Kind of been dropping the ball lately on this blogging thing. This semester (particularly these past few weeks) seems to have just kicked itself into high gear, and its about all I can do to stay caught up. Haven't made it down to Jackson in quite awhile. Things seem to keep getting in my way of being able to get down there in the mornings. Between classes, papers, keynotes, and family, I just haven't found the time. Hoping that next week I will make it there.
Yesterday, the class was able to take at trip to Dekalb County Jail out there on Memorial and I-285. You can't miss it. 8 stories of concrete and steel with small slits of widows sliced throughout. It's quite possibly one of the most intimidating and sad buildings to look at. So we make it there, wait around for awhile (these places arent used to student groups it seems), and get shown around by a veteran guard. All in all it took about an hour and a half, and we didn't even see a quarter of the facility.
This was one of the most isolating and disorienting places I have ever witnessed. Stan warned us and asked us to take note of the disorienting layout of the building. Within just a few minutes, just a few hallways, just a few doors, all sense of direction was replaced by the seemingly miles of the institutional brick and tiles. See passed through intake, where dozens of men and women (segregated into different areas) awaited processing. Those were some seriously blank stares. The intake room is front line, the first place after the back of a squad car of course, where things start getting real, reality starts setting in.
We continued through the panopticonic set up of the jail in which a grouping of 5 - 2 story lockups are controlled by 2 guards in a central operating room. The "panopticon" is the most modern form of inmate housing. Big Brother in the control room sees, hears, and controls everything through switches of buttons, speakers, and microphones. The isolation is unbelievable. There are no bars at this jail. Large sectional rooms warded off by concrete walls on the sides, and humongous unbreakable glass panes at the front. Aside from the occasional buzz of the automated locks or boom from an inmate pounding on the glass, the place was eerily quite, much more quiet than the state prison. A classmate noted later that this place seemed much more like a zoo, with caged "animals" stuck behind thick glass,removed from the world and removed from each other.
Our guide, a former Marine now working through his 13th year with the county, seemed awfully jaded in his outlook, and inlook I suppose, regarding the jail. He assists in a "Scared Straight Program" and that is pretty much exactly how he spoke to us. "You don't want to end up here," he said quite frequently, "You wouldn't believe the messed up stuff people in here have done." Yes, he is correct on both accounts; correct but incomplete. I don't want to end up in there and odds are I won't, and I'm sure I would be awe struck at finding out the details of many of the crimes committed by the inmates too. What about the "messed up stuff" that occurs because of that jail and because of our "prisons are the answer" mentality?
I am thoroughly convinced that isolation inhibits rehabilitation in probably 99% of inmates, in fact isolation exacerbates the anger, mental health problems, and control issues that got these people into trouble in the first place. Our guide estimated mental health problems among inmates to be around 30%. I call BS!! Being in that kind of environment for any period of time will cause even the most mentally sane person to absolutely lose their minds, much less someone who comes in already unstable.
Well, as I am 35,000 feet in the air about to descend into LaGuardia, I got to wrap it up. On this Maundy Thursday, I am reminded, and I hope to remind you, to pray, "Jesus remember me, when you come into your kingdom."
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
When do we forgive?
"A society can be gauged by how it treats its prisoners," a quote attributed to Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian author of Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov, among others. We often interpret this to mean we can tell how cruel, or hopefully compassionate, our society is by checking out what lies behind the razor wire. From what I've seen, we aren't gauging too well.
2 things I am thinking about currently: The prison system is based on "cost-effectivness vengeance" and the greater society is on a continuum with those imprisoned.
First off, prisons are, or at least attempt to be, cost-effective and by all standards no longer are focused on rehabilitation, but rather generally just offer a "culturally acceptable" arena for vengeance. In a recent meeting last Wednesday at a truck stop diner off of I-75, the entire class sat, listened, and conversed with Randy Loney, author and former professor at Auburn University and Mercer to name a couple. Randy, author of Dreams of a Tattered Man, has spent a great deal of his life ministering to those who have been sentenced to die by the state of Georgia. The 2 hour conversation revolved around the stories from death row that have significantly altered his life. They were stories of a prisoner pulling together what meager items they had into a care package for his daughter who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina; Grandparents visiting a grandson who murdered his parents for years as he worked through his demons to a point where he could finally ask for forgiveness; prisoners serving each other a contraband communion of crackers and fermented grape juice around bars and walls of the cell. As Randy speaks of these stories, they are stories of transcendence.
