Prison Camp: God was not dead
A Forum for Stories of Incarceration, Justice, and Redemption
In prison, belief systems shift. Some men find Jesus. Some find loopholes. A few find nothing. And others—like me—float in between, trying to understand what’s true when everything’s been taken. This is an excerpt from my essay, All the True Gods, published in Rain Shadow Review, about faith, doubt, and the role of religion during incarceration.
ALL THE TRUE GODS Excerpt:
God was not dead there. Not yet anyway. But more function than fire. A talisman for the remorseful to counter the self-loathing, and an opportunity for the incorrigible. Like Slimer, a kitchen worker with rotten teeth, who sold food he stole from the kitchen and never entered a synagogue in his life, but signed up for kosher meals on every Jewish holiday.
Most inmates were Christian, but we had a few Muslims—Big Mohammed and Little Mohammed—several Jews, and one Hindu, a doctor in for insurance fraud. The Muslims had their own swathe of carpet, bending down in prayer just before the four o’clock count. I never learned why they were called Big and Little Mohammed—both looked average to me.
There were several Bible study groups. Mike the Greek, my last bunkie—in for tax fraud; I was in for wire fraud—joined one led by a man named John Andes. A former drug dealer with a fearsome reputation, Andes had the demeanor of a professor. Clean-cut, articulate, bespectacled. He told Mike he once kicked a gang leader over a railing in a holding center. Said the man nearly died. Andes pledged his life to Jesus in exchange for the man’s recovery.
Andes tried to recruit me. He once asked if I’d ever read the Bible. “No,” I said, pretending to adjust my bunk. “I’m thinking about it.” I lied. He never asked again.
I received many Bibles while in prison: friends, my sister, and friends of friends. When I arrived, Steve, my first friend inside, gave me a beautiful one. Steve was about sixty and wore the popular prison haircut of a shaved head. But it was more Highway Patrol than convict on him. His Bible was a leather-bound classic. The wonderful smell and the smooth edges in gold inspired me to hold it, although I didn’t read any of it. Steve had his own Bible group. “Independent originalists,” he told me, no affiliation with any traditional orthodoxy or formal institutional Christian sects. Only the Bible mattered, and their purpose was to unearth its truth. He didn’t recruit me. He respected my space, my agnosticism. But he was convinced, I think, that inside me, there was a Christian who only needed some prodding to emerge. Even in prison, there’s a missionary mentality. It exists and propagates in prison.
“John, there are 2,800 predictions in the Bible that can’t be explained,” he once told me. “What do you say to that?”
I never answer questions like that. I’d learned that in prison, if you’re trying to decide if you should do something or say something, don’t. Because if you’re wrong, the consequences are costly.
Bubba didn’t believe. A former NFL lineman, he was an avowed atheist who thought the religious guys were full of it. He’d been assigned to the bunk next to mine. I didn’t like him at first. I judged him, the way people do in prison, harshly and based on little more than a look.
Someone told him I was in real estate like he’d been, and he warmed up to me. Soon, he was in my bunk every day, going on about his case, the employee who turned him in, the judge who didn’t understand, the partner he never had—me.
He chided the Bible guys, especially my last bunkie, Mike the Greek, who was frantic about his salvation. One night, Bubba said, “I didn’t believe before I got here. Even less so now. I hate the piety. It’s bullshit.”
Later, he asked me, “Do you believe in God?”
“I’m agnostic,” I said. “I just leave it open.”
“Open for what?”
“Life’s a great mystery.”
He laughed. Then: “If we get out of here, promise me you’ll look me up.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Lying fuck,” he said and left.
He was right. I never reached out. But looking back, I think religion meant more to him than he let on.
I didn’t expect to find God in prison. Not that I didn’t try. But at the end of the day, it seems there was only one true God in prison.
This post is an excerpt from my full essay All the True Gods, originally published in Rain Shadow Review. You can read the complete version here:
📄 Click here to read the full essay (Word document)
I wrote the following in my journal:
GOD
is not dead
here;
not yet
anyway.
But more ritual than
doctrine.
Always a scramble for
special meal
signups,
and attendance at
service.
Christians Jews Muslims
Buddhists and one
Hindu.
No crossover or real
engagement.
More function than
fire.
And at the end of
the day,
only one God standing:
Freedom.
Up Next on White Collar Journal:
Wednesday (Justice Notes): Jobs: Prison camps are working camps
Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse reflections
Sunday (Prison Camp): Pre-Incarceration: the lead up