Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Welcome to that makes total sense. A podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis. We setting the Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the house sometimes alludes us. That makes total sense is a way for us to get together posture ourselves as learners and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. So before we get started, I was thinking today and I was telling our guests before we started recording that I think this is the first time that I have interviewed the spouse of a previous guest on the podcast. So today I am talking to Andrew cranks and you might recognize that last name because I interviewed his amazing wife, Lindsey about her book, a few episodes back. And I will put that in the show notes that you guys can listen to Lindsay as well. But, um, Andrew's coming to us from Nashville, I think, right?
Speaker 0 00:01:15 Hey, the here? Yes. Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 00:01:19 Yeah. So I was, when I was reading Lindsey's book, you know, I told her during the episode that, um, it's, it's a really great memoir and it tells a lot of course about her work and her ministry, but there's just a ton about her relationship with you, right? Like when you guys were dating and getting married, um, but more than that, um, about your work as well. And so after we finished recording, I just kind of was like, Hey, I've totally never done this before, but do you think your husband might come on? And she was like, I think he might let me talk to him. So thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 0 00:01:53 Thanks for the invitation. Yeah. And I, I can't, uh, not take this opportunity to just plug that book, uh, by my amazing partner Lindsey. Um, it is a really excellent piece of writing with the stories that really pull you in. It's hard to put it down. Um, I am immensely proud of her for it and really proud that I get to be a part of the stories too. So yeah. Glad to be here.
Speaker 1 00:02:22 Yeah. It's an excellent book. So, but you are, um, I mean, you're working too, you've got, you've got a lot of things that you're studying and working. And at first I thought you were a PhD student, but are you a post-doc right now?
Speaker 0 00:02:36 Uh, yes, I, I graduated with my PhD almost exactly two years ago and I'm wrapping up a two-year teaching postdoc at Tennessee state university, and we're moving on to another, a year long fellowship for recent PhDs. Um, working on more, research-based looking at, uh, impacts of incarceration on people, um, during the pandemic. So,
Speaker 1 00:03:02 Okay. So the effects of incarceration on people during the COVID 19 pandemic, I feel like this is like, I mean, not necessarily a culmination. I feel like it's, from what I've read and seen of your work, it, it has a lot of the aspects of the things that you're studying, you know, criminalization, incarceration, um, embodiment, right? Like all of these things. So can you give us a little context for what your academic interest is in and, and how you got there? And I would even say theologically, right? Because you were at divinity school. And so this is not just studying these types of topics from a sociological perspective. This is studying these topics from a theological perspective. So can you help us out and give us some context for your academic background?
Speaker 0 00:03:50 Yes, absolutely. So I grew up in the churches of Christ tradition, um, as did Lindsey and, uh, found my way to Nashville in 2004 to go to Lipscomb university undergrad. And during that time, which you can actually read about some of this, um, especially at Lindsey's first chapter of the book, uh, we were both in situations and classes, um, working with different professors who were helping us to see that the life of Christian faith entails more than just interior, um, concerns about getting to heaven, individuals to concerns about what's the state of my soul when I die, that there is a lot more to it that God cares about a lot more than just that. And, and that God shows up in more places than just in those kinds of individualized, um, you know, peer fuller spiritual interactions. Uh, and so that was, um, you know, one starting place for a trajectory that, that, um, led me to trying to seek out ways to, um, be faithful to what I understood to be God's vision for the world, which is one in which, um, people are welcoming.
Speaker 0 00:05:16 People have what they need to flourish and be, um, live full lives, um, where people have relationships of trust and community and solidarity, um, that, that has actually met. Those are manifestations of God showing up in the world, as opposed to just like a secondary concern when it comes to the life of faith. And so that's kind of the starting point, um, for the trajectory then, while I was at, um, Lipscomb for my undergrad degree, uh, was, uh, grateful to have the opportunity to really meet some amazing professors who became mentors, who have since become friends really. Um, and even a co-teacher in one case. Um, uh, and one of those people, uh, his name was Richard Goode who started a program at Lipscomb taking undergrad students from campus into, uh, the local women's prison for, uh, inside out, uh, educational model where you have traditional students from undergrad campuses going and taking classes together with students on the inside.
Speaker 0 00:06:29 Um, and so I never actually got to take a class because it was starting as I was graduating, but he invited me along to some of those early, um, class sessions. And I got to do some sound like volunteer teaching there. And then he invited me into the men's maximum security prison around that same time to join a well-established kind of a spiritual community church slash book club. Um, a few folks on the inside of the men's prison here at Riverbend and a few folks who would come in every Saturday night from the outside. And so that was one of my main, um, uh, starting points for learning about this world of incarceration. That frankly I had not had much exposure to, um, from an early age, I, uh, like most people coming from a middle and upper class background, a white family, um, evangelical background.
Speaker 0 00:07:30 I like most people from those backgrounds understood jails and prisons simply to be the places where the bad people go. Um, out of sight, out of mind, you got to have that because there's a bunch of bad people in the world. And that was kind of the, the understanding up until that point. Um, but what I learned in, um, being closer, like literal physical proximity on the inside of a prison, uh, was that the people who live there are far more, uh, complex and, uh, and far more human frankly than I had been led to believe for all those years. And so that was a really eye-opening experience. Um, and the evidence of that is the fact that I'm still engaged in this work over a decade later. And the other stream that led me to some of this work was that I, um, as Lindsey's book shows, we both were involved starting in our undergrad years with, um, folks experiencing homelessness in Nashville, trying to advocate for more affordable housing, trying to meet people where they are in journey alongside people in a, in a, not in like a, um, client social worker relationship, but in that kind of relationship of neutrality and friendship and solidarity, um, with the idea that, and with the experience that, that we were meeting God there, um, in really tangible ways, not in the sense that we were bringing God to people who needed God, but that we were encountering a God who was already present in people who have been discarded by our society.
