'Worse than us!'

Hypocrisy is just as alive in the prisons as it is in the churches!

Usually, preaching the gospel in prison means that most of your hearers know they have 'messed up' their lives, and they know that you know they have. So there is often a more honest starting point of admission of sin than sometimes we see in our respectable churches.

However, human nature does not change because it is put behind bars, and hypocrisy is alive and well in prison too. Nowhere do you see this more than in some 'ordinary' prisoners' reactions to vulnerable prisoners - known as 'VPs' - especially those who are VPs because of crimes involving sexual misconduct.
One 'ordinary' prisoner was speaking to Mike Mellor, of the Open-Air Mission and one of our PMAs, after I had spoken on 'there is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God'. I had pointed out that, although the degree and consequences of some crimes may be worse than some sins which are not crimes, there is no basic difference in principle. We all have sinned. We all are guilty. We all deserve eternal judgement. We all need to repent from sin, and turn to Christ who died for us and rose again.

'I don't agree'

Mike's contact volunteered, 'I do not agree with what Gerard said. How can he say that we are all as guilty as each other before God? I am doing three life sentences'. Mike thought that perhaps here was a man whose sin was beginning to touch his conscience. Maybe he was beginning to see his sins so clearly that he thought that no one was as bad as him? You know, rather like Paul in 1 Timothy 1.15, where he describes himself, with shame, as the 'chief' of sinners. Perhaps conviction was dawning on this inmate as the Holy Spirit showed him his sin and desperate need of forgiveness?

But the inmate's next words made Mike realise he was wrong! 'I may be bad, but I am not half as bad as those scum, those sex perverts in prison'. This man, if his claim to be a triple murderer was true, saw himself at a level high above those miserable men whose sin and crime causes them to be regarded as less than the low, even by fellow prisoners. I could not repeat the vocabulary I have heard to describe them. That is why they are in separate prisons, or in VP wings in a mixed prison. They have separate cells, separate wings, separate association time (time out of the cells), and separate services and meetings in the chaplaincy. Their health, welfare, and lives would be at risk otherwise. And some prisoners treat all VPs as if they are paedophiles and rapists. We know of cases where food sent to the VP wing from the prison kitchen was vilely contaminated.

That is bad enough for VPs who really are sex offenders, or who are believed to be sex offenders. But not all VPs are sex offenders - quite apart from any wrongly convicted. Others in the VP wings include self-harmers, the suicidal, the easily bullied, and those whose jobs would put them at risk on a normal wing (for example, former policemen, CPS prosecutors, judges, and prison officers). Some there belong to one gang, when members of a rival gang are in the same prison. Anyone thought to be under a more than normal threat of prison violence can end up in a VP wing, and suffer the undiscerning stigma and insults directed at paedophiles and rapists. The hypocrisy is that sometimes homosexual abuse occurs in the non-VP wings, instigated at times by bullies. In fact, some of their victims could end up in the VP wing.

'The foulest clean'

No normal person likes the thought of paedophilia. Rape and sexual abuse is obnoxious to the vast majority of people. But God also hates hypocrisy, pride, lying and selfishness. He abhors blasphemy and all forms of idolatry. He hates sexual immorality that produces divorce, which he also hates. We all get so used to one or other of those evils, that we are not appalled by it anything like as much as we should be. But our holy God hates all sin.

We go with the gospel to the VP services, as we go to the non-VP services and meetings, to proclaim a Saviour whose blood cleanses from 'all sin' when there is true repentance and faith in Christ. I am reminded of Paul's words to the Corinthians, who were the moral dregs of their society until they came to Christ. He said, in 1 Corinthians 6.11, 'And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.' We really do believe that the gospel can meet the needs of all sinners, all prisoners, and all VPs. Even those who have admitted to me that 'We are the scum' can know his cleansing and renewal, by his grace. 'His blood can make the foulest clean: His blood availed for me' is our message and confidence.

Gerard Chrispin is Director of Prison Ministries, Day One. More information from Day One, PO Box 66, Leominster HR6 0XB (01568 613740).

© Evangelicals Now - March 2004
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