Modern Justice: A Deep Dive into Prison Reform with Anton

Did you know that modern prison systems might be failing because we’ve overlooked the timeless call to "do justly"? Join us for a thought-provoking conversation with Anton as he intertwines the ancient wisdom of Micah 6:6-8 with today's most pressing issues.  Anton critiques our contemporary approach to justice through a sermon-like discussion that sheds light on the enduring relevance of Micah's criticisms of Israel's leadership. Anton challenges us to reflect on our responsibilities in creating a just society, urging us to meet the standards of justice and love for our neighbors.

In a powerful segment, we scrutinize the profound responsibilities tied to the prison system from a biblical perspective. The stark contrast between consistent obedience and occasional grand gestures becomes evident as we delve into specific issues such as rampant assault and racial disparities in sentencing. Anton emphasizes the Christian duty to seek justice and love our neighbors, arguing that systemic failures often stem from neglecting these responsibilities. The conversation transitions into addressing root causes, such as family disintegration, to prevent future incarceration, highlighting that meaningful change demands persistent and often uncomfortable effort.

The complexities of prison reform are unraveled as we connect historical and systemic issues with contemporary racial disparities in incarceration rates. Anton advocates for a genuine commitment to justice, mercy, and humility, cautioning against superficial social justice movements.  Listen in as we explore these critical themes and their implications for meaningful reform.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

Hey and welcome to another episode of the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. This podcast episode is going to pretty much put a spotlight on Anton. Many of you know that Anton has different views and has strong passions, and one of the passions he has is about prison reform. The recording that you're about to hear is from Anton as he was teaching at a church upon this very topic. As he was teaching at a church upon this very topic, the format is more like a sermon format mode, but very informative, of understanding some of the things that we can be able to do to advance prison reform. So we hope you sit back and enjoy this episode about Anton and prison reform.

Speaker 2: 1:07

We're going to be in Micah chapter 6. The text is going to be Micah 6 through 8, but before we get there, what I would like to do is to just give a little background on Micah chapter 6. The text is going to be Micah 6 through 8, but before we get there, what I would like to do is to just give a little background on Micah, because I know the first thing in your Bible reading course is probably not the minor prophets. That's not usually where they start. He's a contemporary of Isaiah, isaiah having a much larger book. A lot of people would say Micah studied under Isaiah, so Isaiah would be the city boy to Micah's country folk. He comes at it from Isaiah being from Jerusalem, him from the town of Moresheth. You see him fighting all the time and you can find it in Micah chapter 3, where he's fighting against business leaders, other things of that nature. Micah comes at it from a let's not call it impoverished but a less wealthy perspective. A lot of the time he often argues even against the religious leaders who have, as Micah says, they've taken bribes and now they're giving prophecies for money and none of us can relate to that in our culture. Of course Nothing like that happens now. But as we get to Micah 6, what's actually happening is God's almost filed a lawsuit against Israel and as he does this, he pretty much tells Israel I've kept my end of the bargain, you haven't kept yours. And that's where you're going to find yourself.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Micah 6, verse 6. If you want to start reading with me, where was? Shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings? If you want to start reading with me, he has showed thee, O man, what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee? But to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. And we're going to go ahead and pray really quick. Is there any Father? Lord, we love you. We thank you for this time together. Lord, we know nothing will be accomplished without you. I pray that you will quiet our hearts, and mine too, and I pray that you will help us and that we will get from this message exactly what it is that you want us to have. In your son's name, we pray Amen. We're going to circle back to six and seven and we're going to start actually in verse eight. We're going to go ahead and start with what God wants from us, what the Lord requires of thee. We'll start with the recipe, we'll take it one at a time and then again we'll circle back and you'll see why in a minute. First, what does God ask us to do? What does God require of us? The first thing you're going to see in this recipe is that to do justly.

Speaker 2: 3:45

Now, in modern English vernacular, nobody says do well you might. The majority of people do not use terms like do justly. When I even read the passage the first time just trying for this particular sermon, just trying to get it I was trying to understand. When have I heard this before? And the only time I can ever remember actually hearing the topic to do justly is actually when I was in high school.

Speaker 2: 4:12

And in high school for people who didn't have to do it, you had a speech class. I wasn't very good at that either, because I'm not much of a talker, but you had to go up there and you had to do a pantomime. You had to do your poem, and I remember doing mine in high school. I did about what I'm doing now the walking back and forth, the nervous tics, and of course it didn't go exceptionally well.