These instances of the transcendence of life and spirit occur when people desire a connection with another, even when one person has committed great transgressions and caused great hurt upon the lives of others. A great problem lies in the structure of prison institutions that do not allow prisoners to have contact visits with their own family and prisoners are not allow to contact relatives of their victims. Yes, many, many victims families do not wish or have not come to a point in their grieving process to even begin to think about looking the person who has inflicted harm upon their loved ones in the face. Many states, especially Texas, allows victims families to view executions in order to complete their grieving process. The questions that has continually been stuck in my mind through visits, readings, and conversations is where is reconciliation and do we really want to offer forgiveness? As Randy put it, "the well has been poisoned." We are "stuck in a rut" so to speak in our thinking of our prisons. Prisons have always been around, there is little to no new thinking, new ideas.
Here things get a little more tricky. I have very intrigued by what Mark Taylor, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, as well as our own Stan Saunders say about the thought of our own society being on a continuum with our prison system and the idea prisons are a microcosm of our culture. Prisons are a miniature world in themselves. They have their own social systems and dynamics, they revolve around strict regulations of time and acceptable practices, they are governed by a number of hierarchies, and are populated by sinners. Now look at our society: populated by sinners (can't get around that), governed by a number of hierarchies (families, political governments), most of our lives revolve around the strictures of time and cyclical practices although ours is a much less intensive structure (punching the clock each morning).
All in all, through our prison system we are seeking some semblance of control, and striving in our sinfulness to separate the righteous from the unrighteousness. I also find it disturbing that we often times disengage and disconnect our lives from the lives of others through isolating electronic communication, shutting our doors, and drawing our blinds. We punish/"protect" inmates by not allowing them to have that contact that we ourselves overlook, or simply ignore.
I don't know where an answer is to my questions or the ramifications of our apathy, but I know that the greatest commonality among humanity is that we are all sinners. Whether inside the prison institution or in the greater prison-like society, we are all linked by the fact that we are controlled through the forces of sin and death, and Jesus Christ conquered both. That's the subversive message of the gospel.
2 things I am thinking about currently: The prison system is based on "cost-effectivness vengeance" and the greater society is on a continuum with those imprisoned.
First off, prisons are, or at least attempt to be, cost-effective and by all standards no longer are focused on rehabilitation, but rather generally just offer a "culturally acceptable" arena for vengeance. In a recent meeting last Wednesday at a truck stop diner off of I-75, the entire class sat, listened, and conversed with Randy Loney, author and former professor at Auburn University and Mercer to name a couple. Randy, author of Dreams of a Tattered Man, has spent a great deal of his life ministering to those who have been sentenced to die by the state of Georgia. The 2 hour conversation revolved around the stories from death row that have significantly altered his life. They were stories of a prisoner pulling together what meager items they had into a care package for his daughter who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina; Grandparents visiting a grandson who murdered his parents for years as he worked through his demons to a point where he could finally ask for forgiveness; prisoners serving each other a contraband communion of crackers and fermented grape juice around bars and walls of the cell. As Randy speaks of these stories, they are stories of transcendence.
These instances of the transcendence of life and spirit occur when people desire a connection with another, even when one person has committed great transgressions and caused great hurt upon the lives of others. A great problem lies in the structure of prison institutions that do not allow prisoners to have contact visits with their own family and prisoners are not allow to contact relatives of their victims. Yes, many, many victims families do not wish or have not come to a point in their grieving process to even begin to think about looking the person who has inflicted harm upon their loved ones in the face. Many states, especially Texas, allows victims families to view executions in order to complete their grieving process. The questions that has continually been stuck in my mind through visits, readings, and conversations is where is reconciliation and do we really want to offer forgiveness? As Randy put it, "the well has been poisoned." We are "stuck in a rut" so to speak in our thinking of our prisons. Prisons have always been around, there is little to no new thinking, new ideas.
