03 Charismatic Faith and Prison Ministry

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The starting point of this paper is the observation that Christian prison ministry groups tend to have strong links to charismatic spirituality, that spiritual life in prison shows some charismatic characteristics, and that such spirituality appears to be successful among inmates. This essay asks about the cause, nature and origin of this convergence. As an originally counter-cultural movement, Pentecostalism has always been particularly effective in touching people at the margins of society. Among the groups touched are people in prison. This paper gives an analysis of the different points of convergence between the revivalist and charismatic tradition and the Christian faith and ministry in prison. By giving a short account of the history of modern prison ministry the first section tells how the revivalist and Pentecostal- charismatic tradition historically influenced prison ministry; the next two sections depict revivalist elements of independent faith groups in prison and how elements of popular faith merge with prison culture; the fourth section explains the links between radical faith and inmates’ personalities; the next two sections show how revivalist faith successfully leads inmates in their process of healing. A final chapter critically assesses the strengths and dangers of charismatic spirituality in the specific ‘totalitarian’ context[1] of prison.

A short note regarding the methodology of this essay: The essay is based on participating observation from many years of prison ministry in the ethnically Chinese context of Hong Kong and from several visits to prisons in other cultural contexts. This ministry included the cooperation with a broad variety of Christian groups and individuals who joined the author in his activities, among them Christians from charismatic, from non-charismatic evangelical, and from all historical Protestant traditions. This essay does neither attempt to quantify the extent of charismatic faith nor to qualify charismatic faith’s success in comparison to non-charismatic faith. The faith traditions to be found in prison are as diverse as elsewhere and their success depends on a variety of factors. The essay simply tries to describe and understand the particular points of convergence and affinities between charismatic faith and prison ministry.

1. Agents of spiritual change: Christian care for those in prison in past and present

Christianity has always had a strong concern for those in prison.[2] Imprisonment is not only an important topic of the Bible, but, indeed, a very concrete experience of many people in the Bible. The biblical narrations regarding imprisonment show abelief that prisons are special places of revelation and that prisoners have a particular relationship to God.[3]

In the post-biblical Christian history, the Christian care for prisoners, for prisons as penal institutions, and for punishment as a judicial process reveals a peculiar doubled-sidedness. On one hand the church has, ever since becoming a dominant element of Occidental society, been a constructing element, participating in the establishment of a legal and judicial system that controls and exerts power. In this process, and as a central institution of society, the church lost its independence towards justice and punishment. It became increasingly part of a repressive social order and turned into an institution that exerted power and was even responsible for running prisons, first developed as penitential cells.[4] On the other hand, there is a tradition of Christians using imprisonment as a lens through which to see God. They understand prison as a living parable that points to fundamental experiences in human existence – corporality, limitation, suffering, chains, hopelessness, and death. This second tradition stands in critical tension with the social-constructive tradition and, historically, expressed itself in various forms of care, compassion, and solidarity with those in prison. It is in this context that Christian ministry to those in prison emerged, partly through chaplains, partly through lay visitors. Chaplains not exclusively, but more commonly belonged to Christian mainstream traditions, while the lay ministry, again not exclusively, was more related to the revivalist tradition, more specifically the emerging voluntary missionary and evangelical groups of the 18^th and 19^th century, most importantly Methodist Christians and Quakers, later Holiness groups like the Salvation Army or the Volunteers Prison League. These groups did not only focus on individual spiritual change, but equally on the destructive aspects of imprisonment as a whole. Important prison and justice reform movements were triggered by such revivalist groups as the Quakers and the Methodists, most importantly John Wesley, his friend John Howard who inspired the prison reform movement of the late 18^th century with his publication The State of the Prison in England and Wales (1777), and the Quaker Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) who not only established a prison visitation program that brought Christian education to female inmates, but equally used her influence to propose reforms to the prison system.

This emphasis on revivalist lay ministry groups continued to shape prison ministry well into the 20^th century. Since the 1960s, as Pentecostal spirituality increasingly influenced historical and traditional denominations, lay-based prison ministry grew significantly. Many local prison ministry initiatives have emerged and formed national prison ministry associations, the most well-known among them Prison Fellowship International (PFI), an international NGO that now brings together national ministries from around 110 countries. A core concern of many Prison Fellowship groups continues to be prison and justice reform and the introduction of elements of restorative justice.

Among the volunteer prison visitors, two groups deserve particular attention: On the one hand, there are former offenders who became Christians while in prison and continue to care for those among whom they used to live. On the other hand, there are businesspeople who, underneath their success in the world, realize that Christian existence calls them to the radical other side of society. At the beginning of the 21^st century, there is a revival of faith-based initiatives for rehabilitation of criminal offenders and for persons with mental health problems or histories of substance abuse. A very interesting development is the emergence of faith based prisons or prison units (see more below). Other developments include Christian therapeutic communities that combine spiritual, cognitive, emotional, relational, moral, and behavioural transformation with vocational training and life skill education.[5] In these therapeutic communities or fellowships, ex-offenders, often former addicts, play an important role as peer-counsellors and role models.