Speaker 2: 4:32

But then they make you do something. They give you the sandwich method. One person gives you a positive, next person gives you a negative and the last person gives you another positive. And I remember my friend, one of my best friends at the time, was the first person they asked. And you know he looked. What did?

Speaker 2: 4:48

Anton do well, and you know when they looked down and tried out to make eye contact, anton do well, and you know, when they looked down and tried out to make eye contact, he had a nice shirt. No, about the performance, about the performance. Oh, the performance. He tried. He gave it his go. You can always count on him to give it a go. And the next person, they, you know, they just spat it off. He's nervous. I don't even know if he knows the poem, I don't know what he was doing up there. Then the last person tries to find a positive, can't do it.

Speaker 2: 5:14

But then, lastly, the teacher would say something Anton, you didn't do the poem justice. What does that mean? When someone says you didn't do something justice, what it means is you not do the proper respect. It almost came across disrespectful. Why? Because there was a standard that was here and you didn't meet the standard, you weren't close to it.

Speaker 2: 5:35

And when I think of to do justice and we take it to a New Testament principle, so it's not just like what we're talking about in Israel I would say this God has told us to love our neighbor. We all know that. So what is the standard of love that I should have for my neighbor? It's the same love I have for myself. That's the standard. If I don't meet that standard, I have not done that.

Speaker 2: 6:00

Command justice, and that's kind of the idea to which we seek when we see to do justly, it is to accomplish the standard of justice. That's what we're going for here. That's going to be point one. Then the next step in this formula, if you will, we have to do justice, then we have to love mercy. Now the idea of loving mercy is very interesting because, again, in most of these pairings you'll notice, it's not just one word, it's not just be just, it's not just have mercy, but to love mercy is going to be slightly different, because I would say everyone has the capacity for mercy. Well, I hope most of us have the capacity for mercy. We've seen something and we've had mercy.

Speaker 2: 6:46

The idea of in this passage of mercy is loving kindness. We could even think of it again if we're talking in New Testament terms Ephesians 4.32, and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. And the end of that verse really illustrates those concepts of mercy, because mercy to people for example, I had mercy on my son because he ate the last cookie is not an extreme case of mercy. When we really think of extreme cases of mercy, it's what we got from Jesus. It's when we don't deserve it but we were given it. That's what we're talking about when we talk to love mercy. It's more extreme than simply I was nice or I did something kind. It goes beyond that thought Now, not to push through, but I am going to go to verse the third point in this equation, and that is we're going to do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God.

Speaker 2: 7:44

Now, even in this passage, because obviously, micah being an older book in the Bible, even the concept of walking with God if in our time we think that that's not a big deal, but in that time God was not seen in the way that we think of today and that anthropomorphic-like language would be used, for example. We walk with him, we talk with him. God for most religions of the time would have been abstract wind, lightning. He's around us all, but never one place at a time. The entire concept of walking in this passage and in that time would have denoted something a relationship that was uncommon at the time. No one would have thought you would walk or be friends with God in other religions of the time. What he is trying to accomplish when he says walk with God is not only the relationship. That's why walk humbly is so important.

Speaker 2: 8:33

Again, a beautiful pairing Because, see, when we walk with God, we're not walking with him as equals, and I think sometimes that's lost Because, although God is our friend, when we see how great God is, it reminds us how small we really are. Although we are God's friend, we are not God's equal. Of course not. That's important when trying to do this, and I think honestly, as God always does, the pairing of these three things, any one of these things by themselves, although it seems great, isn't really great, because if I were just to love justice and have no mercy, I'm a tyrant and I can be a problem for everyone. If I were just to love mercy and have no justice, people would walk all over me. There'd be chaos everywhere. Now, if I were just to walk humbly with God over there in private, all the rest of you may fall. See, the justice gives me the responsibility of others because I care and I'm going to try to protect you. I'm trying to love you with the mercy and I know my place because I'm right by God. If we do all those three things at the same time, that's a beautiful place to live and that's why, again, that passage is one of my favorite.

Speaker 2: 9:48

Now, again, skipping verses 6 and 7. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? With the Lord be pleased, with a thousand rams or ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? When I see these things that Israel is willing to do for people who don't realize these are expensive sacrifices and again it ends with my firstborn it doesn't get any more prized than that the things Israel is willing to do to get back right with God. But then you read the formula and you think well, that's easy. That's all you had to do. But I think again and we're going to walk through some prison statistics in a second it all sounds well and good and easy right until we have to do that every day and I think sometimes in the prison system, for example.

