Peculiar grace

By Sarah S. Howell

For almost a year now, I have been corresponding regularly with William Barnes (“Tim”), prisoner #0020590 at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. Tim is on Death Row for the 1990 murder of two people.

Tim converted to Islam while in prison and we converse often about his religion and mine. Tim is not afraid to share his faith or to ask pointed questions about Christianity. Once he asked how Jesus could be born of Mary and also have in him the fullness of God. Tim couldn’t make sense of this, and it became my task to explain the Christian belief in the humanity and divinity of Christ. As a religion student, I am used to using and hearing words like “eschatological” and “soteriology”: to have to delineate the fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith is humbling.

Tim ends every letter saying that he will pray for me and signs it, “God bless, Tim.” He often quotes the writings of Muslim imams, talks about Ramadan and asks me questions about my spiritual disciplines when describing his. How often do I pray? How often do I fast? I’ve found that my personal accountability is challenged more by Tim’s curiosity than by the Christian communities to which I belong. A man who faces no escape but death is praying for me: this gives me a great perspective on how and for what I pray.

I expected that writing to a death row inmate would help me get to know someone from a completely different sector of society, gain me another perspective on the justice system, and challenge me to work for an alternative to the death penalty and find avenues of restorative justice. I did not expect, however, to have my faith revitalized by conversation with a Muslim prisoner. Tim has been a means of grace in my life.

Sarah Howell is a junior at Duke University.

Comments

[Richard Finch]

Surely this young lady has more to say on a variety of subjects, maybe we could hear more from her? As far as accountability goes, who among us is surprised that a Muslim is more devout and accountable than the average American Christian?

[Craig Kocher]

It's refreshing to see a real world example of how people of different faiths can engage one another with substance and thought, rather than pretending we're all the same, or seeking only to "win" the debate.

[SusanM]

Sarah, your reflections on your contact with a prisoner who is a Muslim made me think back to a time when I was a jogger and spent time with Martha, another young faculty wife. She is the closest I've come to encountering an atheist (ruined she said by her early upbringing in a fundamentalist home). Over several years, I do not know how much of our conversations stayed with her as they did with me, but I feel God placed me there at her side as a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I have always trusted that the Spirit did work on us both--I always pray that another person picked up after I moved away, to listen to Martha. She was my "Tim," and I try to remain open to others in this way.

[Jim]

Jesus said that if we visit the prisoner we do this unto him. How peculiar is grace then for a Muslim prisoner, when visited, to become Christ the teacher? Beautifully conceived blog.

[Rick Brand]

I seem to remember a letter from a student at Duke who was from another country and another faith, who could not believe that Christians would allow their High Holy Days like Christmas and Easter to be so perverted and abused as Christians in this country do. She just was amazed and so disappointed that we allowed our faith to be so polluted. There are great lessons to be learned from other faithful people.