This short outline of the historical development of Christian ministry to those in prison shows how the revivalist faith tradition was crucial in inspiring the emergence of lay-based prison care groups and how it continues to give crucial inspiration to prison ministry, both in the spiritual transformation of individuals, as in the reform of the prison system. The historical outline gives us a basic understanding of the people involved in prison ministry. The most important evangelists are, however, not visitors from outside, but inmates themselves who, after their conversion, begin to reach out to their fellow inmates and share their faith with them. Our next observation starts from them.

2. An example: the revivalist church behind bars

The ‘church behind bars’[6] is not the same as faith-based prisons. The latter are prisons or prison units run by Christian organizations that try to bring about change among the inmates through a wide variety of religious programs. Faith-based prisons first evolved in Brazil in the 1970s and have, since then, spread into different countries and penal contexts: not only in Latin America and the United States, but also in Europe, Asia (Singapore), and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand).[7] Faith-based programs for and with prisoners show broad variety depending on the different contextual needs, the interests of those involved, and the abilities of supporting volunteer groups.

The church behind bars, in contrast, is more independent from the outside church.[8] Prison ministry usually encourages inmates to conduct their ownreligious activities in addition to the occasional programs by outside visitors. A church led and administered by inmates is a truly local and indigenous church, and only such a church can grow to become a solid spiritual home for inmates. A church that depends on occasional visits from outside volunteers – or even on the more regular visits of the prison chaplain – does not give the inmates a sense of responsibility. Thus, aiming at a church behind bars is a simple missiological necessity. And in many prisons around the world vibrant independent prison faith groups have emerged. These independent faith groups are not restricted to Christianity, as the success of the Nation of Islam in U.S. prisons shows. However, the most famous among these groups is the Christian revival at the Los Olmos High Security Prison in Argentina. This strongly charismatic revival has inspired Christians around the world and has been reported on various charismatic Christian platforms.[9] It is said that nearly half of the 3,000 inmates of the prison converted to Christ and started to have regular worship and prayer chains.

Of course, one of the preconditions for a strong church behind bars is a relatively high degree of inmates’ internal interaction. Only then can inmates gather freely and enjoy a self-determined religious life. In a context like Hong Kong or similar Singapore, where there is a high level of internal segregation and control, only small prayer groups, restricted to the smaller number of interested inmates from only one workshop, can gather for joint prayer, Bible reading, and occasional singing. They depend on at least one charismatic leader who gathers the small group and encourages them. The situation is different in prisons that are run with less internal restrictions, as personally witnessed for instance in South Africa or learnt from South America. Here, groups of inmates operate independently under different forms of leadership.

A good number of such groups go on steadily and keep attracting new inmates. If they survive the transfer of the founding leader, they have obviously reached an important stage of maturity. Groups are usually more stable among prisoners with long sentences who do not face frequent transfers, but they may also become monotonous without fresh input from new members. Some of these groups consist of only two or three inmates regularly reading the Bible during lunch break and discussing it. Others have full worship services with music, prayer, joint Bible study, and possibly a message from one of the leaders. Despite the narrow theological perspective of many of these groups, they show openness towards other inmates and the staff, and they can have a positive impact on the whole atmosphere of a unit. Many prison officers have revised their negative image of prisoners after witnessing the steadiness and reliability of such faith groups over an extended period. Prison management does not mind these groups’ meetings, as long as their overall authority is not jeopardized. These groups are particularly powerful tools of evangelism: many inmates start to believe because the spirit, the gentleness and the genuine interaction of such a group has touched them.

Of course, churches behind bars also have their inherent dangers, possibly most importantly that they absorb and reflect the dominant sub-culture of the prison and turn evangelism into a kind of recruitment similar to the recruitment of criminal sub-culture. This danger applies, however, not only to independent gatherings of inmates, but also to those with visitors involved. It is indeed as much a temptation for inmate leaders of revivalist groups in prison as for Christian visitors or chaplains who act as spiritual leaders in prison to take the position of a ‘big brother’ and to dominate the group in the spirit of an authoritarian head who expects unquestioned loyalty in response to his (indeed, this is mostly a male behavior) service and support.

Los Olmos does not stand alone, but has found parallels in prison groups around the world, both among inmate groups led by Christians from outside the prison and those led by Christian inmates themselves. The next section introduces several factors that influence prison spirituality and often shape it in a revivalist, charismatic, or counter-cultural way.

