Radford Noone Research Service

climbing your family tree

Mighty Drofdar

The Tract Rack and the Religious Supermarket

 

 

Sharp as razors! That’s what some of the volunteers are. However, they don’t always let their keen intellect and searing people skills out to play with the guys. The guys don’t realize that I’ve discussed with the Mormon volunteers the differences between Wiccan and Satanism and how they are not the same thing. Nor do they realize that the last director discussed with me the difference between Wiccan and the old Nordic religion known as Asatru, both of which are practiced among the inmates. Little do the inmates comprehend that not all Mormon volunteers are of the white bread cookie-cutter model. Then there’s me who doesn’t hide much. I’m sure by now most of the men think my razor has been dulled from too much use and abuse. They may be right.

             One of my favorite places in the entire Wasatch Chapel area is the tract rack in the very back area of the sanctuary. As you enter the doors from the foyer it’s immediately to the right. I see it as a place of wonder and mystery. It’s a place where I can open my mind to the world beyond the confines of my own preconceived notions. It’s about as interdenominational as it gets. All evangelical Christian traditions represented at the prison have literature in the rack. This material represents Baptist-Calvinistic, Holiness-Pentecostal, mainstream, and just about anything else that you would classify under that vast umbrella term called evangelical. Mainstream Protestants such as the Episcopal Church have literature. Non-Protestant Christian-based organizations such as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses keep the tract rack well supplied with their publications. The Roman Catholic Church and Islam have publications in both English and Spanish.  Whether you’re grabbing a quick read of the Watchtower magazine, sneaking a peek at what the Mormons are up to, grooving to the born-again beat, or simply curious about Islam, it’s all there staring you in the face.

             There are several aspects of the tract rack (more of a wall) that make it special and unique. To me my proverbial tract rack represents inclusiveness. Everybody is represented who wants to be represented, and they don’t have to be run-of-the-mill Christian to belong to the tract rack club. What a lesson for the rest of the world. If the world could just see what I see every time I walk by it – perhaps the symbolism would catch on of living side-by-side in peace while in a pluralistic and extremely diverse world.

             Even if some of the guys or religious volunteers think the whole wall is heretical, they are wise enough to keep their mouths shut. At the track rack, the inmates are exposed to beliefs that they may otherwise have never come across on the outside. Here they can explore what they want, what they don’t want, and what they have no opinion about either way.

             Maybe what makes this particular tract rack so unique is the insertion of Mormonism. For anyone from areas of the Rocky Mountains with large Mormon populations, the significance of this would certainly bypass them as they are used to the LDS Church and familiar with its literature and books. For anyone outside of the Mormon Zion, the presence of this “other” faith (being neither Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant) would be very evident. In a typical prison the main staple ministries would be Catholic, Protestant, and Muslim, with the Catholic or Protestant ministries being the largest. However, in Utah it’s the Mormon efforts that are by far the largest. Yes, there are lots of inmates who come from LDS backgrounds. The funny thing is that not all participants in Mormon programs are of LDS heritage. I’ve talked to many men who attend LDS services and church-sponsored functions who have never been Mormon. The same is true for the men who utilize the family history center.  I find it fascinating that men who have never been Mormon, don’t come from a Mormon family, and to my knowledge will never convert to Mormonism when they get out yet will attend these functions. The LDS Church acts like a wedge in the prison religious system, and it plays out in a similar fashion as it does on the streets of Salt Lake City. I say wedge, but that’s not necessarily meant as a negative. In fact it is a positive in many very substantial ways. Wedges can be thought of as keystones, which are stabilizing forces holding everything together as people seek to define themselves in terms of the wedge itself.

             The LDS Church as the majority religion does help to stabilize Rocky Mountain society whether it’s in the prison or on the outside. It’s not fundamentalist by any means, although it does have some very conservative overtones. While strict in its approach to life, the church theology does preach a developed sense of free-will and tolerance towards those outside the faith. This remains even when members may not practice what is being preached to them. Even in what most people on the outside would point to as its intolerant aspects, there is still an odd tolerance built within that intolerance, which acts as a stabilizing force.

             It is partly because of the Mormons that the other ministries are able to function on a regular basis throughout the week. It’s usually, although not always, the Mormon volunteers from the family history center who are called and assigned to staff the door, manage the walkie-talkie, and provide the correct number of volunteers so that all programs can operate properly. Without the correct number of volunteers, the prison would not allow any programs to function. So all religious ministries are indebted to the Mormon volunteers who stabilize the chapel area, and when needed they share these responsibilities with men from the other ministries such as from Calvary Chapel or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. All of the ministries work together as a family for the betterment of the inmates.

