Theological Reflections on Teaching in Prison
On March 3, 2016, PLT contributor David Dark published a featured essay entitled “The Context of Love is the World: Liturgies of Incarceration” in Comment Magazine. Writing on his experience as a professor whose students include the incarcerated of Nashville, Dark draws on the witness of former pupils and civil rights champion Will Campbell to reflect theologically on his work. He weaves lived theology into honest prose, calling us into a more understanding reception of the flawed human condition and a recognition for the beauty of grace. Dark, a member of a “community of mentors,” comes to a rich conclusion:
As I see it, to pay deep attention to someone else’s story, meditating on experience, circumstance, and the little betrayals that lead to big catastrophes, isn’t to absolve anyone of their responsibilities, but it is a way of taking care, owning up to and mourning that which is common to us, and paying due reverence to the human tragedy.
To read the article in Comment Magazine’s Spring 2016 Issue, click here.
David Dark is an assistant professor at Belmont University in the College of Theology and Christian Ministry and also teaches at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. His publications include Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not Religious (2016), The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (2009) and The Gospel according to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea (2005).