3. Popular religion shaping Christian faith in prison

That Pentecostalism grows by including and transforming elements of preexisting popular religion has been pointed out by Harvey Cox and others after him.[10] Prisons are places where popular religion is thriving. When analyzing how popular religion affects the spirituality and theology of many Christian groups in prison and shapes them in a charismatic way, two main aspects need to be mentioned. The first one is the belief in the powerful presence of demonic powers, and the second one is the belief in the effectiveness of prayer. For the context of this author’s observation, it is the Chinese popular religion with its roots in animism and ancestor worship that builds the background of most Christians in prison. In simple terms, Chinese popular faith expects people to venerate their ancestors – to express their gratitude to them and to bring offerings that provide a good life in the realm of death. The fate that people await after death and the judgment that they receive depends first on their behavior and deeds during their lifetime, i.e., the merits that they have accumulated, and second on offerings from their offspring.[11] If someone has died in tragic circumstances, unredeemed and without reconciliation, possibly as result of a killing or an accident without subsequent redemption of the negative energies, he or she may return to the world and haunt the living offspring. Although other contexts in Asia differ from the specific Chinese form of ancestor worshiping, we find a similar magic worldview through many Asian cultures. In this worldview, spirits are all around us and humans need to pacify them through religious rituals like prayers or offerings.

This worldview is also dominant among those in prison: It is common to hear inmates use the vocabulary of magic to interpret their crimes. Their relapses or their failures in life are understood as the result of spirits working in their lives. Equally, stories of encounters with spirits and demons during the night are widespread. Inmates who experienced conversion find it, not surprising, easy to understand the biblical message because it depicts individuals in a continuous struggle within a world populated by demons and evil spirits.

The dominant magic worldview of many people in prison, probably beyond the Asian context, is supported by an important aspect of prison life: Where many inmates face day after day with little hope, where isolation from life outside prison keeps them in an emotional and spiritual limbo, magic superstition and credulity grow. Many prisoners cling to anything that can positively influence their present misery. Anything that promises instant change and redemption seems particularly appealing. Inmates thus respond particularly positively to a religious faith that is based on a magic understanding of the effect of faith. They believe something like a magic potion is necessary to break through the vicious circle in which they find themselves caught. Only a radical break with the previous life, a change and complete discontinuity with all that has shaped the preceding life, is adequate to respond to the present misery. This enchanted world view with its belief in the continuous power of demons and spirits and the perception of life as a battle field between competing forces resonates with charismatic spirituality and, in the case of religious conversion, finds its appropriate continuation there.

I remember a group of inmates convicted of sex offenses who, during our prayer fellowship, regularly shared how much the demons (魔鬼 mo gui, or 心魔 xin mo) were still at work in their bodies. This was their way to express how much they felt obsessed by sexual fantasies and how they had failed to put them to rest. To explain their obsessions within such a religious framework is psychologically questionable, because it separates desire from self and puts the blame on an outside power, Satan. However, it does reflect their genuine and obviously true feeling of lacking control and of being subject to something beyond their own power.

Blaming an external agent, any spiritual and demonic power, for a particularly detestable crime helps mitigate the terrible burden of guilt at a point where a person is not yet ready to fully face responsibility for a crime. It also gives support where a person is at his or her weakest, surrounding the person’s failure with a stable framework. Inmates who have turned to faith then look back to their previous moral failures with a sense of moral achievement and even superiority.

The other element of the Chinese worldview that links Christian faith in prison with charismatic spirituality is its practicality. Chinese popular faith believes that the spiritual realm can be influenced through our religious acts and moral lifestyle: we will receive as we have done, if not in this life, then in the life after death. Prayers are straightforward. People pray for wealth, for health, for success in examinations or, in the context of prison, for early release. Prayers, similar to other religious acts, are believed to directly influence people’s fates and the spiritual realm. We are easily reminded of the tradition of prosperity teaching of E.W. Kenyon and the popularization of his teaching in the Faith teaching of Kenneth E. Hagin.

Prosperity teaching has been strongly criticized, not least by representatives of the revivalist tradition:[12] psychologically, prosperity teaching has been criticized for its equation of belief and success meaning that the absence of success, be it continued illness or poverty or other problems, are due to a lack of faith. Prosperity teaching thus makes a person not only suffer under the manifest problem, but also under the spiritual failure. Practically, it has been criticized for the possibility of abuse through charismatic healers. Theologically, it has been criticized for its triumphalism that denies the dimension of the cross, the reality of suffering and injustice, and the experience of prayers not answered.

While these points of criticism are not particularly linked to the faith context of prison, there is one aspect that is more specifically linked to the situation of those in prison. The danger of a belief in a direct effectiveness of prayers is that it reinforces typical elements of inmates’ thoughts, as it may lead to a manipulative understanding of God – even more so for someone accustomed to manipulative human relationships. Many inmates have grown up learning that feelings and relationships are for sale; they have behind them a history of manipulation and emotional abuse. They have learnt to assess relationships in terms of material benefits and to emphasize the importance of money in human relationships. They easily extend this manipulative understanding of relationships to God: ‘If you bless me materially, I will believe in you.’

A deal with God can, however, be a starting point for serious spiritual growth. I remember A-Keung, who had been a regular gambler. At one point, he promised God that if this last time, he would bless him with winning the game, he would give up gambling and turn to Christ. It happened – and A-Keung has become an honest and committed Christian. However, whether such a starting point can develop into a stable spiritual basis remains questionable.