Speaker 0 00:09:05 And so, um, in the course of that work, that, that the, the shape that that work took for me was, um, in 2008, I became, uh, like a copy editor and then editor of Nashville street, newspaper, the contributor, um, which while I was there, it became actually the largest circulating street newspaper in North America, um, where we had hundreds of folks who were either currently or formerly, uh, unhoused, who weren't selling the street paper, um, to make an income and many of them getting off the streets and moving into housing, um, as a result, but the paper itself covering issues of homelessness, um, poverty, other kinds of social and social justice issues. Um, and so my role was to help kind of amplify the voices of folks who had experienced homelessness, do some reporting, um, on some of those issues and really just to invite folks to tell their stories.
Speaker 0 00:10:01 And one of the things that I kept hearing over and over and over again, was that people experiencing homelessness experience, um, harassment and undesired and unneeded attention from law enforcement on a regular basis, simply because they are trying to do what the rest of us do behind the walls of our house, sit, sleep, stand, use the bathroom, but doing so without housing. And that puts them on the wrong side of the law, um, based on how our system works. And so people are getting cited and arrested and fined for sleeping on, um, under a bridge or for resting their legs because they have problems with the ankles swelling up, and then they get charged for instructing a passageway. It's just all those kinds of things we're just infuriating to learn about and to learn that they were so common amongst people. Um, so that, that was kind of the other channel via poverty. The fact that, that people, um, experience the criminal justice system, um, in really harmful ways, what's kind of the other extreme that led me to the same place that my experience going to prison did. Um, and I'm still, there are a lot of ways,
Speaker 1 00:11:17 Thank you so much. That is like, that's extraordinarily helpful. Um, because I think, you know, for myself, I'm, um, coming from a similar background and I think a lot of people hearing this conversation are coming from a similar background. And so, um, you know, I think a lot of times it's, you know, out of sight, out of mind, um, it's not, you know, malice that brings us to, um, you know, a place of ignorance or, or something like that. I think it's, it's just simply that, um, not, not everyone has been right, but when we've been exposed, um, I mean, you're an amazing example of like, just, and not everything's going to hit everyone in the same way. I don't mean that. Um, but when we can't take responsibility for everything, you know, but just to see that like your work moving forward from, from your exposure is really inspiring. Um, I'll say that. So thanks for sharing that we, um, when we chatted about what we might talk about, honestly, there was so much I actually sent, um, your reading, writing page. I emailed it to my husband and I said, I'm prepping for a podcast. I think this is going to be light.
Speaker 1 00:12:37 And he's kind of like, Oh my goodness. You know, that there's so much here, but, um, so I'll, I will link, I will link that in your website, in the episode notes, for sure. Um, but we landed or I landed and thank you for agreeing on an essay that you wrote for a journal a few years back, and the essay is called soulful resistance, theological body knowledge on Tennessee's death row. And, um, this is powerful, Andrew, this is a really, really powerful essay. Um, just cataloging your experience, um, and interviews and interactions with inmates on Tennessee's death row. And then, um, compiling that with, you know, theological vision that you have, um, philosophical understanding of, of what's happening with, um, our own embodiment and the embodiment of, and I think this death row is a unique place, but I I'm wondering if you would agree that so much of this applies just to incarcerated people in general. Um, and so anyway, so can you take us let's, I mean, goodness gracious. Let's, let's start here, but I'm kind of hoping before we get to the death row portion theologically, can you help us understand what, what you mean or what is meant by this term of embodiment? How can we think about this as we process the rest of this essay in conversation?
Speaker 0 00:14:14 Absolutely. So the starting point to answer that question, the starting point of this paper was actually a, um, uh, a research paper for a class when I was doing my master of theological studies. And the class was a unique one. Um, in that it was called, I think it was called theology of the body. Um, and it was a class, um, taught by a pastoral theologian, a practical theologian, um, who was really wanting to explore with her students. And I'm grateful she did want to explore it because it really opened my eyes to thinking about, um, the whole self, uh, as a self, as a, as a thing that encounters the world. So it's, so to get philosophical for just a moment, um, it's not just that we encounter the world by way of our minds, that we used to the idea, um, a starting point at a premise where we have this really dualistic, um, conception of what a person is a person really is located in a mind or a soul or a spirit like this kind of immaterial thing.
Speaker 0 00:15:24 Um, and there's a long philosophical lineage to that. The essay starts off with Rene Descartes. Um, I think therefore I am and locating the, the central crux of personhood in the thinking mind, uh, that the current to suggest could, could go on theoretically without a body. Like that's, what's really crucial about a person is, is the mind. Um, and so that kind of overlaps with someone's spirit, et cetera, but there is an effort and it's class was part of it and kind of a re-education and reminding of the field of the Christian tradition to show that actually, um, bodies have mattered all along to, um, not just the nine and the soul and the spirit as these kind of these, these nonphysical immaterial things that can go on without a body, because by there's, you know, there's, there's the parts of the tradition. That's a body is kind of a thing that weighs you down.
Speaker 0 00:16:22 It's a, it's a negative thing. It's the, it's the seat of our sin and our lush to this and all these kind of notions of the body as a, that's a bad thing that you want to get beyond in order to be freed. Um, and so this class was only trying to do what others are doing these days that I find really important, which is to look back through theologians and the tradition look back even to, um, the sacred texts themselves to see how bodies matter for God, by his matter for the people of Israel, by his matter for Jesus and those who were following him. Um, all of the, I like to talk with tell my students like point out, uh, that, um, look at all of the like images and metaphors and everything. Only the ways by which Jesus teaches in the gospel is like, everything is by reference to some familiarity from people's lives, like their tactile physical lives around them.
