As Christians writing letters to inmates, I went on, we could help light and toss mystical fires—to burn through the belly of the beast of the American prison system today. We could burn the whole thing down, with mercy, from the inside out. I saw nods, big eyes, and smiles around the room, from the frail lady in a wheelchair to the businessman type in a crisp Oxford shirt.
I’d feared such talk might sound scandalous. But this was Crossroad Bible Institute, and those in my audience were a few of the 5,500 volunteers who are already writing letters to incarcerated men and women. The CBI program offers a (somewhat stiff, very Reformed) correspondence Bible course for prisoners. “Lessons” are completed and mailed to volunteers who “grade” them and return them with encouraging notes. Over the decades, however, the notes have become personal letters that open relationships between church members across America and thousands of people in penal institutions. These rare relationships are not just changing the lives of inmates and of the volunteers on the outside; it’s causing the CBI to transform its program as well.
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