While the expectation and the occasional experience of direct effectiveness of prayer can be a first step in a process of spiritual transformation that leads to deeper faith capable of integrating the experience of ‘unheard’ prayers, it is often enough bound in manipulative relations and expectations of immediate spiritual change.

4. Inmate personalities and radical faith

Charismatic faith shows a thoroughness, zeal, and radicalism that other Christian faith traditions sometimes lack. Being related to what is most valuable to us, faith necessarily is radical. However, when radicalism combines with a certain personality structure, radicalism can turn into a strategy of escaping reality. Radical faith finds a good nurturing ground in prison, where many inmates have a strong body, but a weak personality:[13] they have a weak sense of personal identity and worth, they have little self-esteem, and they have no clear concept of who they are. They have a rather low ability to tolerate frustration, to control impulses, or to organize their life. Many inmates are unwilling to take up adult responsibilities or to handle everyday relationships in a mature way. They have a strong tendency to form dependent relationships, and many deep wounds from their childhood or adolescence have brought chaos to their emotional life. The prison environment amplifies dependency as inmates unlearn independent ways of resolving problems. Such persons are easily attracted by strict theological views, by a faith within narrow margins, and by the promise of instant success. Combined with this kind of personality structure, radical faith can turn into a mechanism to repress chaos – the chaos of prison life in general or the chaos of each person’s personal life in particular. A radical faith offers a clear break with the past and a new beginning that puts the failed old self completely to rest. People in general crave for certainties in their life. For people whose life goes through the breakdown and crisis experience that imprisonment often means, new certainties become even more crucial. Inmates may find such certainties in the narrowly understood teaching of religion.

The strict religious framework can offer a way to better understand one’s crime, namely as a result of a failed spiritual life and rejection of God – in the words of an inmate: “I was bound by desires for drugs, for sex, and for money. Now I am free. I have laid down my bondage at the foot of the cross.” Some may go a step further and blame the devil for their crime: “It was not me, but somebody else was at work within me. Now, Christ is at work within me and He has helped me to drive out Satan.”

A radical spiritual life offers a meaningful way of coping with the daily emptiness of prison life. It offers a strong surface identity and an idealized self-image that stands in contrast to the dehumanizing experience of imprisonment where, in many contexts, numbers replace names, where, in most contexts, the prison uniforms replace individual clothes, and where the monotony of every day takes away all joy. The daily experience of powerlessness stops causing constant pain, as true power is found elsewhere. The daily frustrations and unpleasant events are merely the small challenges of a benign God who, through them, raises the faithful inmate’s ability for self-control.

The radicalism of faith groups in prison is reinforced by applause from religious volunteers who are impressed by the spiritual fervor of many inmates. In this way, both sides benefit from a convergence where the interests of Christians from the outside and the needs of inmates on the inside merge. Radical Christian faith groups are attracted to prisons because they set their hope on the prisons as places from where, in a countercultural mode, the revival of the churches takes its starting point.[14] Prisons appear as strategic places with a crucial impact in the extension of God’s kingdom where Christ’s battle against Satan begins.[15] Inmates respond positively to such spirituality – it strengthens and encourages them to play such a crucial role in God’s plan of salvation.

5. Charismatic counseling

In this section, I try to show how, through what elements, and to what extent a Pentecostal-charismatic perspective is effective in counseling in the prison context. Counseling in prison shares its basic principles with counseling in other contexts, but has peculiarities that are unique to prison, the most important being the radical power difference between counselor and counselee, more neutrally speaking visitor and inmate. While a counseling relationship always includes an element of inequality, and while the experience of powerlessness is a common existential issue, this aspect is exacerbated by the limitation imposed by prisons: Visitors can come and go as they like, while inmates are bound to stay. Visitors can choose to render certain services or not, while inmates have little to offer in reciprocity besides their affection and gratitude. Visitors can initiate encounters and all kinds of programs, while inmates depend fully on steps taken by visitors. Moreover, ministry in prison involves another inequality that is possibly more significant: an emotional inequality, or a relational dependency. Visitors gain excessive relational power as they turn into important sources of love and warmth in the lives of inmates who, deprived of their previous nurturing networks, yearn for close relationships and acceptance. Inmates strongly respond to the visitors’ presence and their offers of help, and they willingly believe in order to deepen a friendship that has become so vital when deprived of loving and caring mutual relationships. Another distinctiveness of counseling in prison is that the participants are behaviourally different from most church groups: dominantly young male adults and thus an age group that is less dominant in many churches, often with limited education, limited interest for intellectual discourse, and strongly interested in physical expression.

When considering what a Pentecostal-charismatic perspective in counseling offers to prison ministry, an immediate problem is that it appears difficult to get hold of recognized descriptions about what Pentecostal-charismatic counseling is or whether it is in anyway different from other traditions. There is little in the way of specific ‘charismatic counseling’ literature.[16] We can only indirectly approach it by referring to terms like healing, spiritual deliverance, spiritual guidance or spiritual warfare.[17] Counseling is understood as part of the progressive pursuit of holiness and one of its most powerful tools is the prayer. Reflecting my observations about the context of prison above, I like to subsume my understanding of counseling in a charismatic perspective in the prison context under the following aspects: Physicality, mutuality, empowerment, spiritual warfare, spiritual guidance, reframing, and what I like to call salvation realism.