Speaker 0 00:17:17 Um, their economic lives, their social lives, their like embodiment itself, um, there's food and there's drink and there's putting fingers in wounds. And there's like all these like bodies that come back to life again and like, it all it's consequential as opposed to inconsequential. And so the premise here is that our bodies are also like, they're a, they're a means by which we learn things. So we learn things through touch and through repetition and through. So, I mean, this is the lesson, like through sports and athletics, like repetition, like your body learns it. There's also people who talk about trauma and these ways, like there's a book called the body, keeps the score and other books like that, that talk about how the things that happen to our bodies are things that impact our home cells, as opposed to just like this flush that we're going to lose when we go to heaven, you know? And that's like, uh, so it's that kind of paradigm shift. And that's the starting point. Um, when we're talking about embodiment that I find really a helpful frame for thinking more expansively about what God cares about and where God meets us.
Speaker 1 00:18:28 You're absolutely right on that. And I would just say from personal experience from my own upbringing, because I, um, you know, had the same base that you're talking about, right? Like this, yeah. Your body is kind of something that, that is kind of hold you back. It's, it's it, we're constantly focused on the temporary nature of the body, especially in death. You know, I think that's how a lot of, uh, Protestant evangelicals kind of, uh, are hoping to grieve well is, you know, I don't know how many times I heard growing up. Like, she's not there, you know, like you, you, you go to a funeral or something she's not there. It's just the body, you know, all of this kind of stuff. And I think that to a degree, I think that there is some value in that, but I will say for me personally, I think it created some amount and I'm just going to be, I'm just going to kind of be blunt here.
Speaker 1 00:19:15 I think it created for me some amount of theological confusion, especially when it came to the incarnation, because I think if our bodies are really just kind of trash and I'm just kind of being blunt to make a point, right. But like, if our bodies are trashed, then why was it such a big deal that Jesus came in a bodily form? Like this is what our faith is based on. Right. That Jesus became flesh. Right. And, um, and I just think like, you know, and, and, you know, get into the, like the heresy of docetism and things like this. And, and even, you know, just, just this week in class, we're looking at like the council of Cal sedan. Right. And like all of these different Christologies that are all surrounding what's up with Jesus' body and his divinity, right. Like this is an important, um, category, and it was important for these, um, church groups to really, really get their theology right around Christ's humanity around his flesh.
Speaker 1 00:20:17 Right. And, um, and so I think that it's important, like you're saying that we kind of shift our paradigm in a way, and even to understand, you know, I, you know, thinking even going back to the garden right. Of, of God Crete, aiding Adam and Eve in these bodily forms, um, and saying that their whole selves were very good, um, from their bodies, you know, and I think that, again, some of what I think has been missed is we go, Oh, let's just dust. Well, it's like, God breathed the dust. Right. Like it's forming from his very hands. And so, um, and so we would do well, I think, to, to re-examine, um, our own embodiment for a, our relationship with God, but also even, you know, going back to talking about some of the things that you're studying, you know, these people with their bodies, doing things that we would do in our, in our homes, but they're unhoused doing this. Like how are we coming into contact with our neighbors bodies? Um, you know, and, and that relationship, right. Um, that, that matters.
Speaker 0 00:21:35 Right. Well, so much of, uh, what I grew up on, uh, had me understanding that the work of being a Christian was about an exchange that happens like at a, at a conceptual level, like a belief system is adopted. Um, and there's like a commitment made that mostly involves like an internal, like an internal commitment. Um, and that the rest of it is kind of extra, you know, you go to feed the homeless every couple of months, um, at the, at the shelter or the soup kitchen. And that's like a part of our faith too, but it's not like it's kind of like an extra thing. You don't have to do that. Um, and so, yeah, th this is the shift of, of the last, you know, 15 plus years for me has been in seeing, um, that God cares about a whole lot more than just like a conceptual shift in our minds, or like a internalized commitment that doesn't bear fruit, um, like in tangible ways.
Speaker 0 00:22:34 And so, so much of ministry is focused on how do we get people to like, change their commitment? That's like an internal, like, like a confession of commitment. How do you get people to, to like speak those words and to, and, and, you know, you want it to translate into being a better person and things like that. Um, but, but when you start to see, um, through a lens that says that God cares about a lot more than just like a, an abstract commitment, but cares about like, um, the wellbeing of people's physical existence. Uh, you know, there's the famous saying, um, from Uranus that the glory of God is a human being fully alive, uh, which indicates that God isn't interested in like, just in the, the criminal that's left over after we pass away, but God's interested in like, uh, a fullness now.
Speaker 0 00:23:27 And so, um, so much so to bring it back to the prison context, so much of, um, what, what is prison ministry really, um, boils down to going in to the prison, preaching at people who you believe are, um, in negative, something that they don't have already, and you're going to give it to them and they're going to profess it, and then you've done your job because they've been rescued, uh, when actually in my mind, we're holistic understanding of what would, what ministry would entail would be one where the starting point isn't, I'm going to rescue you. It's who are you? What do you already know? What do you already live and experience and believe, and endure and survive and, and hope for and dream about. And what skills do you have and capacities do you bring, uh, like people are full people. And if we think that they have to be rescued first, then we like we're missing out on a lot that we can actually get in return to, um, and that mutual exchange relationship.
Speaker 0 00:24:33 And so the premise of my paper, right. Essay was trying to start somewhere very different from where most people bringing a faith perspective into a prison are coming from, which is I'm going into like rescue the monsters and like transform them. Um, but my premise was like, what's the, what's the material reality we're walking into. And I, when, when you walk into this prison and as you saw on the essay, like, I really thought it was important to start with a detailed kind of login. Do you use your word of, of like, how many, how many, uh, like what's, what are the material that I walked through? Like, if, if the starting point is that the world we interact with actually informs our whole, like being in personhood, like, um, then it's important to take stock of the physical environment somebody is in. So the fact that they live behind multiple layers of fencing and razor wire and concrete and steel and plexiglass, and that I had to walk through a number of doors that were buzzed opened by some invisible person behind, uh, um, uh, glass that led me through, let me pass. And like, just all those layers to reach people. Um, like that is something that we have to take stock of if we want to look at the whole picture of human existence, which is a bodily one. Um, the fact that people live decades of their lives behind all those layers, um, where most people don't ever think about them are forgotten that they're there. So, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:26:07 One of the, the pictures that I can't get out of my mind from this essay, and I don't remember, um, which, um, which person the quote was from. Um, but one of the inmates said maybe he had, maybe he was the one who had been there for 25 years or something like that, but had never hadn't in that time, had only felt concrete under his bare feet, um, you know, no grass. Um, and, and that, that, that one, that one thing in particular, you know, even as I think about my day, I, I walked my husband out to his car this morning as he was heading out to work. And I thought before anyone in the house even got up, my bare feet felt multiple textures under them, right. Something that I never even think about. It doesn't even cross my mind that that is important or significant, and maybe it's not, but it felt very significant to me to think about someone who for twenty-five years, the bottom of his feet when they're not in shoes had only felt one surface.