Here things get a little more tricky. I have very intrigued by what Mark Taylor, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, as well as our own Stan Saunders say about the thought of our own society being on a continuum with our prison system and the idea prisons are a microcosm of our culture. Prisons are a miniature world in themselves. They have their own social systems and dynamics, they revolve around strict regulations of time and acceptable practices, they are governed by a number of hierarchies, and are populated by sinners. Now look at our society: populated by sinners (can't get around that), governed by a number of hierarchies (families, political governments), most of our lives revolve around the strictures of time and cyclical practices although ours is a much less intensive structure (punching the clock each morning).
All in all, through our prison system we are seeking some semblance of control, and striving in our sinfulness to separate the righteous from the unrighteousness. I also find it disturbing that we often times disengage and disconnect our lives from the lives of others through isolating electronic communication, shutting our doors, and drawing our blinds. We punish/"protect" inmates by not allowing them to have that contact that we ourselves overlook, or simply ignore.
I don't know where an answer is to my questions or the ramifications of our apathy, but I know that the greatest commonality among humanity is that we are all sinners. Whether inside the prison institution or in the greater prison-like society, we are all linked by the fact that we are controlled through the forces of sin and death, and Jesus Christ conquered both. That's the subversive message of the gospel.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
"If you ride with the devil, you're gonna have to let him drive"
Today, my 2nd chaplaincy trip to the Georgia state prison in Jackson, was 2 1/2 hours of real conversation. I met with 4 different guys, 3 permanents and 1 diagnostic. Each of them had a different story to tell, different things on their mind, but each one was seeking time to be human. I think this time I received more help than I gave....
First off, the diagnostic inmate I met with (diagnostics are those who are being held and processed at Jackson until a transfer or placement into a permanent cell-block) was there simply to get signed up for a bible study class. I put him on the list right away, and Mr. Almond, an older African-American man, stood up thanked me and began to go on his way. I chuckled and said "You know you can hang out here for a bit and talk." Eyes wide, Mr. Almond responded, "That would be great! Don't really want to go back to my cell." As I spoke with Mr. Almond, whom I realized can quote more Scripture (very well in fact) than I could, I was shocked to learn that his family was never informed of his transfers among the last couple of prisons. He would have to wait to be processed, then send a snail-mail letter, telling his family where he was. He had just received word that his brother, a purple-heart award Iraqi war veteran, is deathly ill. He came in search of prayer, in search of comfort. He came complaining about the young guys he was placed with on his cell block, that they were in need of direction and mentoring. He came looking for all these things and found me. I'm a young man, as Mr. Almond continuously reminded me. For about half an hour, I sat there and let Mr. Almond teach me and share with me all the amazing bits of wisdom that he had accumulated over his lifetime. The two most memorable being: "Sometimes you just gotta give God's will a chance, and then see what happens," & "If you chose to ride with the devil, you're gonna have to let him drive."
I met with Bobby again today. He continued to share stories of his problems with the guards harassing him, his praying for patience, and the little ways he tries to show love inside a love-less place. Bobby is one of the most constantly happy people I have ever met, and I've met Nick Setzer. Talking with him is just simply a pleasure. Aside from recounting the dehumanizing stories of guard encounters and complaining about eating the same food day in and day out (something I can easily relate to), talking with Bobby feels like talking to an old friend. His greatest source of hope, aside from the Word, comes in the knowledge that his stay at prison is not indefinite. Before he left, right after he finished making plans for me to come to his house for a cook-out and beer, he said with a huge smile on his face, "I'm getting baptized! And not just me, I got a buddy gettin' it too!" From a church numbers standpoint - 2 adult baptisms at one time is pretty freakin' good. From a Christian standpoint - "You are my son, my beloved, with you I am well pleased!"
I've got more to reflect on for this visit later. Right now I'm simply caught up in the realization that my time is so blessed by the faith of these men I visit with. God is good!
Monday, February 22, 2010
40 Days of Temptation
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
"If you're not nervous, you're crazy..."
"Hey Chap, got something I need to tell ya," says an older man with thick glasses standing at a caged door to a room just off the main visitor's area. Chaplain Harrell steps over to the man, leaving me standing next to the entrance lock. I watched Chap Harrell speak to the man for a brief minute, hearing only something about a meal selection, and Chap telling him, "You did a good job." As Chap turned back towards me, I met eyes with the man in thick glasses looking at me from behind the cage door. I nodded my head towards him, he responded doing the same.