Speaker 2: 10:48

Just to be specific, I know three of the things that we'll be talking about. One of them is when it comes to the concept of assault in prison, and I mean it's rampant and we don't like to talk about it because that's well not polite talk, if you would say One of the problems with prison. That again is going to come up several times. When we talk about race disparity in prison, well, we despise talking about race. I know it's terrible and even right now it's always awkward. You say race in any Baptist church I've ever been in, pen can drop. Now anything else you can get away with for a while. It doesn't even have to be direct, just the mention of it.

Speaker 2: 11:34

But here's the thing that I find so interesting and I'm right there with both you and, I think, the children of Israel, when God asks us for obedience. We love to be like, but I could give you a thousand rams. Now I see your humility. But I could give you some calves. I would love to just obey. But I mean, I would love to just give you something so that it will not take my every day, because I can tell you, promise you 110%, nothing that's going to fix the prison system will be easy, simple and clean. It won't. It's going to be hard. It's going to take years, if not not decades, if not centuries of work.

Speaker 2: 12:20

But see, what I love about the passage is that's what god requires. See, I don't have a choice. Really, see the children of israel do the same thing we do. We think there's a choice that we are going to debate god into god saying, fine, I'll take the firstborn. Like that's not's not real. God has already told you here's what I want. I want it all the time your obedience. But we have decided we'll give God literally anything but obedience when it comes to the prison system. And it comes to, in my opinion, the concept of justice loving your neighbor as yourself. In my opinion, the concept of justice loving your neighbor as yourself.

Speaker 2: 12:59

If someone were to see, for example, the disparity in drug crimes, if we want to go to the next one, which I know is about our drug-related crime in the United States that's going to be, although we have a problem and there are two times more likely, like just for perspective, if two people, black and white on average, go to prison for the exact same sentence. So let's say marijuana charge, possession, let's just begin. Let's just say two grams, whatever. On average, white people are going to spend 45% less time. These crimes are the same. There is no argument about well this, well his mom, no, the crimes are the same. The crimes are the same. These two people will spend a different amount of time. Does that make sense? Is that just? And if we know it's not just, again it's our imperative to do something. That is what our worldview compels us to do is say that's not right Now. Again, that's not going to be easy.

Speaker 2: 14:08

And the second part of that is, although it's not easy, it is your responsibility. And if we refuse to do our responsibility, I think we are currently seeing some of the effects of when Christians refuse to do our responsibility. I think we are currently seeing some of the effects of when Christians refuse to do their responsibility. I think this country, in a lot of ways, a lot of the prison system, is the fact that we didn't do our responsibility, because, in a lot of ways, the prison system is a result of the fact that we let our families fall apart and we were okay with it. And now we're feeding broken families every which way. We're feeding them to the foster care system, we're feeding them to the prison, we're feeding them all over the place. If we got to the core of that, it's the fact that what we're doing is neglecting our God-given responsibility and blaming everyone outside our church. This is ours, see. It says God. We know what is required of us, like even the passage. You know, like what are you talking about? You didn't know, of course. You knew your responsibility, but you wanted to do it a different way. And you see, I think in a lot of ways our prison system is suffering merely because our church is not involved.

Speaker 2: 15:27

One of the ways in which I feel you can help the prison system more than any other way is to stop people from getting in the prison system, and I think there are so many outlets to help that from the get-go. It's uncomfortable, but something isn't right. And again, we can disagree on what should be done. We can disagree on whether or not there are other factors. What we can't disagree on is one, it's our responsibility and two, it's not right. Now why it's happening. Again, that's up for debate.

Speaker 2: 16:02

Now the last I think the last slide is another thing that we'll be discussing later about prison and prison labor, which again I'm going to call it what it is, and we can disagree on that too. But slave labor, because again, the 13th Amendment. A lot of people would say 13th Amendment outlaws slavery. That is not completely correct. A lot of people would say 13th Amendment outlaws slavery. That is not completely correct. 13th Amendment outlaws slavery except as a penalty for a crime or for punishment of a crime. I'm not quoting the 13th Amendment, exactly right, but again, summarizing, that's the gist.

Speaker 2: 16:29

So in the United States, for example, privatized prison prisoners are working for 20 cents, sometimes 10 cents, I believe. Again I have a graph for that too, the average pay. But again, in our money it's nothing Like a quarter will buy you not even some juicy fruit anymore. I don't know what you're going to do with a quarter, but a quarter a day is not actual, real, adult money and in any other circumstance it would be illegal. Like if you worked at mcdonald's they said we'll give you a quarter. That's not, that's not a real thing again.