Speaker 0 00:27:23 Right. Right. And the other part of the, the other direction, besides down being that, some of them said, I haven't stood under an open sky in decades. And, you know, that's, those are the little things you take for granted when you, when you're not incarcerated, um, is that we get to encounter a world in a more like wide ranging way. And when, when all those things are removed, um, that has profound impacts on, on someone's like life experience. And, um, yeah. I mean, there's a lot to talk about here about like, what, like what we think we're doing that somehow, um, just are positive when we're, when we're, um, taking away that those many layers of people's even existence. Um, but yeah, we'll, I'll pause there and let it direct us where we want to go next.
Speaker 1 00:28:15 No, I mean, take it, take it. I feel like we could, I feel like we could, um, take it there. I want you to go, I want you to go where you wanted to go with that and we'll come back. I've got, I've got a lot of, a lot of bullet points and a lot of questions, but I think it's important. I want you to go there.
Speaker 0 00:28:31 Well, there's one thing I want to always stop on. Um, like a point I want to take a moment for, which is just like, what are, what are these institutions actually for? Um, I, a couple years ago, went to a, uh, guided tour at the first kind of second, but the first major, like a penitentiary in the United States in Philadelphia, Eastern state penitentiary penitentiary was a reform of previous, um, measures of public, uh, punishment, corporal punishment, public execution, things like that, that wasn't working according to a lot of folks, including religious folks, uh, Quakers and other, uh, part of scent reformers. And there, they thought, you know, why don't we set up an institution, um, where we, what we don't do as public rituals of punishment and torture, but kind of do it more introspective type of thing that ended up not being a great idea, frankly, either.
Speaker 0 00:29:33 But it was an attempt to humanize what, before that was pretty gruesome. And, but I went to on this tour and the tour guide, it was like me and maybe two other families who were tourists. I actually grew up outside of Philadelphia. So I was a tourist, but I felt like it was my, my turf still. Um, and, uh, the poor guy had asked a really provocative question that was arresting because of its simplicity. And he said, we're standing inside these giant, like fortress walls from the 18 hundreds. And he said, um, before we start the question, what are prisons for, um, which I just, I use it all the time, still in my teaching and my writing, because, um, we take for granted that we know what the answer is. He didn't tell us what he thought it was, but he let us kind of talk through it. And as he might expect, and I was imagining people listen to this, my, my, and the first thing that might come to their mind is, is what I heard from the other person in the group taking the tour, which was, there's a lot of bad people out there, and we have to have someplace to put them.
Speaker 2 00:30:35 Um, and so
Speaker 0 00:30:37 There's this idea that it is a response to wrongdoing a response to crime, to harm, um, a response to people being inherently bad, maybe an uncontrollable, um, but what I have come to believe and, uh, through my proximity to people in prison and my proximity to people who have been, um, victims of police violence and, and whatnot, and, and through my study is that these institutions actually arose more or less out of a response to people doing bad things and more out of a response to the idea that certain people who are inherently bad and needed to be controlled. And those people, the history shows us were always poor folks. Um, people economically disenfranchised, and then eventually in the U S context, it becomes black people, uh, people of color, other people of color. And so my, my view is one that I, that I think a lot of people who come from a background like mine still feel uncomfortable with, uh, which is, it's like a, it's a critical view of what this institution actually is for.
Speaker 0 00:31:43 And so, um, it's actually not to ex it's not to create, um, repair and not to create justice. Um, it's to it's to control people in a way that, um, we believe as a kind of repair or RA or a safe keeping. Um, but actually it doesn't really do a great job at that. I know one person who I have read has said that, uh, as people, many people will know that the us incarcerates more people than any other nation on the globe. The us has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners, um, 2.3 million or so, and many million more on supervision release parole, um, who says, if the, if prisons really were like to keep us safe, then the U S would be the safest nation on planet earth in all of human history. And it is far from that.
Speaker 0 00:32:39 So much violence takes place here, so something's not working. Um, but I, I needed to say all that because I imagined some people listening, might think we're talking about people who kill people, right? Why aren't we being so compassionate about people who are monsters or something like that. And I always find it important to talk about the fact that these institutions don't really do a great job of addressing the root causes of the harm. First of all. And they actually don't even do a lot for the people who are victimized by that harm. I've been in person at parole hearings where people, um, who were the families of victims and sort of, uh, murder in one case where they're 38 years later, still like undone by what had happened to their family member. And they can clink to, because of the absence of any other option was I need him to stay behind these walls, but they, they had not been given anything by this process either in terms of healing or in terms of addressing what had happened.