             The most items in the tract rack belong to the Mormons, Roman Catholics, and the Muslims. Not that Islam is the third largest group in the prison system, or even in Utah. They just feel the zeal to get their message out and understood. So alongside the brochures and magazines from the various ministries one will find the Bible, the LDS Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Quran. All are within reach of the other -- world scripture just ripe for the picking. This to no small degree has created the environment of the religious supermarket. When I’m around the tract rack at the prison, I’m simply ga-ga.

             The tract rack at the prison throws me out of reality. Other than a few prison oriented brochures and newspapers by evangelical ministries, there’s not much that speaks of a prison. For the few minutes that I’m browsing the shelves I’m no longer in a prison. But where am I?   

Some religious people on the outside are very critical of the supermarket approach to religion, where people pick and choose what they like and discard the rest. I live my life in that zone, so for me it’s not a problem. I’m just as likely to be reading the Quran as I am the Bhagavad Gita or something by my favorite Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. I can maneuver between the latest systematic theology books on the evangelical market to New Age works such as Conversations with God finding solace in all. By the very nature of the prison system where no religion can be given preferred treatment, it encourages the supermarket religion.

             I first came across this idea of supermarket religion through my brother-in-law Nelson a couple of years before my volunteer work at the prison. He’s in his early fifties, thinning red hair, thick glasses and is soft spoken. He had been convicted of a crime while I was married to his sister Cindy and he was in the state prison for six years. Frankly he was a throw-away person in the eyes of most the family. Many of the inmates also find themselves in this position. I really didn’t know him that well because his behaviors and alcohol dependency made him a person that none of us wanted to be around. So when he was convicted and incarcerated it was easy to self-righteously say, “Well maybe now he’ll reach rock bottom.”

             My eyes were opened after Cindy and I divorced. Nelson had been in prison for several years at that point, and I hadn’t really given him much thought – or at least positive thought. When he found out from his father about the divorce, he sent me a letter and told me how sorry he was to hear about it. I had never received a letter from him before. The letter was intelligent and very clear as each sentence was well thought out. Who was this person writing me? It couldn’t be Nelson could it? So I wrote him back. At the time I failed to realize just how monumental it was for him to write me. It brought up all those rejection issues in him. He told me later that he worried “What if Dwight doesn’t write me back?” This was huge for him to take that risk and put himself on the line – even if the line was only in his own mind.

From his initial letter, we corresponded for awhile, and I was shocked by this really likable person whom I was experiencing. The shift in his world view was that great. He was funny, he talked clearly and intelligently. He asked questions and provided his own perspective to topics. He asked about my life and seemed genuinely interested. I couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t the real Nelson hiding under the alcohol for all those years. It’s amazing how intelligent, compassionate and thoughtful a person can be when they are clean. This led me to filling out the paperwork for visitation rights and then going to see him once or twice each month. That was my first experience with the prison system, and it was through sitting with him in the visiting room that I first learned about supermarket religion in prison. Since his release to parole, we continue our friendship and fascinating conversations.

             While in prison, Nelson didn’t attend any church services regularly. He had negative attitudes toward most of the ministries. This does not mean that he didn’t explore. In our letters and during our visits he and I had discussed karma, conspiracy theories, things he was learning in his prison therapy classes, and general religious topics. He has developed into a kindred spirit.

             It was in prison that he was exposed to ideas that circulated and re-circulated throughout the prison system. It’s a closed off environment where word of mouth about a particular book, philosophy, radio talk show, or just general gossip spreads like wildfire. The inmates are more well-read in psycho-spiritual literature, metaphysical and self-help books than I am. “Have you read The Secret, Dwight?”  I will be asked. Well, no I haven’t, although it seems like everyone else on the planet has but me at times. Part of this cycle is the gossip and the trading of gossip. The men will try and weasel information out of me when there’s internal politicking going on at the family history center. I smile and say, “Nice try.” Then I come back a week later, or even simply after lunch, and they already have it all figured out and they are telling me! Maybe that’s their way of just letting me know that they are going to find out one way or another, with or without my help. That’s also how the religious supermarket works.

It was through Nelson that I learned about various radio talk shows, and the content of these shows gave us hours of discussions. While in prison, he became a devotee of the late night radio talk show “Coast to Coast” (www.coasttocoastam.com) which featured any number of esoteric, paranormal, conspiracy theory, and things that go bump in the night episodes. It seems that “Coast to Coast” remains to this day somewhat of a prison staple. Personally I’ve never listened to “Coast to Coast” since it airs from ten to eleven p.m. through four or five a.m. on a Salt Lake City AM station. There is no doubt that this is past my bedtime. What are these guys doing up that late? They don’t even have podcasts.

                                                                              Continued…..