The term ‘salvation realism’ needs explanation: It stands in contrast to a soteriology that sees man in a dialectic tension, a simultaneity of God’s justification and a continuing power of sin, as e.g. in the Lutheran tradition where salvation is understood relationally, as change in how God sees me; habitual change of my person – the actual sanctification process – is deemphasized. In contrast, the Pentecostal-charismatic tradition’s emphasis on sanctification claims real and significant change to happen. While Lutheran soteriology has its strength in providing a realistic perspective on human existence, it lacks incentive for effective change. In a prison context where many people carry deep wounds and need thorough healing, an approach that provides more incentive, offers more guidance, aims more at cognitive-behavioral change, and stresses spiritual discipline may be more appropriate.

One of the typical ways through which cognitive change happens is reframing. Although reframing is a common term in counseling, not restricted to charismatic tradition, I like to show that it has a special affinity to charismatic faith expressions. Reframing assumes that the way we look at reality has a direct effect on how this reality shapes us. A key element in reframing is that it has a self-fulfilling element, like a student who learns in the first driving lesson to focus on the direction he or she wants to drive. When we focus on an obstacle we will naturally move towards it: if we focus on failure, we will fail. If we focus on the reality of imprisonment, we will see only bars all around us. The positive direction of thought uncovered by reframing releases a strengthening energy that turns an originally narrow reality into one that is dynamic and full of potential. Reframing is not concerned about the roots of psychological suffering, but about how to solve it.

An example of reframing is when inmates say that their arrest has actually been a blessing in disguise, e.g.:

“If it were not for being here, I might have already been killed.” Or: “Imprisonment saved me from going further down the road of drug addiction.” “It is God who brought me to prison so that I would be saved.” Or: “God has shown me a way to learn about Him and get close to Him through encountering Christ behind bars.”

Such reframing, although at times hard to be taken without reservation, is a kind of surrender that trusts in the Spirit’s guidance in a special life situation. It has an auto-suggestive effect and turns the primarily negative experience of imprisonment into a positive experience that allows new direction or may even have saved one’s life. Many inmates discover quitting smoking, gambling, or swearing as possible behaviour changes applicable to life in prison. They equally recognize that success in achieving such goals strengthens a person’s confidence.

It is important to note that it matters where suggestions for reframing comes from. If it comes from an inmate, it is his or her active and successful way of reframing a painful experience. It gives significance to an experience of distress and meaning to a time that is usually seen as void of meaning. It is, however, crucial not to impose reframing on others. It can be very cynical when a visitor says: “At least by going to prison you have met the Lord Jesus Christ.” Such a statement – and I have heard it many times – extends the image of a punishing God, gives legitimacy to punishment, and is insensitive to the reality of suffering involved in imprisonment. Visitors’ spiritual guidance of inmates in their process of reframing and cognitive shifts happens through appropriate questions.[18]

The techniques that aim at bringing cognitive shifts show affinity to various more or less serious psychological schools, among them the psychology of positive thinking, popularized by Norman Vincent Peale (1952), The Power of Positive Thinking, cognitive restructuring,[19] personal excellence training, motivation-based management styles, or success modeling in athletics and dozens of pop-psychology schools. One of their common principles is ‘Fake it till you make it!’ Although in many ways problematic and open for abuse, it is certainly a principle that is effective to trigger cognitive change and it is a principle that is not alien to the Pentecostal tradition, particularly to its Faith Movement (Word of Faith).[20] They share the idea that many problems and conflicts have their roots in wrong thought, in negative programming and in harmful perceptions that can be overcome through conscious training.[21] Mind and language can remold and change reality. Faith groups are training grounds for such cognitive change to happen.[22]

6. Charismatic worship in prison

These processes of reframing, of spiritual guidance, and of cognitive and behavioral training now happen less in the traditional word-based and one-to-one therapeutic setting, but in the collective experience of worship celebration that may include music and bodily movements. Here, the experiential, one may say physical needs of young men with often little education and limited strength of verbal expression find satisfaction. The extended singing and the bodily involvement have an energizing, strengthening, and reframing power on many inmates. The non-verbal character of worship touches on the different aspects of human life, spiritually and bodily. The singing and the movement of the music contrast the overwhelming dullness of prison. Some of the most powerful experiences of visitors are connected to joint worship that offers a radically alternative experience to the overall atmosphere of prison: The power of a group of male basses singing together, the silence of a meditative worship, a prayer where individuals jointly address God. All are ‘peak experiences’ of encounter with the Holy Spirit and bring participants in touch with transcendence.