Speaker 0 00:33:38 And so if we, if we buy into the notion that is a systems that are here to like deal with wrongdoing and to repair it, then we were grossly misled, unfortunately. And, and, and I think it's important to interrogate that precipitation because it actually does quite a bit of damage, not just to people who've committed harm, but actually to the survivors of harm to it's not working for anybody. So I feel important to say that as a kind of like preface before we assume too much about even having a conversation about the value of thinking about the humanity of people who have killed people, that's who lives on death row. So I wanted to say that first of all,
Speaker 1 00:34:18 No, I, I appreciate you saying that. And in fact, I, I rarely do this, like in the middle of an episode, but we've, we've already mentioned Lindsay, so I'm going to go ahead and plug another episode, but there's a, I'm an attorney and an author whose name is Jean Bishop. And she came on the show last year. At some point she's written two books. One was about, um, this one, I actually remember the name of it was called grace from the rebel, but it was about, um, Tim McVeigh, who was the bomber in the Oklahoma city Murrah building bombing. And this is that's my turf. You wanna talk about your turf? Um, that's that was my turf. Um, I watched that on the news in school as it was happening as it was going down. Um, and, and she actually, her previous book that I read before we, um, spoke because it, um, just the content moved me so much was actually, I can't remember the name of that one, but I'll look it up and put it in the notes, um, was actually her story.
Speaker 1 00:35:19 Um, she and her family lost family members through murder. And, um, she, I think had always been opposed, um, to the death penalty. She was an attorney. She kind of knew the ins and outs of the system, but this was actually about a heart change that she experienced while she was processing the death of her loved ones and actually meeting, um, the person who admitted to killing them. And, um, and her kind of final word on that was basically that no one is beyond God's redemption. Um, and so, um, so we can talk about the horrible things they did and the impact that they've had on people's lives and on the world, um, that ultimately there's not a, not a person who has been created, who is beyond the, the reach of God and his redemption in what and what he did through Jesus. And so I just kinda wanted to, to also, um, say that because I would say yes and amen to everything that, that you said, and also wanted to say that as well, because I feel like that is a perspective, especially when we talk about kind of religious folk, right?
Speaker 1 00:36:37 Like, um, where are our minds when it comes to this, when it comes to this issue, because as you said, many of us just have not been affected by this either, right. We a, you know, um, probably have not been, uh, a victim or known a victim of a crime, but really have not had family members or close people close to us who have been impacted by, um, the prison system either. Right. And so it's kind of easy to have a certain idea that when you're separated or think it's doing something that it's actually not. Yeah. Because we've kind of been trained to think that way.
Speaker 0 00:37:16 Yeah. And, um, you know, one thing I like to tell my students I've been teaching at Tennessee state university last two years, and that is about less than 10 minutes from both the men's and women's maximum security prisons. So when we talk about prisons and religion on one of the class classes I do, um, on one class session, I always start by saying like, look, some of you may be close to this issue because you are a survivor of violence or because of your family, who's been impacted by it or by some other crime. Um, but even if not, uh, here's a map. You live a couple of minutes from about 1,500 people who live in cages right now. Um, and so just proximity wise, like it is there, even though we build them, this is where you don't drive by because it's supposed to be out of sight out of mind.
Speaker 0 00:38:07 Um, but another thing I want to note too, is that like, to, to be a post of affinity as I am, to be opposed to what prisons are even up to as I am as a whole, um, is not to suggest that we don't care or take seriously when people hurt people. It's to say that this doesn't actually do a good job of taking it seriously, either. It just responds to harm with more harm, and that's not a way to deal with where it came from or to make it stop it from again. Um, and so when I talk about the evolution of these things, I'm talking about rigorous systems of accountability that don't involve, um, caging, because I don't believe that actually addresses root harms. It doesn't get people to do much to change. I think people change oftentimes in spite of their present conditions, rather than because of them.
Speaker 0 00:38:56 Um, but going on the death row to bring a start to that was an experience for me of just profound opening. I went in there under the premise that I, I knew that people weren't monsters. Like I thought that they were already, but, but then even being there in person, it just shed so many more things for me. So first of all, um, the folks on death row at, at, uh, Riverbend in Nashville, which houses all of Tennessee's death row prisoners, they have like a sense of community that is, um, pretty remarkable given the environment they insist on embraces this is pre pandemic. Um, haven't been in an over a year to the prison because of the pandemic, but they insist on embracing. Um, they're constantly showing love. And those kinds of ways in that to bring back to the essay too, is one of the interesting things.
Speaker 0 00:39:51 So, like I said, coming in there with this premise embodiment manners, I'm in a class that's talking about theological body of knowledge. Um, our physical experience matters. And then I get in there and it gets a little complex when I actually hear some of the guys that I'm interviewing start to channel some of that language that I grew up with about, um, like the body, um, like is kind of in the way and the, this, the spirit is what matters and, um, and other things. But what I came to realize through those conversations is that, um, when a system has control of your physical existence in so all encompassing away, what else do you have, but to find your identity and your humanity and your connection with God in this kind of internalized way. So it was this interesting rerouting back to like what I thought I was like coming in critiquing.
Speaker 0 00:40:49 And they were like, no, actually we are interior. Life is, what's like where it all takes place for us, but then I was kind of putting out back to them. Well, actually you all are embracing constantly. You're shaking hands constantly. Like there's these physical aspects interact, even like being friendly to the guards, like you're doing all these things that are what I ended up naming some full resistance to your environment. Um, by like, by, by insisting on your humanity, in a way that the environment doesn't want to recognize. And one of my favorite parts about that experience that still gives me chills every time I think about it was I asked two sets of questions under the premise that our bodies learned things by their interaction, with their surroundings. And one of the questions was, uh, this institution wants you to note once your body to know and learn something, what do you, what do these walls trying to teach you?
Speaker 0 00:41:44 If, if it's trying to teach you something and they were like that, they control me, this body is there as a belongs to the state. I have a number like it's the state's property. Um, but then there were saying they can have that property, but they'll never have, what's really like, and going on in here. Um, but then the part that gives me chills is what I said. What, and what would you say in response to like what these walls I've tried to tell you? And one of the guys, um, who, whose pseudonym in the essay is Curt, um, like really intense and like straightened up his body and his chair. And like, we were in a circle when he pointed towards the wall itself, because that was the premise of that question. What are these walls telling you? They pointed to the wall and says like, I'm not who you, who you say I am.
