternative to treating this season as a time for “old ways” and “lofty Christian sentiments.”9
For him, Christmas is an opportunity to watch for “the angel of the Lord [who] appears and shakes things up.”10 Drawing an analogy to the first Christmas, when angels appeared to the shepherds in the hills of first-century Palestine, Barth imagines the Heavenly Host passing “through the streets and the homes and the squares of Basel” and “through the churches of our town.”11 It is as if he envisions the modern community being invited, not to see Christ in a manger, but to join God incarnate who is with those in prison.12
As he preaches to folks held captive, Barth wonders, “How does [the angel] tell the good news to all these people? How do they listen to him or do not listen at all?” After all, they will likely avoid being disrupted by this heavenly call, insisting “Tomorrow, tomorrow, but never today!”13
Unfortunately, this rings true to Alvin’s experience, as congregations who want to participate in One Parish One Prisoner struggle to make it a priority; his newsletter shared the following explanations he has received:
Our youth group is gone! All of our high schoolers graduated! We can't do anything until we recruit more young families and grow our membership!
There is a new policy of no new mission, fundraising, or guest projects. Otherwise, we would be inundated with every little need in our community.
We're renovating our sanctuary! We're raising funds for our building! We're looking at some necessary repairs! Let's come back to this afterward!
Perhaps Barth sensed a similar lack of urgency at Basel University, causing a change in tone in his 1957 Christmas sermon. “Christmas is an occasion for celebrating, and not for [the] ceremonial,” he states. In case this critique wasn’t clear, he emphasizes that per Scripture, “The Lord is at hand,” not “some comforts of religion are at hand.”14
I like to imagine this was followed by a long pause, ensuring his final thoughts on the matter would be heard: “Nor is the Church at hand with its old and new teachings and theologies or with its orders and institutions and with its traditions. The Church’s existence is validated not by witness to itself, but only by witness to the Lord.”15
This Christmas, I wonder where we are engaged in a true celebration and where we have gotten stuck in a ceremonial rut. All too often it seems like we are barely making it from one season to the next. That is certainly how many congregations feel, as they try to make time to walk alongside an incarcerated friend.
They insist, "We are an at absolute standstill during all of Advent. It's one of our holiest seasons. Let's talk after we're done.” However, Epiphany turns to Lent and then Easter; even summer vacation and Back to School Time do not seem ordinary but rushed. Whether we are preparing for the next church season or recovering from it, each church year flies by.
For Underground Ministries, another year means more incarcerated applicants preparing to be released. “These folks are at the table waiting for us, doing their part in seeking fellowship—vulnerability, embrace, accountability, trust. They are inviting us into this,” according to Alvin. But, he says, “It’s not just releasing men and women who miss out on the community embrace. It's churches, I believe, who are missing out on who God might be sending to bring them life.”
If Karl Barth were preaching this Christmas, I think he would have something to say about it.
Jessica DeCou, “The First Community: Barth’s American Prison Tour,” in Karl Barth and the Making of Evangelical Theology: A Fifty-Year Perspective, ed. Clifford B. Anderson and Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 71.
Ashley Nellis reports, “Over five million people in total are under supervision by the criminal legal system. Nearly two million people, disproportionately Black, are living in prisons and jails instead of their communities. Compare this to the figures of the early 1970s when this count was 360,000.” See: https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/mass-incarceration-trends/
Karl Barth, Deliverance to the Captives (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001), 20.
See Barth’s discussion of the apparent Church in chapter 5 of Karl Barth, God Here and Now, trans. Paul M. van Buren (New York: Routledge, 2003).
Barth, Deliverance to the Captives, 137.
Chris Hoke, Founder of Underground Ministries, shares “what happens when churchpeople” befriend those who are incarcerated, or, put another way “exchange letters with those in hell.” He writes, “They fall in love with the damned. They learn their names. They hear their cries. And they start questioning the system of gates that’s keeping them inside.” From here, he began to wonder, “What if every church wrote to, adopted, and received just one prisoner? Two things would happen. We would empty the prison system, and every church would be changed.”
Ibid.
Check out the video at https://undergroundministries.org/mission to learn more.
Barth, Deliverance to the Captives, 26. Presumably, this temptation is strongest for those not kept behind bars.
Ibid., 22. Though the idea of Jesus being laid in a manger seems cute in modern nativities, this points to a highly marginalized experience. As we consider themes of childbirth and the carceral state, it’s important to know the limited rights of pregnant people when incarcerated. For example, in most US states, when one is in active labor and even in the moments their child is welcomed into the world, they remain shackled. Learn more and get involved here.
Ibid.
Barth describes the angel passing through Basel, naming specific places, but not the prison; this is odd, especially since he is speaking to people who are imprisoned and therefore missing out on the good news. Alternatively, I wonder if Barth imagines that the prison, like Luke 2’s manger in Bethlehem, is where Christ resides. Perhaps he even has Matthew 25 in mind: “‘I was in prison and you came to me,’ Jesus says welcoming the ‘sheep.’ The proverbial goats reply, ‘When did we ever see you…in prison and didn’t help?’ The answer is firm: ‘Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’” (MSG)
Barth, Deliverance to the Captives, 22, 25.
Ibid., 102, 104.
Ibid., 104.