During a period of time, I had invited a charismatic preacher to lead the worship services in prison. The services included patterns with clearly reframing effects – for example, when he invited people to respond with shouts of ‘Hallelujah’, or when he led in prayer and invited people to speak after him. Such an expressive worship turns into a training ground for people to learn alternative language and perception patterns. The worship has a collectively reframing effect and can cause real transformation by dissolving destructive patterns by which to perceive reality.

Another key aspect of charismatic counseling is empowerment. It similarly happens more in the collective setting than in the one-to-one encounter. Empowerment counters the radical experience of disempowerment in the prison context. It is enhanced by the mutuality and equality of joint celebration and worshipping where inmates themselves may take up leadership roles and visitors turn into guests. Worship that is prepared, designed, and conducted by people from outside for those inside remains alien to the inmates, no matter how well-planned it is. It is a service for the benefit of the inmates and turns them into recipients. On the other hand, a worship, where the planning and the leadership belong to the inmates, turns them into subjects and gives them ownership over what they plan. The content and style of such worship will naturally reflect the concerns and questions of the inmates. When inmates join together to plan and conduct worship, they enter into a community of like-mindedness that allows them to see their situation in relation to other people and experience something of normal life. Any program that treats inmates as subjects and counters the norm of disempowerment will revive inmates and strengthen their subject status.

Worship transcends the one-to-one dimension, receives a cumulative effect, and can affect large parts of a prison community. It is a place where both visitors and inmates grow together and overcome the separation between those there and us here. If such collective convergence takes off, it can turn a group of individual prisoners and visitors, each one alone in their loneliness, into a healing community. Here, communication happens as much through non-verbal means. Pain is, in part, resistant to language and cannot really be shared. In the words of Elaine Scarry, ‘whatever pain achieves, it achieves in part through its unsharability, and it ensures this unsharability through its resistance to language.’[23] Although the chance to express pain verbally should be regarded as an important element in a healing process, we must constantly be aware that pain not only resists communication but empathy as well. Chaplains or other full-time care persons of those in prison do well to remember that, eventually, they cannot really grasp what it means to be in prison. It is a typical professional deformation when this principle is forgotten.

Testimonials play an important role in such worships. They give inmates a rare chance of publicly presenting themselves in a different light to how they are usually perceived and to redefine themselves.[24] Testimonies from both visitors and inmates about their experiences of brokenness and grace encourage others to admit their own failure and brokenness. From my experience, the testimonies with the deepest impact are those that stress the on-going spiritual struggle, admit the less glorious sides of their life, and do not hide their wounds.

A visitor shared during worship his own history of alcoholism and what made him overcome it and grow from there. What made his sharing particularly moving was that he was not looking back on a remote past but reflecting on issues that he still struggled with. Although he had experienced God’s grace in being transformed, his sharing lacked any victorious triumphalism.

A visitor who frankly admits wounds moves closer to the inmates than somebody who appears surrounded by an aura of glory. The same applies to ex-offenders who share the stories of their journeys. Seeing an ex-offender in the role of a visitor, integrated in the life and ministry of the church, allows inmates to get a glimpse of what is also possible for them. Seeing how an ex-offender has successfully changed his or her life gives hope.

Finally, we can interpret the worship as a whole and the prayer in particular, both the individual and the prayer in the one-to-one setting, as part of a spiritual warfare that transforms the prison as a whole.

A powerful charismatic message describing such transformation is the story of Paul and Silas in prison: their incessant prayer and singing caused an earthquake that shattered the prison and brought freedom to all the inmates (Acts 16:16-40).

Spiritual warfare relates to many inmates’ experience of standing in an existential struggle against demonic forces. In the midst of all their struggles for dignity, for recovery, for revival in a most difficult environment, they can experience something even greater: the presence and power of the Spirit.[25] Revivalist worships, singing that can be heard throughout the prison, celebrations of joy and sometimes hearty laughter, build the most powerful contrast reality to the depressing atmosphere that prisons often deliberately create.

7. Concluding remarks

As a conclusion, I like to highlight four critical aspects of charismatic spirituality in prison. First, a Pentecostal-charismatic spirituality that is too rigidly concerned with a narrowly defined path of sanctification, Christian perfection, or spirit baptism, even more so if spirit baptism is understood as manifested by speaking in tongues, does not work in the prison context. One may have noted that my survey of points of convergence between charismatic spirituality and prison ministry has only in passing and indirectly touched on some of the core points of Pentecostal-charismatic theology. The reason is that such theological elements are not relevant for the prison context. For instance, speaking in tongues in a public setting is, at least from my experience, not something that appeals to inmates.

Inmates who spend every day from morning to evening together are reluctant to risk to appear mad. I remember that when running an Alpha Course in prison, I had invited a famous charismatic preacher to lead through the three sections on the Holy Spirit. The result of her and her helper trying to convey the blessing of the Holy Spirit to the inmates was rather sobering. Some of the inmates left the worship room; some stopped joining at all. Some later confided to me that they felt embarrassed; others reported that they found the whole atmosphere spooky.

Equally, the teaching of premillennialism is of little appeal to those in prison. Although inmates surely like the idea of being released from their tribulations, they don’t like the idea of a rapture before having been out of prison and been reunited with their family in normal life.