Speaker 0 00:42:30 Um, and everybody like respected it by just like not saying anything for a couples for like 30 seconds. And, um, I still just got, I want to start that thinking about it because it's this assertion of a little spark of humanity that most people presume doesn't exist on that industrial road in West Nashville behind those cages. Um, and the fact that it does, um, and that, that man's spiritual life. I mean, he's, he's a, he's an ordained minister now church on the outside ordained him. And he's a minister on the inside through a church in Nashville. Um, is that mighty? Uh, I don't use this word a lot, but I respect and love it. He's a prune warrior, like in the, in the tradition of many of the churches I come from. Um, and, uh, another man who I interviewed, who was executed, um, maybe two years ago now, uh, his name was done.
Speaker 0 00:43:25 Uh, he was also ordained by a church, um, in the community and was very much a minister, um, to people on the inside. And, uh, the, the, the men on death row were asking for a number of months, we're asking along with some advocates for the governor who is a professing Christian and engages in prison ministries of different kinds. They said, come pray with us. And we want you to see, we want you to come pray with us. We're brothers in Christ company with us. Of course he never did that. Um, and he, uh, the execution move forward, despite a lot of, despite the daughter of the survivor, um, um, pleading with the governor, not to kill him, they still did. And the, um, there's this tradition of the last meal, you know, of, uh, uh, um, folks who are going to be executed. They get to choose their last meal.
Speaker 0 00:44:23 And sometimes it can be just their favorite meal from childhood or just whatever they're in the mood for or whatever. Um, but Don, um, uh, skipped his last meal and asked that the prison send pizzas to homeless folks in Nashville. And, um, of course the prison refused that request, but the night of the execution, we had a vigil outside of the, in a field outside of the prison, um, where we were praying and remembering and, um, praying for Don and his family. And, um, at a certain point, we, we heard the news that he had been killed. And, um, it was a beautiful night and like the sun was like studying and it was orange on the horizon. And, um, Lindsay and I went downtown with a couple of others, too. Um, we pooled money at the vigil to honor Don's request to, to bring the pizzas to people because the prison wouldn't do it.
Speaker 0 00:45:24 Um, and so we went downtown. At one point, I was stopped on the curb and Lindsay took a pizza over to a guy. And she said, when she told me she came back, she said, I, I, uh, I, uh, bringing this pizza to you from somebody who was executed tonight and by the state of Tennessee, um, his last wish was that people living out here be given some food. And she said that the guy like put his hand on his heart and just like closed his eyes and said, thanks. And like express the connection with him who he'd never met. And I like to bring this up because it is not only did I interview him for this story and this exemplifies who, who he was, but like the governor kept saying that he was praying about his execution and like the answer to his prayer was that it should go forward.
Speaker 0 00:46:15 And then here done wasn't matter of prayer. He was praying. And his final words that reporters talked about him singing hymns and praying as he was, as he was taking his last breaths. And his prayer turned into people eating like on the streets in Nashville, one prayer resulted in death. One prayer resulted in people being fed and the poor people being fed started from behind those razor wire fences. And so that's the kind of like, like road excluding reversal that I find when I enter prisons. And I want to help people understand to complexify these black and white, like monster, a good people, like images that we've come up with.
Speaker 1 00:46:57 Oh my goodness, Andrew, thank you for sharing that. That is, that's amazing. Um, that whole, I, I actually, I couldn't help, but think after, you know, I'd read this, this, this has been a long time and I actually went and looked up, you know, where is Tennessee right now when it comes to the death penalty and things like that. And I had wondered if any of the, if any of the menu spoke with, um, those times had, um, had been executed or if they were still, um, done has been
Speaker 0 00:47:30 Executed. Um, another person is, um, has, has a date, but, um, there's a lot of appeal going on right now with the number of different organizations trying to appeal that case. Um, and then some others who don't have dates it, I mean, people, people live on death row for decades as I, as I show it. So it's not like people have this idea that you can execution like sentence of death. And then you're like killing a few weeks later. Like, no, like it just goes on and on. So, which is it's painful for everybody. So, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:48:05 Yeah. I mean, it's, it, it reminds me when you were saying that you were, that you were met with, um, kind of the same rhetoric, you know, that they were, that they were telling you about, um, about their bodies and their souls and, and just, just kind of like thinking out loud here, I'm like, yeah, but let's keep in mind for them. This is a coping mechanism, right. I think it's a, I think it's a relatively healthy coping mechanism given where they are, but this, but this is not the default. Right.
Speaker 0 00:48:34 Well, the only thing I compare it to in the essay is the, uh, is the tradition of, uh, spirituals, uh, coming out of the institution of slavery and the black church, um, where there is, uh, a lot of like sweet by and by, um, language. Um, but that, uh, for folks in a situation, much like a prison and especially noting that prisons emerge out of Evelyn as a kind of a carry over of, of slavery in some ways, uh, legally, uh, that, uh, in that situation you have to transcend in, in together and whatever ways you can. Um, and so that was a real humanizing way to think about a world beyond this one and to sing about it was to, to try to move yourself there as well. There's a tradition that shows that the, the, the gospel traditions, um, of, of during child slavery were not just about where you go when you die.
Speaker 0 00:49:32 But there were also about like crossing over Jordan was crossing over the river to get the freedom, literally, uh, like escaping the plantation. That's how, there's this kind of, again, it's, it's a, it's a troubling of the notion that God only cares about what happens to this mysterious internal thing after you've shed the flesh. Uh, but that's God was with the people escaping the plantation to slavery while they were still living. And that was a sweet by and by a lot of ways. And so, likewise, I think we, we needed to be mindful and care about and attended to that whole, um, spectrum of, of experience for people, um, in situations of confinement.
