Ryan Tindall

 Review of Aaron Griffith, God’s Law and Order: The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020.          

 I’ve always approached the concept of criminal justice with a heap of cynicism. It’s hard to know how to think about these things. Law and order seems to be an unobjectionable concept, until you begin to realize that in this imperfect world law means law for some and order means the order of those in power. During my time working for judges in law school, I had the opportunity to read habeas petitions—often from prisoners who had become their own jailhouse lawyers—or from lawyers whose only mission was to try to free inmates from death row through procedural hail marys. But Mary is, of course, full of grace—something that criminal law is not, and an inmate could have their last hope at life extinguished because ten years ago an overworked public defender hadn’t raised a certain issue so that it could be later appealed. As a lawyer, I understand why the system is set up the way it is—for efficient justice, as they say; as a human, I wonder if building a systemthat promotes justice for the criminal is possible at all.

            While not about the legal procedure of what a prisoner does once he’s imprisoned, Aaron Griffith’s God’s Law & Order, is an important look into the history of American Evangelicalism’s role in putting him there. It’s a complicated story with a diverse set of characters—at times too diverse for this reader to keep track of—but one that centers around many familiar names, like Billy Graham, Richard Nixon, Chuck Colson, and Ronald Reagan. Its focus is a paradox: how is it that evangelicals can be among those most concerned with the ills of prison life and most willing to work for its reform, while also the most willing to put people there in the first place?

            Part of the answer to this question lies in the origins of the modern penal system. Country with the soul of a church that the United States is, our penal system began with penitentiaries in the nineteenth century, where criminals could go to be penitent. The criminal justice system as it developed was seen as something both conservatives and progressives could agree on, as conservatives sought moral reform of society and the individual, coupled with retribution for the victim, and progressives sought to tinker with bureaucratic systems which would promise to establish the good society. Thus, a progressive of the early 1900s could support the creation of the non-denominational prison chaplain, who could use the latest in social science to turn prisoners away from their anti-social behavior. Griffith notes that criminal justice did not become a nationwide concern and thus a topic of federal legislation, however, until the gangsters of the 1920s-1940s emerged. By then, both conservatives and liberals could agree that the time for the state’s role in law enforcement had come.

            The emergence of a distinctive evangelical movement in the post-war years would continue this intermingling of the spiritual and legal implications of crime. In his crusades, Billy Graham would implicitly—and often explicitly—offer revival as an answer to the crime problem, equating crime with sin, and seeking conversion of souls not conviction of bodies. His message was successful at converting at least one famous gangster from his way of life. But, according to Griffith, Graham also had a unique ability to tap into the fears and anxiety of middle-class Americans. It’s telling that Nixon, in his promotion of law and order, could count on Graham’s assistance in his campaign. 

            This “law and order” message had a racial message at its core as well, albeit one not acknowledged by its proponents. Evangelicals—believing themselves well intentioned—desired to not acknowledge race as an issue, and sought law and order as a neutral message that would be applied to everyone equally. At the same time, however, this message was undercut by the practical reality of inequality in the enforcement of that law and order. Graham and Nixon, in stoking white middle-class fears, would speak of “inner-city” life as inherently unchristian. Griffith notes that the impetus for the split between the conservative PCA and the now-liberal PCUSA was due to the denomination’s financial support of Angela Davis’s defense, a black activist who Richard Nixon could refer to as a “dangerous terrorist.” An African American evangelist for Intervarsity, Tom Skinner, could find himself a prophet without a home, as he was too theologically conservative for the liberals, and too willing to call out the injustice of white racism in the criminal justice system for evangelicals. This was in large part because the evangelical understanding of sin was essentially individualistic and centered around the conversion of the individual soul, often to the complete exclusion of societal reform. Thus, Ronald Regan could say as a governor of California who doubled the prison population to evangelical acclaim: “Law and order must begin at home and it must begin with the individual.” 

            The one man in the public sphere who appeared able to bridge these divides was Chuck Colson. Colson, famously imprisoned for his role in the Watergate Scandal, could say from experience that imprisonment of any kind was “capital punishment of the soul.” He was able, through his intellectualism and personal experience, to unite conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley, but also with his push for reforms with progressive activists. Colson and his Prison Fellowship organization could push for the abolition of mandatory minimums—a pet project of both hard-on-crime conservatives and liberals concerned with inequality in the Regan years, which had by the 1990s shown itself to be a tool of injustice. Prison Fellowship also continued to work to alleviate the suffering of prisoners’ physical environments around the country.

However, Griffith shows how Colson’s reform mission was undercut by the emergence of Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. Falwell’s movement served as a conservative counter-movement to the progressive intermingling of religion and politics of the 60s and 70s. But Falwell, Griffith argues, was also more in tune with the times and mood of the country—and more able to accomplish his policy agenda, as both Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich were able to come together in pursuit of the popular goal of “getting tough on crime.” Prison Fellowship’s reform goals of seeking to promote restorative justice were dashed, and Chuck Colson turned his focus more towards his worldview ministry Breakpoint.

As with any history of the recent past, the story is not yet finished—and still maintains some interesting twists and turns. Donald Trump, for his many faults, signed the First Step Act into law, a bipartisan reform bill that seeks to undo much of the ill effects that the tough on crime era produced. Joe Biden, who as a Senator had a leading role in the enactment of those tough on crime laws, felt the need to apologize for that role in his campaign. There are signs of hope that meaningful change may be occurring and soon to occur.

However, Griffith’s book still left my abiding sense of cynicism intact. One anecdote I think illustrates this better than any other. Broken windows policing is a theory of policing whereby police look for visible signs of crime—for broken windows and such—and target those minor crimes with an increased presence in the community, all with an eye to preventing major crimes. In its more infamous guises, it has been referred to as “zero tolerance” policing, or enforced by methods like “stop and frisk.” Generally, due to the social conditions of many blighted black neighborhoods, its enforcement is seen to be racially disparate, and it has fallen out of favor. 

Griffith points to how Chuck Colson was a proponent of the policy, finding support for it in Augustine’s political thought, as, per Augustine, one of the main roles of the civil authority was to ensure tranquillitas ordinis—domestic tranquility. And that’s true—and it’s one of the main tenants of a politics of the common good that I sincerely believe is advocated for by the Christian worldview. But racism breaks this, as something that is meant to be for the common good is used as a weapon against African American communities. Much the same as the phrase “law and order,” something should be a neutral, social good is perverted into a means of disparate and discriminatory treatment.  And for this, I am thus cynical—as everything good seems capable of being perverted by those either with ill intent or without the courage to do good. I suppose then that the only answer to this conundrum is to couple with law something desperately needed but always in short supply: grace.