A second aspect has to do with the danger of abuse. Although this is generally a danger in a context of charismatic leadership,[26] the strong dependence needs that are typical for the prison context exacerbate this danger and increase the risk of manipulation. People in crisis (as many people in prison are, at least for some periods) are highly receptive. They are less defensive, more vulnerable, more accessible to help from outside, more willing to enter into dependent relationships, and more open to new ways of coping with problems. This emotional state is, of course, also an opportunity for spiritual change. But the heightened vulnerability and accessibility can also be exploited when visitors take quick advantage to turn inmates to Christ, or when they lead people into deeper dependency and into regressive forms of faith. Such evangelism turns the biblical message of the cross upside down; it expresses a mentality of conquest and extension of one’s own ‘empire’, and puts the inmates in a situation of ‘my way or the highway’. Structurally, it is not much different to Triad recruitment. Insensitive evangelism makes inmates feel that their relational bond with visitors is conditional on positive reception of the Christian faith.

Closely related to this aspect is a third point: Prisons are places that, in the word of one inmate “completely sap people’s energies and strengths”. Even though inmates in some Asian contexts (more so than in the West, according to my experience) maintain a facade of normality, one does not need to dig deep to touch on feelings of overwhelming paralysis and frustration. J.K. Rowling’s description of the dementors, the guards of the wizard prison, soulless creatures sucking all joy and hope from those they encounter, comes very close to the dominant feeling of people in prison. It is a great temptation for visitors to counter such dominant hopelessness and weariness with activism. Charismatic spirituality has a strongly activist element, not only in its evangelistic zeal, but equally in its spontaneity and in its extraversion.[27] Such communicative behaviour can indeed be an asset and strength in a context of general lethargy and can pull inmates out from their apathy and boredom. There is, however, a danger that the visitors’ activist interaction with inmates overpowers them and fails to take into account the imbalance between the two. In that case, it loses its empowering strength; the liberating and life-giving power of the gospel is spoiled. Visitors’ interventions should abstain from any triumphalistic vision of change. Change should emerge from the striving of an inmate and not be the activist project of a visitor. Charismatic visitors who come as a spiritual whirlwind with energy and the will to shake the foundations of the prison often leave an even greater emptiness behind.

Finally, prison ministry – as other ministries to people at the margins of society – is commonly perceived as a ministry of compassion and as part of the diaconia of the church. This applies equally to Pentecostal-charismatic as to other Christian groups’ social engagement. It is true that Jesus was often moved by compassion to the people when engaging in caring acts. However, we stand at a different position: When we base our social engagement on compassion, we are in danger of approaching those in need with condescendence. Such an attitude reinstates a separation that is part of the root cause of pain, as particularly evident for those in prison. Instead, we need again and again to return to what Matthew remembers as Jesus’ last speech and what he presents as Jesus’ soteriological legacy: We feed the poor, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and those in prison not out of compassion, but as spiritual discipline, to meet Christ in them.

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* The author is Assistant Professor for church history and missiology at the Divinity School of Chung Chi College, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a prison chaplain for the Hong Kong Correctional Services Department.

[1] Erving Goffman, Asylums. Essays on the Condition of the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1961).

[2] For a general understanding of the history of the prison, the most useful resource book is Norval Morris and David J. Rothman (ed.), The Oxford History of the Prison. The Practice of Punishment in Western Society, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1995). Regarding the Christian contribution to the evolution of modern penology and criminal law, see Gerald Austin McHugh, Christian Faith and Criminal Justice. Toward a Christian Response to Crime and Punishment (New York, Paulist Press, 1978). Lee Griffith’s The Fall of the Prison: Biblical Perspectives on Prison Abolition (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans, 1993), offers interesting historical information about the dissident and prophetic tradition of the church.

[3] Griffith, The Fall of the Prison, 138.

[4] McHugh, Christian Faith and Criminal Justice, 21; Alan R. Duce, “Prison Chaplaincy”, in: Alastair V. Campbell, A Dictionary of Pastoral Care (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 219.

[5] See George De Leon, The Therapeutic Community. Theory, Model, and Method, (New York: Springer Publishing, 2000); Nick Manning, The Therapeutic Community Movement. Charisma and Routinization (London: Routledge, 1989).

[6] On the ‘church behind bars’ see the more extended discussion in Dale K. Pace, A Christian’s Guide to Effective Jail and Prison Ministries (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976), 199-214.

[7] A comprehensive and independent description of projects within this development can be found in Jonathan Burnside, Nancy Loucks, Joanna R. Adler, and Gerry Rose, My Brother’s Keeper: Faith-Based Units in Prisons (Cullompton, Devon: Wilan Publishing, 2005).

[8] Troy Rienstra,“Partners in the gospel”, Christian Century, 123/20 (2006), gives an inmate’s view of the empowering effect of the church behind bars.