Speaker 1 00:50:13 You know, one thing that just came to my mind was, um, because I also got, I also got caught. I got, I got caught in a lot of places on this essay. I'm just going to be really honest. There was so many things that stuck out to me, but w you were talking about the embracing, um, that the, that the inmates are embracing one another. And so I was thinking they're embracing one another, but the way that I would say I saw kind of three categories of touch in this essay, right? So the N the inmates with one another, and that wasn't always, um, every single inmate, right? They were saying, this is, this is not always a mutual thing. Some, some guys are going to hug some guys aren't, some guys are going to shake cans, some guys aren't, um, and then you have, you know, the visitor, right.
Speaker 1 00:51:02 Which, because of their, because of the person who's incarcerated because of his situation and his body not really belonging to him, um, there may not be embracing aloud. Um, we're only at certain times, right. With people who are coming to visit them. And then the third category being, um, touch interaction with the guards and people who are in authority. Right. Which, you know, they described embracing is never happening. Um, right. And some guards might shake hands. Others might not. Um, but the thing that kind of stuck out to me about that is really besides the visiting, the situation that might happening might be happening, they are really only have one another to affirm their humanity in that way. Um, and when you were talking about prison ministry, right. You know, of course, you know, my mind goes back to the gospels, right. And the words of Jesus, when he's saying, when I was in prison, you visited me, but I'm like, gee whiz, but what really should that entail right.
Speaker 1 00:52:08 Of this ministry? You know, like, can we, when you were visiting, I mean, maybe you can talk about that a little bit more, but it's like, there's someone on the outside also affirming their humanity, right. This is not just, I'm going to come, I'm going to preach at you. I'm going to bring you a, I don't know, a pair of socks or give you some, you know, some money, but like, how can, what does that visiting? You know, it makes me kind of think like, what, what is behind those words? Like what actually should be taking place? What should we be doing? You know, in that, in that regard, because it just really struck me that at least in the aspect of touch, they were not being affirmed, their humanity really wasn't being affirmed by anyone except for someone else who was in their same
Speaker 0 00:52:54 Situations. Right? Yes. So right. Most touch in a place of severe confinement, um, is unwanted. Um, or you just have to consent to the searches. Um, you're, you're in a lot of ways isolated because many, many hours a day, depending on your level of, of confinement, um, sometimes up to 23 and a half hours a day, you are completely alone and there is no touch. And if, if, if we take seriously, um, theologically, the notion that, um, we encountered God, and there's so many scriptural sources for this, that we encounter God through other human beings, things, um, then, uh, to remove someone from the possibility of connecting to other human beings is to remove them from the possibility of like touching God in some way. Um, now of course there still is a resilience and a spiritual depth. That's pretty remarkable for a lot of folks on the inside to, um, find other ways.
Speaker 0 00:54:02 But yeah, I think that touch, there was a part of a spiritual kind of brotherhood. You might say for those guys who were part of the group that did embrace each other and shake hands, um, that I think was really critical to their, um, to the, like the, the, the, the spirit of their, of their community as a, as a spiritual community. Um, but, uh, the terms of the ministry question, um, yeah, I think that a really important starting point for anybody who's interested in doing prison ministry or visiting people in behind bars, um, is to start with the willingness to accept that there may already be deep spirituality being practiced there. Um, that God is there. I mean, we, we tend to use Matthew 25 as a, as the like, um, blueprint for taking God to people. I'm sure Lindsey talked about this too.
Speaker 0 00:55:06 I mean, this is part of our, our paradigm shift, you know, like more than decade ago is that, Oh, it turns out God was already there because God, um, uh, take special care for, it has special concern for the oppressed, the outcast, et cetera, this is listed throughout scripture. Um, and so if God is already there, then it's not your job to like save people, it's your job to like, affirm the God in them. And in turn, they infirmed that affirm that God in you, like there is that kind of reciprocity that takes place if you started a more horizontal kind of starting fluid. Um, and so, but yeah, I have also heard, so it's not to say that folks on the inside don't need anyone on the outside. You don't want to go that far and say, Oh, there's there's, they have a spirituality of their own.
Speaker 0 00:55:55 They don't need anyone coming in. That that would not be the case either. Um, I have heard folks that I've been in communion and community with, at the prisons. Um, really just naming, like, we look forward to you all coming out here because like, it's, it's a connection with the rest of life that we once lived. And it's like, we feel like someone sees us when everything that we see in the headlines or that we hear from the correctional officers are we hear from the warden is that we're not valuable and that we're just our worst mistakes and that that's all that we are. Um, it's a, it's an it's, it's an environment that reduces you to your worst moment and says, that's what you are most essentially. And for someone to come in and not preach at them and not say, what, what, how did you get it your anyways, and like, and tell me about how you're trying to better yourself.
Speaker 0 00:56:51 Like all the kind of classic things that well-meaning, I think people do when they go inside of a vitamin like that. But to start with just like, I mean, we talk, I talk about sports and talk about the weather and we talk about scripture. We talk about the book we're reading, and we talk about family. We, we, in our circle of folks went on our Saturday night group, which again, I haven't done it in over a year and I'm really eager to get back when I'm allowed. Um, whenever a new person would join. One of the guys in the inside would have like a good to know your question. And they were some of my favorite moments, um, because it was things like, what was your favorite meal growing up? And, um, if you could have a meal with one famous person from history, who would it be?
Speaker 0 00:57:33 And, uh, like, what was your favorite candy like this like super basic things that aren't elevated and they're not philosophical. They're just like something that all of us share. And when we're talking about food, we enjoy like the one that kept keeps us apart is not there anymore. And, um, I think that's important, um, to, to be able to enter those spaces, uh, with regard down, because to me, like, that's how Jesus meets people in vulnerability and in mutuality and, and like connection on really basic everyday things like you're at the will or you're like at wherever, like normal place in your life. And you're talking about normal life stuff. And that is, that's not, it's not the I've seen people use that kind of stuff as like a manipulative tool for a, what turns into a come to Jesus moment. And I'm not talking about that. Like I'm talking about that is the meat of it itself like that, like the vehicle of, of the finding God together, um, is through just being human together, as opposed to like, let me trick you into thinking I care. And then I'll ask you whether you give your life to do this. Like not, not that I'm not interested, uh, the ministry consists of the accompany mint, um, and the walking alongside people, as opposed to getting them to confess something at the end.