Speaker 2: 17:03

Do we believe as a country, or even as christians, that in our current because I know someone's gonna say, but slavery is in the bible, in our current cultural paradigm, like there are things that happen in the past that we all would agree, that's probably not a real thing, like I think most, think most of us would be like if a woman can get a job. Like we're not sitting here arguing every ultra dynamic. So in today's world, do we really think that slavery is okay? Not only is it okay, we're going to punish people by making them slaves so they can make money for a corporation that already has a billion dollars is not, in my mind, a reasonable assessment or a reasonable way to curb crime. Because if your goal was to curb crime, it's restorative justice, and I think, when we look at this and we think of loving mercy, that concept of forgiving that we were discussing, making a person a slave is not exactly how to go about that from my point of view.

Speaker 2: 18:06

I think, if we have the next one, privatized prisons are going to be a huge problem because of things like this, like this, because, as long as, again, we are all Americans, we all know. This is a capitalist society. If you're going to tell me I can pay someone 15 cents to make things, or I could pay you $15, and I'm a greedy corporation, again, let's take Christianity out of it. Which is part of the problem is that the church has kind of been on the sideline. You take the church out of that equation and say, just a bunch of business minds sitting around saying, what should we do, tim? Well, we're going to take the 15 cents all day, every day. And you see Starbucks, I believe and again we have other slides McDonald's, so many of these large corporations getting in bed with these privatized prisons and saying, well, let's do this, like, why would we not do that? That's ridiculous. Of course, we'll pay them nothing.

Speaker 2: 19:03

So I think it is imperative, as we go forward, for the church to take back its position as let's call it the moral arbiter of the justice system, because to me, that's what they're supposed to be. The middleman between the boys got to go sit down and maybe we should talk to them. There has to be someone in between who says, hey, here's what I think, again from, in my opinion, a biblical lens of justice. There's absolutely no way that you can punish people with slavery. Or again I would go as far as say, when it comes to sexual assault, I grew up in high school and I remember people being like and again I would go as far as say, when it comes to sexual assault, I grew up in high school and I remember people being like and again, it's a crass joke, don't drop the bar of soap, because everybody knew. Like it wasn't, like there was a secret, like no one knew what happened in prison. That's not true.

Speaker 2: 19:51

There's too many things that are terrible that we know that we've become very comfortable, kind of sweeping under the rug and ignoring and pretending that if we just don't say it out loud, we don't have anyone we love who's experienced it, that it'll just not exist anymore. And when it comes to the prison system, the United States, obviously the highest incarceration rate around the world. Number one by far, not even close around the world. Number one by far, not even close. We have so many people in prison. We could start another state. If you take the prison population right, put them over here, that would be the 27th largest state. Okay, so we're talking. This is a state that would have no representation. This is a state where they couldn't work for the federal government. This is a state that would have limited rights in pretty much every facet that we think of, but for some reason they're voiceless, we don't listen to them and we pretend that this problem of these millions is just going to go away. So as I close this, I just want to be clear on one thing. I guess going forward so we can kind of just finish the groundwork.

Speaker 2: 21:06

Prison reform is a difficult topic. It involves race, sexuality, assault. It's a graphic place. There's no way around that. There's no nice way to talk about prison reform there simply isn't. It's impossible to talk about prison reform without acknowledging kind of like again, I guess that's what I would use as an example. But when I spoke about Micah, I put him in his context. Right, we try to get a little background, a little history, to understand where he's coming from. There's no way to talk completely about prison reform without discussing our history, and some of that is also again, frankly unpleasant.

Speaker 2: 21:53

But there's no way you can actually address prison reform right here, right now, as if it happened in a vacuum. It didn't All of these, just like we just discussed earlier about all the black people being put in prison at two times the rate of whites. There's no way we can sit here and look at it now and go. But how did they get here? Without any discussion of what has happened in the past? It's just not accurate. It's just not fair, frankly.

Speaker 2: 22:16

Frankly, there's no way to discuss prison reform without suffering the church's inability to actually do anything about prison in their absence. It has to be discussed. There's there's no way to actually talk biblically about prison reform without understanding what biblical justice looks like. There's no way we're going to be able to actually get anywhere on the topic of prison reform if and again, I think this is a huge education factor if let's just be honest again, I know it's uncomfortable if a lot of wealthier people who are white Don't know anything about prisons, like I can tell you that should be changed and you'll go. I didn't know that was happening. That's where we are. There is a level of education that would have to be achieved before we can honestly say I want to help, because I've seen this and this is just me speaking from experience.