[9] See for instance the website of Every Home for Christ http://www.ehc.org/newsview.jsp?sectionid=4&id=141 (accessed on 3 June 2011); further the report about the revival by Michael Richardson and Juan Zuccharelli, Revival behind Bars, Glendale: Professional Word Publication, 1995.

[10] Harvey Cox, Fire from heaven. The rise of Pentecostal spirituality and the reshaping of religion in the twenty-first century (Reading, Mass.: Perseus, 1995), 219-22, with reference to the Korean context; his thesis was corroborated by research regarding other background, regarding the Chinese context, see for example Gotthard Oblau, “Pentecostal by Default? Contemporary Christianity in China”, in: Allan Anderson and Edmond Tang (2005), ed.: Asian and Pentecostal. The Charismatic Face of Christianity in Asia (Regnum Books International), 411-436.

[11] Tik-sang Liu, A Nameless but Active Religion: An Anthropologist’s View of Local Religion in Hong Kong and Macao, China Quarterly 2003, 388f.; Tam Wai Lun, „Local Religion in Contemporary China“, in: James Miller (ed.), Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2006), 66.

[12] See particularly the critical discussion by Evangelicals that is published as Andrew Perriman (ed.), Faith, Health and Prosperity. A Report on ‘Word of Faith’ and ‘Positive Confession’ Theologies by ACUTE (the Evangelical Alliance Commission on Unity and Truth among Evangelicals), Paternoster(2003). Maybe the most concise critic of the movement comes from C.S. Lewis: “I didnt go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” C.S. Lewis, God in the Docks: Essays in Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 58.

[13] Howard Clinebell, Basic Types of Pastoral Care and Counseling. Resources for the Ministry of Healing and Growth (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984), 174ff. offers a list of characteristics of ego weakness.

[14] See the article in the Free Christian Press on 27 January 2011, reporting on the Crossroad Bible Institute’s mission outreach to prison (accessed through the internet on 9 Aug 2011), http://www.freechristianpress.com/missions/prison-ministry-welcome-in-uk-could-spark-revival/

[15] See the report of Edgardo Silvoso, from the Evangelical Beacon about a visit to the Olmos Prison, Argentina (accessed through internet on 9 Aug 2011), http://www.pastornet.net.au/renewal/journal16/16h%20Global.htm. See further the critical discussion of strategic-level spiritual warfare in Randy Friesen, “Equipping Principles for Spiritual Warfare”, Direction (Winnipeg, MB), 29/2 (2000), 142-52.

[16] Most dictionaries lack reference to charismatic counseling or, if they have, describe it in very general form. An example of this non-specific description is the article by R.P. Spittler, “Charismatic Pastoral Care”, in: Rodney J. Hunter (ed.), Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 141f. Spittler simply lists some general features of charismatic religious practice, among them healing, glossolalic prayer, and others. Rather about spiritual direction from a charismatic perspective than about counseling is Oliver McMahan, Spiritual Direction in the Pentecostal/Charismatic Tradition, in: Gary W. Moon and David G. Benner (eds.), Spiritual Direction and the Care of Souls. A Guide to Christian Approaches and Practices (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 156. The books by Marvin G. Gilbert and Raymond T. Brock, The Holy Spirit and Counseling: Theology and Theory, 2 vols. (Peabody, Mass.: Henrickson, 1985) and John K. Vining and E.E. Decker (eds.), Soul care: A Pentecostal-charismatic perspective (New York: Cummings and Hathaway, 1996) could not be accessed for this paper.

[17] Oliver McMahan, “Spiritual Direction in the Pentecostal/Charismatic Tradition”, 156; Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 234.

[18] Andrew Lester and Howard W. Stone: Helping Parishioners Envision the Future, in: Stone, Howard W. (ed.), Strategies for Brief Pastoral Counseling (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2001), 49ff. offer a variety of methods how a person can be helped to develop hope.

[19] L.R. Probst, “Cognitive Psychology and Psychotherapy”, in: Rodney J. Hunter (ed.), Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 189.

[20] See for instance the critical comments on http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/posit.htm

[21] See for example the American Community Corrections Institute’s list of erroneous beliefs, in http://www.accilifeskills.com/cognitiverestructuring.php.

[22] An example of an empirical study about one such cognitive-behavioral program is offered by Stephen T. Hall, “Faith-Based Cognitive Programs in Corrections”, Corrections Today 65/7 (2003), 108ff.

[23] See about pain and pain’s resistance to language Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 4ff; further Craig Haney, Reforming Punishment. Psychological Limits to the Pains of Imprisonment (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2006). 9f.

[24] Harvey Cox, Fire from heaven, 133.

[25] Richard Shaull and Waldo Cesar, Pentecostalism and the future of the Christian churches. Promises, limitations, challenges (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), 162.

[26] See for instance the presentation of Steve Fogarty at last year’s APAC meeting, “The Dark Side of Charismatic Leadership”, Kuala Lumpur, 17-18 August 2010.

[27] Leslie J. Francis and Susan H. Jones, “Personality and Charismatic Experience among Adult Christians”, Pastoral Psychology 45/6 (1997), 426.