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Scriptures, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Introduction

Interchangeable with holy/sacred book, “scriptures” is the English language term that is still popularly used to refer to a text or collection of texts deemed to be of special if not unique origins, authority and power. Users of the term also tend to assume that “the Bible” of the Jewish and Christian traditions represents either the only instance of such or the example par excellence among some others. A popular linguistic and rhetorical placeholder among cultures of Indo-European origins, the English term originally simply meant (from the Greek graphe/-ai, ta biblia; Latin, scriptura/-ae; Hebrew, ketav/-uvim) and continues to mean …

Spiritual Liberation Or Religious Discipline: The Religious Right’S Effects On Incarcerated Women, Eva Delair

Scripps Senior Theses

The history of the prison system in the US is inextricably linked to Christianity. Penitentiary shares its root word, penitence, with repentance. Quakers and Congregationalists started the very first prisons because they viewed the corporal punishment of that time to be cruel (Graber 20). Even today, prisons are required to hire chaplains to make sure incarcerated people have the freedom to practice religion inside of the prison. The largest volunteer group serving incarcerated people is Prison Fellowship, an arm of the Religious Right which began in the 1970s and is now the largest faith based group of its kind1 (Prison …