Prison & the Least of These

Jesus spoke of the last judgment in Matthew 25, saying that what we do for "the least of these" we do to him. The least of these includes the hungry, naked, and homeless. It also includes the imprisoned. How we treat those who are in prison is how we treat Jesus Christ, and it is part of the basis on which God will judge our lives. In torturing those imprisoned for crimes they have not yet been found guilty of, we torture, again, our Lord and Savior. For people who claim to follow the one who said we are no longer to function according to "eye for an eye" ideology, but to "turn the other cheek," to not speak out against those who would continue to use the methods of the cross is wrong.

Jimmy McCarty from a blog post at: http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2008/09/torturing-the-least-of-these-b.html


On a related note, here is an interesting USA Today article entitled "Jail and Jesus"
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/09/jail-and-jesus.html
This was the (rather lengthy) subtitle for the article.

The Bible is heavy on redemption, and the plight of prisoners is a recurring theme in the New Testament. With 1 in 100 American adults incarcerated, are Christians doing enough to address the root causes of this prison explosion?