The guide said it over and over again. “Just to give you an idea.” An idea is definitely not an experience. It is impossible to hand over one’s own experience to another person. Our guide was a former inmate in the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. It once housed James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. It was a maximum security facility. The former prison is now a museum and distillery. Tourists like me show up and learn the outlay to the place. Even though the buildings are deteriorating, one gets a glimpse of the conditions the state housed its’ worst of the worse. But, as the guide said, we only got just an idea.
Just Deserts
“I don’t think we should be giving prisoners luxuries,” says the cashier in the gift shop. In other words, the punishment should be exacting, humiliating, and dehumanizing. Or what we hear called “just deserts.” (I know the word is pronounced as ‘desserts.’ But the spelling is correct)
For people who idolize Joe Arpiao and his cruelty to prisoners, nothing hinting at leniency should be allowed. Brushy Mountain was once also a coal mine. The state of Tennessee exploited the “involuntary servitude” of criminals loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment. Once Reconstruction ended former slaves were convicted and leased by the State to mining operations. The use of slave labor for the mines was a cause of the Coal Creek War between free miners and the Tennessee Coal Company in Anderson County.
Brushy was constructed to be a mining operation after that in 1896 until the 1960’s. “It was just slave labor,” our guide said, “that’s all it was.”
In 1969, it was reclassified as a maximum security prison and the “end of the line” for most state prisoners.
Cruelty As A Goal
Brushy is a good example of the human capacity for limitless cruelty. Cruelty is not just. Some crimes cause an almost instinctive revulsion in most of us. The Alt-Right’s labeling of everyone with whom they disagree a “pedophile” plays on this. Religious conviction, since it is deep-seated in a person’s psyche, is often a cover for the desire to commit acts of cruelty. Politicians speaking to religious conservatives often quote scripture to justify “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Why does cruelty become a goal? Our guide paused during the tour to talk about Ukraine and Vladimir Putin. In his outrage, he said, “they ought to put him in here.” Many in our group agreed. So, at least in his mind, there are people to whom it is just to inflict the suffering he and others unjustly endured. This feeling is similar to that which says, “my parents beat the tar out of me and I turned out all right.” One does not recognize the suffering itself caused the warped attitude toward others. Our culture accepts cruelty as normal.
Right And Just?
Churches are approaching the end of Holy Week. We read the passages of the Bible that illustrate the suffering of Jesus. Preachers are tempted to describe Jesus’ suffering as unique. This is a mistake. Such preaching only makes cruelty to one another more justifiable. People get the idea Jesus suffering unjustly and worse than anyone else before or since then makes our cruelty lesser than the worst. But Luke makes it clear that Jesus’ suffering was not worse.
When one of those crucified with Jesus asks him to save himself and them, the other says, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And indeed we have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” (Luke 23:40b-41) Then he makes his famous plea, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (v. 42) At first blush it appears Luke is only talking about how the suffering of the two criminals is just. But note that Jesus’ suffering is not any worse than theirs. Jesus dies in the way of “common criminals” of his day.
Jesus answers, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” The “justly condemned” criminal will be among the righteous in the next world. I wonder what the family of his victim thought of these words. That statement is just as scandalous as the one made earlier, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (v. 34b) The textual provenance of verse 34 is disputed and the topic of repentance is important for our interpretation.
Abuse of Another
Abuse is never justified. When we suffer abuse, we often wish it to return on the heads of those who abuse us. Just to give them an idea of our experience. The point of the golden rule is not to do unto others what has been done to you. We often cannot visit retribution on those who abuse us. What we do is pass that abuse on to other people. Jesus does not expect the criminal next to him to suffer because he has. The man next to him decides, in reverence to God, he will not wish his suffering on someone else.
Christians should stop and think about the desires we have to inflict suffering on other people no matter what they have done. This consideration is the most important part of “bearing the cross.” Injustice must stop. But are we practicing justice toward another person by wishing them evil? I often feel the criminal who berates Jesus was so warped he wanted everyone to suffer as he did. Jesus takes the opposite approach in that moment. He claims those demonstrating cruelty have no idea of what they are doing.
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