Prison ministry has been an important Quaker leading throughout the history of Quakers. Prison
outreach is a ministry for many meetings. They see this as an important witness and an
example of how we let our lives speak. Many inmates’ lives have been enriched by these
humble and sincere Friends. They do not screen out who is welcome, but welcome all who seek
to follow their quest to hear that small voice and to give them hope for a future.
The following excerpts are from an article by Ben Richmond in Quaker Life
In New York, AVP holds workshops for about 5000 prisoners a year. The spiritual basis is
"transforming power," Tom Martin says. "You and I would know the transforming power as God-the power that works through us to transform a situation. Being a prison visitor has enabled me
to have a better grasp on the Living Christ in my life because every time I do a workshop I see
God making a change in people's lives."
Jeannie Graves of Orange County Friends in Santa Anna, California, (Pacific Yearly Meeting
says that she resisted the calling to go to prison as a visitor for many years: "It got more and
more painful. I went back and reread the story of Jonah and had a lot of sympathy for Jonah.
Why would anyone want to go to Nineveh? Why would anyone want to go into prison?" "When I
finally went in, it was such a relief. It is my heart that is there to be healed. Those visits are
extraordinarily valuable to me."
Baltimore Yearly Meeting has sponsored a worship group at Patuxent, a psychiatric facility in
Jessup, Maryland. According to Jack Fogarty, a prison visitor from Sandy Spring (Maryland)
Friends, their normal format is worship-sharing. Recently an AVP workshop at the new men’s
prison of MCI-Jessup resulted in a prisoner request for a new Quaker worship group there.
The visitors discover what Jesus meant when he said, "I was in prison and you visited me."
When you start going to prison, you'll be among Friends.”
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Ben Richmond is a recorded minister in Indiana Yearly Meeting.
In Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, Quakers, African Americans and the Myth of Racial
Justice, Donna McDaniel and Vanessa Julye explore the role of Quakers in the abolition
movement through the civil rights movement. They examined …whether Friends have truly
been a “peculiar people” with beliefs and practices that set them apart from society, or have
instead tended to mirror the views of society at large. Because many activists believe the
Society is singular in its beliefs and actions, they have been particularly critical of those times
when Quakers have behaved like other Americans-more concerned about their economic and
social status than about justice, more invested in hierarchy than in equality, more apt to take a
paternal than fraternal stance in their efforts to assist those who suffer disadvantage in
American society.” As Quakers there was a commitment for economic justice but that did not
include welcoming the former slaves into their meetings, their neighborhoods or their lives.
In the 1940’s, the Friends Meeting of Washington was a catalyst for racial justice and change.
Through FMW, FCNL and William Penn House were nurtured and developed. Where others
saw problems, FMW saw solutions. As we struggle with the fallout from our inability to work
together to help us to be a part of a former inmate’s life, we need to take this as an opportunity
to follow our leadings and be the faith community that we can be.
If we truly believe that there is that of God in each of us; if we believe in that each of us is
unique; if we believe in the Quaker testimonies of Integrity, Community, Equality, Simplicity and
Peace; if we believe in the transformative power of faith and love; if we believe. From this set of
beliefs, we should find that we as a community of Friends can protect our children and can offer
a spiritual home to this man whose life was transformed by Quaker prison visitors. Others who
do let their lives speak opened their lives to the possibilities that through faith an inmate can be
embraced by the divine and can change. Without meeting our visitor, without worshipping with
him, without seeking that of God in him nor allowing that of God within ourselves to be visible,
decisions were made to exclude him from our community.
Our challenge is greater than how we treated this fellow seeker and each other; it is the
recognition that there is a void in our spiritual and faith community. How do we as a faith
community move forward? How do we teach our children that we are not a secular group but
are a community of Friends who seek the best in each other, that we believe that each of us is
unique, that we are more than profiles? Do we believe that God does speak to us and when we
listen, that we too can be transformed?
Byron Sandford