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Today is the 49th anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison rebellion. Everyone should check out @hthompsn's great book *Blood in the Water* on this. It helped me immensely as I tried to contextualize evangelical understanding of the uprising in *God's Law and Order*. Some thoughts:
Evangelicals were concerned with incarcerated men at Attica and some criticized the horrific conditions that prompted the uprising. But their primary focus was on how Christian conversion might offer prisoners personal fulfillment & inner peace, & thereby defuse future unrest.
Chaplain Ray Hoekstra, one prominent evangelical prison ministry leader, created an acclaimed TV special that was filmed in Attica (& later shown at churches nationwide). It featured famous "Public Enemies" who had become Christians - former gangsters like Al Capone's chauffeur.
Attica prisoners were featured as well in the special, but the focus was on famous criminals who had dramatic conversion testimonies. The focus was not on the men incarcerated at Attica who had faced beatings by guards, horrible medical treatment, & inhuman conditions.
Most evangelical prison ministers did not excuse these conditions - they knew prisons were cruel places. But their approach was not to follow the lead of incarcerated activists at Attica & elsewhere who challenged the racism and brutality of US crim justice & called for change.
Instead, their solution was colorblind Christian fellowship. One minister wrote about his hope for an evangelistic event, an alternative to "bitterness and hatred" of riots: "as I looked around the room, I noticed blacks & whites together, bound in true love because of Christ.."
This minister's evangelistic crusades were a way to offer spiritual hope to prisoners, which he believed would defuse unrest. His ministry volunteers would "fight a three-day battle to bring things under control...
...Not the Attica-styled thing, but a way that is much more effective - through Christ!" This was not a punitive "serves 'em right" approach to horrible prison conditions so much as it was one that stressed how the *real* problem was individual sinful hearts.
This approach was widespread & often brought evangelicals into personal, meaningful relationships with incarcerated people. But it also limited many evangelicals' awareness of problems in prisons, and their ability to hear the voices of protest of those forced to endured them.
anyways, to find out more, check out *God's Law and Order* here: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674238787
and @hthompsn's *Blood in the Water* here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/178182/blood-in-the-water-by-heather-ann-thompson/