Speaker 1 00:58:58 Yeah. The accompany men. Yeah. That's good. Um, Andrew, as we start to wrap up, um, I normally ask people something like, what do you wish I would have asked, but I think I'll ask you if we, if class were in session and we knew it was about to end, what would you leave us as your students? What would you leave us with today? Well,
Speaker 3 00:59:25 I think, I think
Speaker 0 00:59:29 A little set of things come to mind that I'll try to encapsulate briefly. One is,
Speaker 3 00:59:35 Is, um,
Speaker 0 00:59:38 Proximity is a prerequisite of all
Speaker 3 00:59:40 Of this. Um,
Speaker 0 00:59:43 You've got to find ways to connect with folks. If you want to understand the complexities that inform the place where they're living and their history and everything, um, you can read books and that's really good. And my wife has written a great one. You should read, um, and you can be brought along with those stories, but, um, I think it's really important to meet people. Um, hopefully again, as we can start to meet people again in physical ways, um, on the, on hopefully a far side of the pandemic, um, that's really critical. Um, additionally, I would say that like,
Speaker 3 01:00:23 I,
Speaker 0 01:00:24 I, I really believe that this issue of, of our systems of confinement and caging, and that's a, that's a brutal word cage. There's a lot of people use that word though in my circles to really drive home the fact that these are literal cages. Like some people complain if you keep your dog in a cage in the backyard, but we don't, you know, have a problem with humans in cages. And so I think it's really important to keep on finding ways. And this is part of what I feel like my calling is to, to help people reckon with just how much of an abomination and a moral catastrophe is that we have so many millions of people, um, in situations of confinement, many, most of whom are already coming from situations and environments of harm. They're already survivors of harm, structural harm through poverty, um, and other forms of oppression, um, racism, white supremacy, personal harm through abuse and cycles of violence in the home and in their living environment.
Speaker 0 01:01:31 And then they're harmed again by the state in response to their harm because of their heart. It's just like, uh, just the dreadful tragic cycle that, um, I actually think that the kinds of things that we associate with like, um, a Christian, uh, view of, uh, uh, of the world and how God cares about people's home selves, that we talk about addressing people's bodily needs that we've been talking about today and like housing and homelessness and the physical needs that people have as, as within the purview of what ministry is about. Um, for the same reasons. Actually, I think that we have so many prisons and people in them because we have not done the work of providing care before people ever get there. Um, and so to me, the work of, uh, reversing the damage being done through these institutions is actually not just to tear them down, but to redirect our energy and our attention and our love and our care and our resources to the things that people need to live a full life.
Speaker 0 01:02:39 Um, which to me is, uh, essential to what I understand ministry to be. If, if I haven't ministry it's, it is to try to address people's whole selves and to help people have what they need, because God cares about that. And maybe a final word. I can't, I almost can never, um, skip over when I'm talking about these things, Oscar Romero, who Lindsay writes about a little bit, and maybe you all talked about him. There is a picture of him on my wall. I can't see it right now. Um, like a, an icon rendering of him holding the small child with helicopters in the background, outgrew marrow, um, Archbishop Catholic church in El Salvador for a couple of years, um, assassinated in 1980, um, by forces trained, partly in, uh, Fort Benning, Georgia, um, and then deployed through the military, um, and was in El Salvador. But the thing that I like about him that I always come back to is when he started to raise concerns about the way that the government and militias were treating peasants and poor farmers in El Salvador, people would come along and say, Archbishop Romero, you're middling and politics staying in your lane to use the lingo of today.
Speaker 0 01:03:57 Like do your church thing, save people's souls. That's what you're here for. Why are you meddling and politics? And his response in so many words was my vocation is to defend the image of God and human beings. And we're living in a situation where that image is being destroyed through death squads. And so this isn't, my vocation is to defend the image of human beings. And if that means on public radio, during my sermon on Sunday, calling out the military to stop repressing my people, then I'm going to do it because that's my Christian vocation. Um, and so I just want to like, and that's what led to his assassination in the end a few weeks later. Um, but I just want to name that as like, again, if there's anyone who's flood wrestling with like, isn't this just like the extra stuff with Christian, like isn't social justice stuff. Like, isn't that just kind of an add on, and to me, and for me, it's really essential, um, because God cares about all the ways that humans, um, are treated and whether they have what they need to live full lives, because that's what God wants for us. That's the God I meet in scripture. It's the guy that I met on the streets. It's the guy that I have met in prisons.
Speaker 1 01:05:09 Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. Um, I'll actually put, there's a, um, I don't know, you may not endorse it. I don't know. There's a movie about Oscar Romero's life that I actually watched, uh, last quarter for one of my classes. We were studying liberation theology.
Speaker 0 01:05:29 Yeah. I watched that in undergrad and it was, I named that among the top experiences of my like transformation, like watching that I was just undone by it. I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1 01:05:40 I'll put it in the, I'll put a link to it on Amazon, um, in the notes because it's incredible. Yeah. Andrew, thank you so much this time with you has been, um, incredible and it's exceeded my expectations. And so I appreciate you taking the time to come and talk about this. I appreciate your work. Oh my goodness. So many of the things that, um, we don't see the study and, um, and the things that you're doing to bring this ministry to the world is so important. And so I just want to, I just want to say, like, I just want to encourage you in that and just, and just say thank you for your work and what you're doing, um, in your studies and what you're doing with your advocacy and what you're doing with Lindsey and, um, and the kind of, uh, family that you're, that you're bringing up in this world. Thank you so much.
Speaker 0 01:06:27 Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's a joy to talk with you and yeah, appreciate the time
Speaker 1 01:06:33 The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth B city. Be sure to give us a review on iTunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app, you can also visit us at that makes total sense.
