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Penitentiary Christianity
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One of my inmate correspondents sent me a sample Sunday bulletin from his church fellowship at the
I read under the letterhead: “Pray for deliverance from strongholds in your life, and we will celebrate communion expecting strongholds to be broken through the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ.”
There is something sharp and clear about penitentiary Christianity. These guys don’t pray about “sin,” they pray about “strongholds.” The term connotes protracted trench warfare, and an awareness of its Spiritual dimension with a capital “S” — as in these words of the Archangel Michael: “The prince of the
It’s a funny thing when you first realize that a lot of Bible teaching and imagery you used to think was literary and metaphorical turns out to be truly true. It reminds me of the hucksters of the god “Tash” in C.S.Lewis’ The Last Battle, who thought they had made up “Tash” to exploit the ignorant masses — only to discover he was real and about to devour them.
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Soul searching
“The gates of Hell shall not prevail…”
Doesn’t this mean that someone is attacking those gates?
In my recovery group, I found that folks who hit bottom (whether in prison or out) tend to take their faith very seriously.
Unfortunately, sometimes the rise of excessive and strong Apocalyptic talk can be counter-productive. A preoccupation with their problem being strongholds often masks folks from making statements such as, “I have such-and-such character defects in my life that I need God’s help in working on.”
Christianity teaches we battle the world, the flesh and the devil - all three. No doubt there is a cosmic battle behind the scenes. But in putting the over-emphasis there we sometimes miss the fact that the problem is also us.
Outdeep - You & I may have differing thoughts on the meaning of a stronghold. As I see it, a stronghold can only be built in one’s life with one’s cooperation. It is the repeated “giving in” to a destructive habit/sin that allows it to grow into a stronghold, at which point prayer for deliverance becomes essential.
With that in mind, I do agree that we need to recognize & confess our own culpability in developing the stronghold.
I work for a Correctional facility and am involved with the Christian Ministry there. I find some inmates very open to hearing and worshiping and others who reject it because of the way some of the christian inmates act and talk. I find opportunities to witness on a daily basis. I always try to pass on the message that we are all sinners, have fallen short of God’s expectations and can only be saved by Christ. Every inmate is loved by God and is as forgiven as anyone else regardless of their crime as long as they recognize their sin and repent and receive the forgiveness promised by Christ’s blood.
MTCON- Thanks and God Bless you and your work. My wife and I have been jail/prison chaplains for over 20 yrs. We take the same approach. We sow the seed and leave the results to God. It’s better that inmates pray about SOMETHING, rather than ignore spirituality altogether and succumb to the culture that surrounds them.
Karen: I suspect our differing view is more practical than theological. I witness too often folks who deal with their additions by attending pep-rally like worship meetings where loud proclamations with shouts and amens proclaiming God to deliver them from their strongholds but they never seem to get themselves into a smaller group working a program.
They convince themselves they have deliverance but they are in prison or a safe house away from temptation. Nothing inside has really changed.
I realize that not all meetings are like that and I am not trying to generalize. I just learned to take a wait-and-see approach to see if it is lots of spiritual God-talk or if folks are going to get to the place of humility where they are ready to work on their lives.