Prisoners and the least of these in American Protestantism

American evangelicals and mainliners often seem worlds apart when it comes to engagement with social issues. Take prisons as a case in point. The rhetoric diverges along the lines that one might expect: mainliners rail against the American mass incarceration system, the new Jim Crow that locks away minorities and the poor and is sustained by in-prison private labor and for-profit facilities. They want to fight this sinful system through activism (protests and petitions), academia (lectures and scholarly books), and artistic endeavors (photo essays and poetry). 

Evangelicals seek inmate conversion. Though they may share mainliners’ views on the systemic issues at stake, the goal is to save inmates’ souls and to bring them peace with God. Indeed, prison is in some ways an ideal mission field: the evangelical prison chaplain or volunteer doesn’t have to work too hard to convince their inmate audience that they are sinners in need of salvation. The Romans’ Road takes a nice downhill grade when it begins in prison. 

Obviously this is an oversimplification. Plenty of evangelicals argue against the injustice of the prison system, and many in-prison ministries (including the one for which I volunteer) are indebted to mainline church efforts.