Abolition Theology
“Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story— those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south. Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle.”
This year we have seen a powerful resurgence of the fight for Black Lives and for Black Liberation. As we have engaged and supported our sisters and brothers in this fight for racial justice, we have heard a clarion call to be more faithful to our Black Liberation ethic and to seek justice not only with our lips but with our lives.As people of faith and as abolitionists, we have committed to interrupting community violence and condemning the violence of policing systems that help perpetuate the harm done in our communities. We envision our work in two cooperative initiatives. One focused on mitigation of harm among civilians, the other focused on fighting systems that profit from the damage they make. The first part of this work has led to the establishment of a Community Healing Fund which we launched on August 3rd. More info on the fund can be found here.
The second half of this work is to encourage faith leaders and congregations to make real commitments to learning and engaging in abolitionist work. While Faith for Justice has never explicitly made a statement about our commitment to abolitionist work and practice, we know that the most treasured pieces of our faith tell a Gospel of Abolition. There is no example of Jesus we can follow faithfully without proclaiming "good news to the poor, healing to the broken-hearted, freedom to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and liberty to those who are bruised." We believe that a faithful response to this moment implores us to tell the story of the Jesus we know. The Son of God who not only identified with marginalized and oppressed peoples, but whose earthly ministry was marked by abolition and radical love. We encourage our siblings in Christ, across denominational stripes and across this nation, to conspire with God in re-imagining what is possible in this world with God's help and to rise toward a higher standard of God's mercy and love by affirming with us this Pledge to End Carceral Christianity.
We believe our churches are a place for rest and healing, conviction and repentance, wholeness and imagination. We offer with this statement practical and theological commitments our faith communities can take to begin the transformative work toward abolition and a deeper sense of communal wholeness. Join us in this work by signing to this statement and sharing it with other Christian leaders and communities.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
Faith for Justice