Christ, not crime: 19 Inmates baptized by Prison Chaplain
-Pastor-Dale-Morgan-
Christ, not crime: 19 Inmates baptized by
Prison Chaplain
For 19 prisoners, baptism symbolizes a release from past wrongs and the promise of a happier way of life
Tom Dodge | Dispatch at; http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/04/23/christ-not-crime-inmates-baptized.htmlMARION, Ohio — As Delbert Robinson emerged from the baptismal water, a huge smile erupted on his face. He thrust both arms in the air.
Cheers, applause and shouts of “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” broke out from 125 people in the audience.
“I felt good. I was happy,” Robinson, 37, said later. “ I’ve got five kids. I want to be a better family man, a better father.”
On a night of prayers by chaplain Tim Smith and music by the Rag Tag Worship Team, 19 men were baptized last week. Baptism is a Christian rite symbolizing “cleansing” a person’s sins, leaving him with a clean slate.
An abundance of tattoos, an unusually loud emphasis on singing the words My chains are gone, I’ve been set free and blue shirts with “DRC INMATE” written on them were the only giveaways that the baptismal service was behind prison walls at the Marion Correctional Institution.
Baptisms are not unheard of in prison.
Ohio prisons chief Gary C. Mohr called it a “great thing” and said he has no problem with church services taking place in state prisons.
“I’m a believer, on a couple levels, that this is the right thing to do,” he said. “I do not see an issue of separation of church and state. It’s absolutely voluntary and optional without any degree of coercion. We recognize there are multiple faiths in our prisons, and we need to support those.
“What we’re attempting to do,” Mohr added, “is to reach some point with every person that helps them reduce their chance of returning to prison. Regardless of whether it’s a Muslim, Jewish or Christian spiritual event, it has the opportunity to make positive change in people.”
The Marion prison has a long history of religious life behind bars. Built in 1954, it is the last prison in the state to have an actual chapel, not a dining hall or multipurpose room converted for religious services. The prison has some voluntary multifaith dorms where Christians, Jews and Muslims live together.
Smith said before inmates are baptized — an event that happens twice a year — they must undergo a three-month “spiritual formation” consisting of fasting, prayer, service and silence.
“We’re not saying this is going to be easy,” Smith told the men awaiting baptism. “If you think the devil’s mad at you now, what till you really step up.”
The baptismal candidates, wearing shorts, T-shirts and shower clogs, stood together at the front of the chapel, singing and clapping. Some cried, tears trickling across a forest of tattoos on their necks. More than 100 inmates attended as spectators.
One by one, the 19 men approached the temporary baptismal tank half-filled with water. Smith and in some cases an outside religious sponsor baptized them, immersing them in water for a few seconds, a process Smith later described as being “grafted to Christ.”
Charles Jones, 41, who suffered a heart attack while working out at the prison, said he left the hospital after less than 72 hours so he wouldn’t miss being baptized. The Cleveland man, a former gang member, is nearing the end of a 25-year sentence for murder, aggravated robbery and assault.
“You know, I’ve done a lot of dirt in my life,” he said, “and I’m going to do the right thing and be the right person I wanted to be, not for the cameras, but for God,” Charles said. “I had a heart attack, and he pulled me out of it.”
“I was so nervous,” said Jeremiah Hall, 23, a Clevelander serving 10 years for robbery. “All my life I’ve been running from Jesus. I lived in the streets. Now, I can’t turn back.”
Hall said other inmates keep a close eye on religious believers, prodding them to fail. “It’s not going to be easy, but it will be a beautiful struggle.”
Mike Carter, 59, the leader of the Rag Tag Worship Team and a member of the Vineyard Church of Delaware County, has played at the Marion prison a dozen times in the past year or so. When he started, Carter said, he was “scared to death of prisons,” but that’s eased over time.
“I feel God’s going to watch over me. ... We’re just a bunch of average Joes that got together to play worship music. We get a lot of gratification and blessing out of it.”
Carter said many inmates thank him personally. “I just want to thank you for not forgetting about us. A lot of us don’t get visitors,” one told him.
After the service, the inmates lingered in the chapel, high-fiving and hugging each other, talking and praying. No one was in a hurry to return to their cells; prison officials, in a generous mood, did not rush them.
It seemed like a scene from the movie Shawshank Redemption,
filmed not far away at the old Mansfield Reformatory, in which the
inmates pause to listen to opera music that is “like some
beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those
walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last
man ... felt free.”
Read More: Revealing
Testimony! Do You Need To Be Properly and Biblically
Baptized?