"God in Captivity," by Tanya Erzen

 

TACOMA, Wash. – Prisoners in America have few options if they want a brief escape from the dehumanizing rituals of their daily lives behind bars. And for inmates in some states, there is only one option: to attend a class or event run by an evangelical Christian faith-based ministry.

Christian ministries are on the rise in the country’s burgeoning prison system, and it can be argued that the consequences of that growing influence that are sometimes good, and sometimes questionable—both for the inmates and for the local communities they are released into.

 

Tanya Erzen, in her new book, God in Captivity: The Rise of Faith-based Prison Ministries in the Age of Mass Incarceration (Beacon Press, March 2017), examines how and why evangelical Christian ministries are rapidly expanding in prisons across the United States, and shares testimonies of what this means for those on the inside.

As to “why” this is happening, Erzen finds it is partly due to Christian ministries expanding to fill a gap in services left by reduced public spending in penitentiaries. In Washington state, for example, that growth has resulted in Christians making up 85 percent of the faith-based prison ministries, a figure that Erzen says is typical for the country as a whole.

The Christian ministries offer inmates high school and college courses, trauma counseling, anger management, and a sense of community and purpose that helps to dignify their lives. Often, however, these services come only in exchange for sitting through a daily proselytization of a faith that may not be the inmate’s own, or may even be counter to their own. In addition, Erzen writes, at times the non-Christian inmates are marginalized and excluded from the benefits on offer.

God in Captivity examines the ministries’ practices, relays the stories of those behind bars, and raises questions for readers to contemplate, including whether we are seeing a potential violation of the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state.

 

Erzen readily acknowledges the positive impact such counseling and classes can have on offenders. For those who are willing to embrace the Christian teachings or benefit from them, the sessions can bring a welcome sense of personal growth and even fresh hope.

On the political side of incarceration, however, Erzen laments what these well-meaning ministries do not do. The evangelists she meets and studies are hard focused on saving souls—and far less on repairing lives and rehabilitating individuals who may later rejoin society. In light of what she describes as an expanding and increasingly punitive system of mass incarceration, where individual civil rights are too easily overlooked, she is critical of the ministries’ singular focus. Powerful in numbers and influence, the church could, if it chose, play a significant role in reforming the prison system, she argues.

“Tanya Erzen’s God in Captivity offers an exceptionally nuanced and often heartbreaking picture of the role religion plays in the U.S. prison system, both today and from its founding,” comments Kathryn Joyce, author of The Child Catchers and Quiverfull.

“As Erzen writes, the escape from brutalization that prison ministries provide can be, simultaneously, a lifeline for people attempting to wrest back a portion of their humanity, and state-sanctioned bigotry; a new chance at family for those who’ve been disowned, and a biased system that methodically shepherds desperate inmates into the most restrictive of faiths …. An important book for our times.”

The New York Journal of Books wrote: “For those who operate within the carceral complex, this book is an important read. For those who seek to better understand the complicated ways in which religion and incarceration mingle, it is a required read.”

Tanya Erzen is associate professor of religion and gender studies at University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash. She is executive director of the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, a nonprofit that provides college education for incarcerated women. A former Soros Justice Media Fellow, she is the author of Straight to Jesus, Fanpire, and Zero Tolerance.

A Book Reading by Tanya Erzen will take place at 7 p.m. Monday, March 6 at Elliott Bay Book Company. To learn more visit: thestranger.com/events/24846677/tanya-erzen

Press photos of Tanya Erzen and the book can be downloaded from pugetsound.edu/pressphotos
Photos on page: From top right: Book cover, Tanya Erzen, Penitentiary of New Mexico, by Ken Piorkowski

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