Within the genre of Christian literature exists a vast subgenre of books about crime and prison. We will be looking at four in particular, "God's Prison Gang," "Changed Lives in San Quentin," "Eldridge Cleaver: Ice and Fire!" and "Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)." (1) The first two books are dramatic potboilers, satisfying the Fundamentalist urge for excitement. Christian chaplains prove their worth and strength by bringing the very baddest of men to the foot of the cross, leaving them broken, yet changed. The worth of a Fundamentalist testimony is found in the gulf that separates the old life from the new and in these stories that gulf is vast. The story of Eldridge Cleaver is complicated but bound to the Christian right. "Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)" offers an antidote to the self-serving nature of the books that precede it. Bonhoeffer, a Christian theologian, returned to Germany in 1939 to face imprisonment and his eventual execution.

God's Prison Gang
Chaplain Ray drops names as fast as a jilted moll drops a dime. Copyrighted in 1977 this book reads like a 40's novel. Full of jailhouse lingo Ray chronicles his meetings with the Manson family's Susan Atkins and Tex Watson, Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy, Floyd "Public Enemy No. 1" Hamilton, "Happy Jack" Burbridge and others.

During the era of Chaplain Ray's evangelizing efforts, prison ministries were few and far between. Ray reached most of his converts via the radio. Between vignettes Ray expounds on his own theories regarding crime, prisons and capital punishment. He believes in restoring Old Testament principals of swift justice and restitution. There should be no prisons. Criminals should repay their victims twofold, and if they can't they should become their victim's indentured servants. To his credit he includes a long and detailed rant on white collar crime.

Ray blames the rising crime rate on a lack of personal responsibility and quotes Dr. Donald T. Lunde, associate professor of psychiatry and law at Stanford University, "When traditional values and the Protestant ethic reigned, people felt more responsible for themselves. If they were frustrated, as they were in the Depression when banks were failing, they took it out on themselves and were jumping out of windows." (2) Ah, the good old days.

What baffles Chaplain Ray the most is the rising rate of violent crimes committed by women. "A New York sociologist, Dr. Florence L. Denmark, and Dr. Ruth Rutschmann-Jaffe of Barnard College, found, after studying the 'female crime wave,' that there was more behind it than just the women's liberation movement, which is often cited as the cause."

The female offender, whether acting by herself or with others, is not typically the emancipated intellectual striving for civil liberties. Her crime is rarely an assertion of equal rights, or an unconscious attempt at achieving her own or others' rights. (3)

You can find out more about Tex Watson by visiting his site, Abounding Love. Become a Christian by praying his prayer and take this lovely sticker FREE as our gift for your web site.

In the first three books the authors surprisingly refer to the Apostle Paul as a murderer. And Chaplain Ray cites Jesus' capitulation to HIS death sentence as a nod for the death penalty from Christ himself. (4) I think it was Mencken who said, "For every complex problem there is a simple solution, and it is always wrong."

Chaplain Ray formed International Prison Ministries, a forerunner of convicted felon Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship International. Ray died on November 20, 1997. You can still purchase books and "tracks" such as "How to Pull Yourself Together" and "Accept Me As a Person, Not as a Convict" from the organization.

Changed Lives in San Quentin
Harry Howard was the Protestant chaplain at San Quentin in 1986 when this book was published. With a both a masters and doctorate degree in divinity from the American Baptist Seminiary Howard struggles with the hip street lingo bandied about by the cons. But he tries,

The drug scene was in full bloom. Hippies were the peace-loving heros of the hour. They were demonstrating a lifestyle that didn't depend on economic success, fancy clothes, big cars, luxury homes or the traditional moral values. They were free to do as they wished and if it shocked society, so much the better. They had surrendered their ambition, dignity and pride to spread their version of love in a cloud of smoke.

With the exception of one murderer Howard's converts are petty drug dealers and criminal ne'er-do-wells. The conversions are less dramatic and more believable. One fellow is forbidden to marry his sweetheart by his probation officer. He marries her anyway hiding the fact from his P.O. The young couple then speaks at a "Youth for Truth" convention in Sacramento. (5) This doesn't feel like hypocrisy but rather the gradual conversion of a person to a new way of life, a life flexible enough to contain inconsistencies.