The man I caught eyes with, who spoke to Chap about his meal selection, was Melbert Ray Ford, scheduled for execution on Tuesday, February 23, 2010.
The drive home was a constant whirl of thoughts. I feel extremely unnerved knowing I looked a man in the eyes who, one week from today, will put to death in an ultimate show of state power.
As I read The Executed God, by Mark Lewis Taylor,I am struck by his tongue in cheek comment as he pretends to be the "wise ethicist" who logically reasoned the use of the capital punishment. "Hmm," he writes, "murder is a serious crime, and so we need the ultimate penalty of death to express society's outrage over murder and help the victims find closure." This is not how capital punishment made it into US Legal Code. With the use of capital punishment we are "living out a historical legacy that resorts to official killing". In this official killing, there is no love, there is no forgiveness. All that remains is the demise of another child of God, and realizations that we really aren't as free and civilized of a society as we think we are.
"Since 1976, for every 8 people executed, 1 on death row has been found innocent."
- Mark Lewis Taylor (www.deathpenalty.org)
Before I spent a couple hours talking with the prisoners, Chaplain Harrell asked me how I felt. I told him I was a little nervous. "That's good. If you're not nervous, you're crazy, and we've got enough crazy people here," he said with a tickled laughter. Chaplain Harrell has a fairly crude sense of humor.
For over an hour I spoke with Bobby A., a Bronx native doing time for drug possession with intent to distribute. It truly was a pleasure to talk to this man. I rarely see someone with such a positive attitude, and being able to keep that attitude in a place that was built for "Spiritual death" (Abu-Jamal) is absolutely a work of God. I didn't have to say a whole lot during our time of conversation. I was there really to give him the opportunity to just get anything and everything off his chest without fear of retribution or other punishments. He told me about his family; how much he loves his wife; how is oldest son has been diagnosed with cancer; how it finally struck him the other day that he is a grandfather at 42 years old.
I began to ask him how his faith impacts his life, and boy did he start to talk! Bobby was "saved" in Butts County jail about 2 years ago, reads the Bible everyday , attends Bible studies, and as he puts it, "converses with God at all times." "People think I'm just talking to myself!" he added with a huge laugh. We continued to talk about faith, Scripture, and family but Bobby kept going back to the few things that he really struggles with in prison. Waiting, Numbness, and Patience.
Waiting to go home...Numbness at the isolation of an uncaring system...Patience to make it through the day.
He brought up patience a lot. Bobby told me how he prayed for patience each and everyday, how he needed patience to overcome the hatred that guards show him, how he needed patience to overcome the hatred he sees with love. Puts patience in perspective when I pray for it to get through theology class or a Sunday evening when the youth group has less of an attention span that usual....
Before ending with a prayer, I asked Bobby what his favorite passage was. He told me, Matthew 5:2-12. I knew immediately he was referring to the Beatitudes. "My favorite too," I told him. He gave me a big hug, then went back to his cell.
The man I caught eyes with, who spoke to Chap about his meal selection, was Melbert Ray Ford, scheduled for execution on Tuesday, February 23, 2010.
The drive home was a constant whirl of thoughts. I feel extremely unnerved knowing I looked a man in the eyes who, one week from today, will put to death in an ultimate show of state power.
As I read The Executed God, by Mark Lewis Taylor,I am struck by his tongue in cheek comment as he pretends to be the "wise ethicist" who logically reasoned the use of the capital punishment. "Hmm," he writes, "murder is a serious crime, and so we need the ultimate penalty of death to express society's outrage over murder and help the victims find closure." This is not how capital punishment made it into US Legal Code. With the use of capital punishment we are "living out a historical legacy that resorts to official killing". In this official killing, there is no love, there is no forgiveness. All that remains is the demise of another child of God, and realizations that we really aren't as free and civilized of a society as we think we are.
"Since 1976, for every 8 people executed, 1 on death row has been found innocent."
- Mark Lewis Taylor (www.deathpenalty.org)
Before I spent a couple hours talking with the prisoners, Chaplain Harrell asked me how I felt. I told him I was a little nervous. "That's good. If you're not nervous, you're crazy, and we've got enough crazy people here," he said with a tickled laughter. Chaplain Harrell has a fairly crude sense of humor.
