Punishment and Prison: Barth's Doctrine of Reconciliation and the Abolition Spirit

This article considers Barth's views on punishment as demonstrated both in his work on the atonement and through his ministry with incarcerated persons. I examine his history in ministry with those in prison, his visits to prisons in the US, and conversations with prison chaplains, along with his discussion of God's punishment of the ‘one great sinner’. Though a forensic framing of Barth's account of the atonement has dominated interpretations of his soteriology, the apocalyptic elements in Barth's account of Christ's work provide a promising direction for those seeking an approach to atonement that does not rely on courtrooms as sites of justice or punishment as a path to reconciliation. Given Barth's interest in prisons and concern for the prisoner, I examine his views on punishment alongside current prison abolition movements. I find Barth's commitment to a useful function of punishment to be at odds with the abolitionist perspective, but I also see resources in his theology that are compatible with the abolitionist imagination. I read the apocalyptic pattern in Barth's theology as resonant with the spirit of abolition through a focus on accountability over individual guilt and the promise of radical change, that is the end of an old system and the imaginative creation of something entirely new.