Speaker 2: 23:14

You know the old saying fools rush in. You have people who I think are of good intention, who just run and like we're going to change it all, and you know what happens. A lot of times I see them get very discouraged and then they turn to the people in verse six and seven saying I'll pay someone else to do it. And I see that all the time because you have to approach it. Both you know, the Bible talks about a person who's trying to build a tower but not counting the cost. Have to approach it. Both you know, the Bible talks about a person who's trying to build a tower but not counting the cost before he does it. Like I see that a lot of times when we're talking about these huge topics because right now, to be completely honest, we all know that some things are trendy. Right now, there's a trendy ban to be on, and it's usually the social justice ban. We have those and we're on the bandwagon. They don't actually know anything about prison reform, but they did a hashtag one time and that's kind of what.

Speaker 2: 24:07

We've turned a lot of these difficult things into Instagram screens and Instagram filters and I think, if we're actually going to approach it biblically, everything that we do and everything that we say has to be filtered. Am I doing justice? Am I doing it justly? Are we actually living that Okay. Is that the premise from which I stand? Do I love mercy? Am I being forgiving in this area? Because, again, it's going to be hard Forgiving past transgressions from a it's going to be hard. Forgiving past transgressions from a human perspective is going to be difficult. Like, again, every prisoner is not innocent, like they're not. Some people did exactly the thing they were convicted of and they will look you in the face in a prison ministry and say I did it. I do it again. Can you forgive them? Because, see, that's what we've been called to do. I have to still be able to, as the Bible says, even love my enemy. I have to be able to say God forgave you, so I can too. Are we living that? And, lastly, are we walking humbly with God? Or have we become? And I? Again? It's a problem that all of us have, because it's normal. We think that we are. Because I'll just speak for myself.

Speaker 2: 25:27

You grew up in a Christian home. Both my brothers were preachers Most of my life. When I was going to college it was hey, you're Adrian or Aaron's little brother. It's about to say insert brother, you're their brother. You must be a great person. Come on in. Like you know the bar of trying to fit in in all reality was just never there, like it was a very simple thing. And then you saw the other people and again we were black obviously. So it's like we're the only black person in a lot of spaces we were in. So it was like, okay, great, they're great. So I never really had to deal with it.

Speaker 2: 26:06

Then you got older and it was like I'm the only black person here. Like you didn't know it at first, when you were young, it didn't really occur to you. Then you got older and started looking around and then you tried, you started to understand that we were a different kind of black. We were a black that was non-threatening, like the people that would be like, hey, man, black people are crazy, not you, you're Anton, you know we were that black. Like the people would say something in front of you and then realize, oh no, you're black. I forget that sometimes and you know you'd feel very awkward and uncomfortable. But to actually be able to, I think, in my opinion, I think it helped us, because now the concept of walk humbly, you don't understand it until God puts you down there.

Speaker 2: 26:49

And again I think those situations when you start feeling like no, I'm that black guy, like I'm the black guy other black people don't like, because I sit next to the people who are doing bad things and say that's okay. And then, after you sit there for a long time, you realize, oh no, well, and then I think right now, if you say Anton, as a, as a black person, I know I'll never be able to understand struggle, blah, blah, blah. But what you're saying makes me feel I'm not going to use the word bad but uncomfortable. I think you're right in the right space. I think that's exactly where you're supposed to be. The same discomfort that I think some white people feel about a black person talking about race. Trust me, I feel that same discomfort when I hear some white people feel about a black person talking about race. Trust me, I feel that same discomfort when I hear a white person talking about race. You have that little like that ticking in that head like this is going to go south and you don't know how to navigate it. And I don't think that either party can navigate it, because to me, the proper place for both these conversations, the proper place to help prison reform, is exactly right here in church, like if you want a good talk about race. To me, you should find it at church. See, they're the people who should be teaching you what race means.

Speaker 2: 28:15

It's not pretending it doesn't exist, but so many times I think we've taken these conversations and outsourced them, and they've gotten very weird because of it, when, if we just kept them and did what was required of us, I think we'd find prison reform. It's not going to be easy, but I think that is the point. At times, we believe that we have to be great. We don't. Our God is. I don't need you to be great. In no way are any of us have the ability, the talent or the intellect to solve any of these problems. I think one of the problems is we actually believe, I think, that we can solve problems or that we could navigate any of this. Without God. We can't, and that is why let's bring all the conversation right back here and make sure everything we discuss comes from this lens, and I think we'll find we're in a far better spot than we started.