For over an hour I spoke with Bobby A., a Bronx native doing time for drug possession with intent to distribute. It truly was a pleasure to talk to this man. I rarely see someone with such a positive attitude, and being able to keep that attitude in a place that was built for "Spiritual death" (Abu-Jamal) is absolutely a work of God. I didn't have to say a whole lot during our time of conversation. I was there really to give him the opportunity to just get anything and everything off his chest without fear of retribution or other punishments. He told me about his family; how much he loves his wife; how is oldest son has been diagnosed with cancer; how it finally struck him the other day that he is a grandfather at 42 years old.
I began to ask him how his faith impacts his life, and boy did he start to talk! Bobby was "saved" in Butts County jail about 2 years ago, reads the Bible everyday , attends Bible studies, and as he puts it, "converses with God at all times." "People think I'm just talking to myself!" he added with a huge laugh. We continued to talk about faith, Scripture, and family but Bobby kept going back to the few things that he really struggles with in prison. Waiting, Numbness, and Patience.
Waiting to go home...Numbness at the isolation of an uncaring system...Patience to make it through the day.
He brought up patience a lot. Bobby told me how he prayed for patience each and everyday, how he needed patience to overcome the hatred that guards show him, how he needed patience to overcome the hatred he sees with love. Puts patience in perspective when I pray for it to get through theology class or a Sunday evening when the youth group has less of an attention span that usual....
Before ending with a prayer, I asked Bobby what his favorite passage was. He told me, Matthew 5:2-12. I knew immediately he was referring to the Beatitudes. "My favorite too," I told him. He gave me a big hug, then went back to his cell.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Why Incarcerated Grace?
So after reading MK's blog, I realized that I should probably comment on why I chose the title Incarcerate Grace. To start off, during January term while studying in Jamaica, we had the opportunity to visit the 2nd largest prison in that country. Prisons there are very different from the US. The one we visited was constructed in the 18th century under British rule, and very little has changed. The whole complex is in desperate need of repair/rebuilding. Prisoners lived in a kind of an ordered chaos, moving almost freely throughout the yards. Despite the squalid living conditions, the prisoners retained a sense of humanity and pride. We were able to make eye contact with the prisoners, talk to them, and even throw a few fist bumps around. We were served bread in the prison's bakery by a man as big as a house. There our eyes were opened and we could see the grace that was present.
I will maintain my belief that there is no place on earth where the grace of God cannot be found or where the Holy Spirit cannot move, but a US penitentiary locks it down pretty tight. America is obsessed with incarceration. We have more of our population in prison or in some stage of the judicial system than any other country on earth. The populations of our prisons, federally and in every state of the union, have individually risen staggering amounts, in some cases up to 700%, since the 1980's.
Throughout this semester, I hope to discover more about what it means to be a Christian, and how we can extend grace to those individuals who have been condemned to a life or death in prison. I know that a criminal justice system is a necessity, but warehousing our prisoners with no rehabilitation offered is not a system of grace. It is simply a system created to protect society from those who are deemed unwanted criminals, outcasts.
Grace can be found everywhere. Grace is offered to everyone. Do American prison's offer grace to inmates, or simply incarcerate them?
I will maintain my belief that there is no place on earth where the grace of God cannot be found or where the Holy Spirit cannot move, but a US penitentiary locks it down pretty tight. America is obsessed with incarceration. We have more of our population in prison or in some stage of the judicial system than any other country on earth. The populations of our prisons, federally and in every state of the union, have individually risen staggering amounts, in some cases up to 700%, since the 1980's.
Throughout this semester, I hope to discover more about what it means to be a Christian, and how we can extend grace to those individuals who have been condemned to a life or death in prison. I know that a criminal justice system is a necessity, but warehousing our prisoners with no rehabilitation offered is not a system of grace. It is simply a system created to protect society from those who are deemed unwanted criminals, outcasts.
Grace can be found everywhere. Grace is offered to everyone. Do American prison's offer grace to inmates, or simply incarcerate them?