Again and again the convicts in our stories look over the past events that brought them to the point of conversion and see that God stopped a bullet or caused a gun to jam, or a case file to go missing, an unmistakable chain of cause and effect. These are the same simple men who earlier in their criminal careers were convinced they would never get caught because they had not yet BEEN caught. With a flair for drama and magical thinking it is no wonder that dull Christians are drawn to these dangerous men.

Eldridge Cleaver: Ice and Fire!
Who is the REAL Eldridge Cleaver - Black Panther, convicted felon, admitted rapist, Parisian fashion designer, born-again Christian? Cleaver coined the phrase "pussy power" and later designed cod-piece pants while exiled in Paris. In the South of France Cleaver, on a balcony, under a moonlit sky converted to Christianity and embraced a new life full of the kind of white people he formerly hated. Arthur DeMoss of the Liberty Insurance empire, visited Cleaver in jail and posted his $50,000 bail. DeMoss, a slight man, worth half a billion dollars, served on the board of Campus Crusade for Christ. His wife carries on his work and won the "Proudly Pro-life" award. She socializes with Jesse Helms, Robert Bork and other ultra right conservatives.

Cleaver wasn't happy in France but a return to the United States would require facing a prison term. Cleaver's two children, Maceo and Joju considered themselves French. Otis writes, "[Cleaver] saw himself as the cause of [his children] being locked outside of their country. Strangely enough, he felt the burden upon him because he wanted Maceo to play football! - but not the kind that was played in France. 'I wanted him to play FOOTBALL like I used to play.'" Perhaps it was this intense sports moment that compelled him to say, "I'd rather be in jail in America than free anywhere else." (6)

Soul on Ice meets Soul on Nice

The Christian Right has been cautious about embracing Eldridge Cleaver. He has appeared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, brunched with the Boones and is featured on Christian web sites every February (Black History Month). But Cleaver has never fully eased up on his attacks on American political institutions. The most he will say is that they are better than those in the majority of foreign countries. Cleaver has also violated his parole and recently spoke at a Unitarian church, a far cry from the Baptist organizations that were so sweet on him in the early years of his conversion.

For all his faults Cleaver demonstrates complexity in his Christian life. Prison ministries promise to reform the criminal and return him as a productive member of society. Eldridge Cleaver does not fit this model, and for better or worse has lived as a Christian in terms of his own experience.

UPDATE!!

Letters and Papers from Prison: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christianity was the official state religion under the Nazis in Germany. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and pacifist was on a lecture tour in America in 1939. Against the wishes of his friends Bonhoeffer decided to return to Germany to take an active part in the resistance movement. He was imprisoned and eventurally executed.

Bonhoeffer's letters detail every day prison life, from the food, the flies, and the bird songs to standing at the window at night watching the bombs fall on Berlin neighborhoods worried not for himself but for his friends outside.

He continues his intellectual pursuits and reads and memorizes the Bible daily. He lobbies for a kind of non-religious Christianity that shares fully in the sufferings of God on a day-to-day basis. He never asks, "Why am I here?" but participates fully in the meaning and meaninglessness of his imprisonment. With the sensuality and simplicty of Jean Genet Bonhoeffer addresses the problems of the time, the seeds of which exist today in our own country's attempt to find and impose shared values.

This book is and indispensible asset to anyone struggling against the vagaries of the religious right. Bonhoeffer creates a vast world of beauty and compassion between the walls of his small cell. And all the bitterness and morality of Hitler could not silence him.

Conclusion
These four prison books illustrate that each person brings to Christianity formative characteristics from their lives. When a vengeful person finds Christ he creates and expresses a vengeful God. When a man of compassion finds Christ he creates and expresses a loving God. There is a drama and glamour attached to crime that Christians especially can't resist. Fundamentalism offers a simple approach to crime and prison without examining the political and sociological causes. And yet these chaplains took the time to follow the example of Christ and visit those in prison, while many of the rest of us choose only to forget.