Bible League International believes their efforts to place Bibles in prisons may help alleviate some of the bleakness prisoners face. They’re working to spread the Word of God in ways that can be not only easily accessible to any reader, but that are actually relevant and helpful to their lives.
Indeed, prison is no happy place to be, despite how some would paint it. Free meals, free cable, internet access, a gym. That might be the claim of those who would take away what few pleasures and rights an inmate has, but the desperate truth is that cable, internet, and gyms aren’t a guarantee in prisons, and where they do exist, they benefit the institution and its employees, while doing the bare minimum to improve the lives of the prisoners themselves. As for the free meals, in many cases they are the bare minimum necessary to meet caloric requirements, and no great treat.
Recall that in prison, one has no freedom. There is no privacy. A prisoner sleeps and eats when told to do so, submits to strip searches on demand, and has no privacy for bathing or using the toilet. If this sounds horrific to you, recall that that’s only the indignities endorsed by the management. From other prisoners, there is the risk of rape or other assaults and attacks.
There is the pressure to be a member of a gang. Despite regulations, gangs thrive in prisons, and a prisoner may find himself choosing between joining one or fearing for his life. How does a normally peaceful person who would like to keep to himself keep his head down, finish his time, and go home, reconcile himself with this decision?
Even as some claim that prisoners are coddled and treated too well on a taxpayer dime, surely no one believes that rape, assault, hunger, and fear are anything a human being truly deserves. Aside from the simple human decency of wanting prisoners to not have completely miserable lives, there is the safety of the officers, and the control aspect, keeping inmates from rioting.
The truth is, correctional officers report that these few home comforts actually make prisons safer. A bored inmate can be a dangerous inmate, while an inmate who is watching the football game is apt to be an inmate who is sitting still, relatively quiet, busy, and not doing harm to anyone else. Prisoners who have enough exercise are also less likely to take out pent-up aggression on others, or on correctional officers, some prison workers say.
Bible League International believes that providing religious leadership and guidance to prisoners may also help meet both of these purposes.
To help combat the horrors of life in prison, they have developed the Prison Bible, which contains a series of 52 scriptural lessons designed to be of particular influence and benefit to the incarcerated.
The lessons include Following Jesus Inside of Prison, Relating to People in Authority, and Controlling Anger, among others. Bible League international says the Prison Bible is excellent for individual or group study. t also includes resources such as goal charts, address book, and scripture references for dealing with negative emotions.
The group is distributing them in conjunction with their Easy-To-Read Bible, which is written in simple modern English to make it more accessible and understandable to the average reader.
In addition to making life less bleak for the prisoners who find Christ through their ministry, Bible League International hopes that perhaps the moral guidance found in their literature may help inmates make wise decisions. Decisions that will not only guide their actions and interactions during incarceration, but lead them to a happier, fuller, and perhaps cleaner life after release.
The organization isn’t only seeking to make Bibles more accessible to prisoners. They’ve worked to develop a Bible that’s easy to read, and translate it into over thirty languages, addressing a barrier to Bible access that many overlook.
While most Americans have exposure to Bibles, and access to the text, the language, flowery and ancient, may be a stumbling block for the average reader in the modern world. Numerous terms and references make little sense without an understanding of the times, customs, and language in which they were originally written. There is endless debate about the actual meaning of some lines and verses.
According to the group, their Easy-To-Read Bible is clear and simple enough to be read and understood by even beginning readers, thus surpassing this particular difficulty.
They also make the Bible, and Biblical literature, available in digital formats on DVD, SD card, and mobile apps, making a thick book pocket-perfect, and making it easy for anyone to find whatever reference is needed as quickly as an advanced Biblical scholar.
Prison is a dark, unfriendly, frightening experience, but Bible League International believes that with this project, they can make it just a little brighter.