First Trip to 'The Big House'
So today, 2/10, the class piled into 3 cars and made the hour trek south to Jackson, Georgia. For about an hour, Ross, MK, Becky, and myself talked about parts of the assigned readings we liked, and more about the looming day when we all have to start looking for calls in a church market that doesn't have much for us. At the time, I thought that would be the most depressing part of my day...
We get off the interstate, Exit 201, to normal sights, truck stops and Wendy's. We take an immediate turn through a pair of nonchalant brick placements and we are now on Georgia Department of Corrections property. We see a beautiful lake, lots of wooded land, and fields for picnics and recreation. A few red brick, two story houses begin to spring up here and there, homes for wardens and chief guards as best I can figure. We take a few turns around some road construction, and there it is.
This penitentiary is not Alcatraz or Sing Sing, it looks almost like a high school surrounded by a double layer of chain link fencing. These fences, 20+ feet high, are absolutely covered with more razor wire than I have ever seen, hundreds of miles of it, glinting in the afternoon sun.
We get through security and make our way down a long, underground corridor. On the walls are those motivational posters, the same ones used at local elementary schools says our professor. The posters speak of focus, pride, teamwork and the like. Georgia's way of boosting the guards moral as they enter a hostile environment I suppose.
At the end of the corridor and up a flight of stairs we meet Rev. Stanley Harrell, the chaplain for the prison and our guide for the day. We also meet, more like come in contact with cause they didn't talk to us much, a group of highly trained guards of the CERT force. I can't remember what CERT stood for, but Vojta, a foreign exchange student from Czech Republic, said in Czech it read "devil". Ha!
We toured almost the entire prison over the course of 3 hours. We couldn't talk to many people because the guards presence was a constant. There are 2 things that I am stuck thinking about:
1. Guards force the inmates to turn and face the wall whenever we would pass by. There was no eye-contact, no humanity.
2. The Georgia execution chamber is a place that I struggle to find words to describe. Our hearts sunk as we entered and saw the gurney behind the glass. Dazzling white sheets, half a dozen straps from top to bottom, an extended bar for the right arm of the condemned. Tears were fought back or allowed to flow. We all left in solemn silence...
This has just been a summary of the tour. More reflection to come later.
"We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God. Jesus proclaimed the reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel."
-A Brief Statement of Faith. PC(USA)
We get off the interstate, Exit 201, to normal sights, truck stops and Wendy's. We take an immediate turn through a pair of nonchalant brick placements and we are now on Georgia Department of Corrections property. We see a beautiful lake, lots of wooded land, and fields for picnics and recreation. A few red brick, two story houses begin to spring up here and there, homes for wardens and chief guards as best I can figure. We take a few turns around some road construction, and there it is.
This penitentiary is not Alcatraz or Sing Sing, it looks almost like a high school surrounded by a double layer of chain link fencing. These fences, 20+ feet high, are absolutely covered with more razor wire than I have ever seen, hundreds of miles of it, glinting in the afternoon sun.
We get through security and make our way down a long, underground corridor. On the walls are those motivational posters, the same ones used at local elementary schools says our professor. The posters speak of focus, pride, teamwork and the like. Georgia's way of boosting the guards moral as they enter a hostile environment I suppose.
At the end of the corridor and up a flight of stairs we meet Rev. Stanley Harrell, the chaplain for the prison and our guide for the day. We also meet, more like come in contact with cause they didn't talk to us much, a group of highly trained guards of the CERT force. I can't remember what CERT stood for, but Vojta, a foreign exchange student from Czech Republic, said in Czech it read "devil". Ha!
We toured almost the entire prison over the course of 3 hours. We couldn't talk to many people because the guards presence was a constant. There are 2 things that I am stuck thinking about:
1. Guards force the inmates to turn and face the wall whenever we would pass by. There was no eye-contact, no humanity.
2. The Georgia execution chamber is a place that I struggle to find words to describe. Our hearts sunk as we entered and saw the gurney behind the glass. Dazzling white sheets, half a dozen straps from top to bottom, an extended bar for the right arm of the condemned. Tears were fought back or allowed to flow. We all left in solemn silence...
This has just been a summary of the tour. More reflection to come later.
"We trust in Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God. Jesus proclaimed the reign of God: preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel."
-A Brief Statement of Faith. PC(USA)
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