Late twelfth and early thirteenth century Christologies took the Lombard’s three “opinions” as their starting place in treating the mode of the union of divinity and humanity in Christ; later scholastic theologians, like Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus, would pursue similar questions in terms of his act of existence. This interest in the union of natures in Christ also gave rise to a deepened interest in Christ’s humanity, represented especially in the early Franciscan school and Thomas Aquinas. Finally, Mechthild of Madgeburg and Julian of Norwich represent two medieval Christologies produced beyond a university context.

Malcolm X’s prison letters not only chronicle his relationship with his relatives, most significantly with Ella, but also provide a portal through which readers begin to gather some notion of the profound thinker and activist he would become. The letters are a bedrock of his growth and development, a form of self-discovery and rumination that will guide him to a higher level of social and political commitment. The exchange of missives between him and Elijah Muhammad is like a graduate course in history and Black Nationalism, all of which shaped his quest for enlightenment and leadership. Readers get a chance to look over his shoulder as he grapples with his incarceration and how best to use this time to improve himself as a writer, thinker, and debater. In effect, this is the beginning of Malcolm X who would evolve into El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, an internationalist and spokesperson for the oppressed and marginalized.

Angela Davis, George Jackson, and other prominent Black intellectuals and radicals shaped abolition in different ways. The evolution and popularization of abolition promoted by Angela Davis was influenced by her own traumatic incarceration. Jon Jackson, the younger brother of George Jackson, had worked with Angela Davis to support the incarcerated men through the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee. Without her permission, in August 1970, Jonathan Jackson took guns belonging to Angela Davis to wage a raid at Marin County Courthouse in order to take hostages that could be exchanged to free Black prisoners. Prison guards shot and killed Jon Jackson, two Black prisoners, and a white judge in a stationary van. Davis fled the state, fearing reprisal from reactionaries, and was arrested by the FBI in October. During her incarceration, George Jackson was also killed by prison guard(s) in August 1971. Acquitted of all charges in 1972, Angela Davis advocated for abolition and over decades aligned abolition with advocacy academics; her work also increasingly focused on gender leadership of women and feminism, as noted in Women, Race and Class.

Scriptural testimony, as understood in Christian theology, is the primary window into the divine life that has been provided through revelation. Thus, when Jesus says that he and the Father will send the Holy Spirit as an advocate for Christians (Luke 24:49; John 14:26) and also claims that the Spirit proceeds from the Father (John 15:26) a tension emerges. This chapter seeks to investigate that tension, scripturally, historically, and theologically, before turning to some possible ways forward.

Judging by rates of criminal recidivism, the very trauma that leads to American incarceration only amplifies inside facilities whose purported mission is to rehabilitate. Using psychiatric, literary, and sociological studies alongside three twentieth-century prison memoirs written by American men of color – Jarvis Jay Masters’s That Bird Has My Wings (2009), Shaka Senghor’s Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison (2013), and Ravi Shankar’s Correctional (2022) – this essay examines the use of bibliotherapy as a means of processing traumatic memory, reconnecting with community, redressing harm, and reclaiming control over one’s story to help stimulate and accelerate the process of healing and recovery. Life writing, and memoir specifically, allows for the transfiguration of generational, localized, and institutional trauma while bearing witness to the inner workings of carceral spaces, which are disproportionately populated by men of color and intentionally kept concealed from public view.

This chapter surveys contemporary contextual Christologies that have adopted the explanatory and constitutive genres of contextual theologizing. It focuses on aspects of Māori, Pacific, Indigenous Australian, Native American, and African receptions of Christology.

There is a worry that central claims pertaining to the divinity and humanity of Christ form a logically inconsistent set. This chapter briefly surveys and critically examines some of the ways of addressing the worry of inconsistencies and advocates a minimalist approach to resolving the worry.

George Jackson inhabits a central position in the living archive of diasporic Black radical and global revolutionary intellectuals. This chapter examines how Jackson’s political thought emerged through his consistent self-identification as an ordinary Black person inhabiting the historical, structural antiblackness of the United States. Against the telos of many carceral/prison narratives, Jackson’s Soledad Brother reflects the developing thought of a Black liberationist, carceral insurrectionist, and diasporic revolutionary whose primary political and cultural work is not focused on achieving his personal freedom (i.e. release from prison) but rather on organizing and proliferating radical ruptures of an existing oppressive order – what Jackson famously identifies in Blood in My Eye as “perfect disorder.” To study Soledad Brother and Blood in My Eye is to meditate on the consistency and militant commitment with which Jackson exhibited characteristics that made him an influential educator, organizer, and political intellectual during and beyond his lifetime, especially among contemporaneous and subsequent generations of politically activated (Black) captives of the state.

This chapter explores how metaphysical models, particularly the compositional and transformational approaches, can help elucidate the doctrine of the Incarnation. While these models face challenges, such as the Nestorian and Attributes Problems, various solutions have been proposed to address these issues and align the models with orthodox Christology. Ultimately, metaphysical models aim to provide coherence and plausibility to the mystery of the Incarnation, contributing to the ongoing work of analytic theology in understanding this central Christian doctrine.

Women’s prison zines in the 1970s represent a pivotal moment in the evolution of feminist grassroots media, marking a sustained effort by incarcerated women to create their own platforms for self-expression and political organizing. Emerging from Black Power, queer liberation, and prison abolition movements, zines challenged dominant narratives about crime, punishment, and women’s experiences of incarceration. Historically, the carceral state and its monopoly over the bodies of imprisoned individuals played crucial roles in suppressing the voices and experiences of incarcerated women, particularly women of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Zines like Through the Looking Glass, No More Cages, and Bar None were consequential to incarcerated women’s ability to forge solidarity networks, articulate anti-carceral feminist perspectives, and imagine alternatives to incarceration. The chapter utilizes literary analysis to delineate the impact of these zines, demonstrating how these publications functioned as tools for activism, self-expression, and community-building within the constraints of the carceral system.

Susan Burton’s memoir, Becoming Ms. Burton, exposes the systemic inequalities perpetuated by the penal system on women of color. Burton cycled in and out of prison for over a decade before she demanded treatment for her addiction. Burton’s memoir shows how childhood trauma, including rape, became a catalyst for her drug addiction; how the self-perpetuating pattern of addiction, crime, and incarceration inflicts new trauma; how the transformative power of self-reflection and healing enables her to have empathy and compassion for others facing similar challenges, and how that led her to break the cycle by creating an organization to help other women getting out of prison to stay sober, address their trauma, and stay free. Burton’s story of reaching back to help women escape the system has earned her the honorific title of a modern-day Harriet Tubman.

This chapter argues that many New Testament authors develop their Christologies through the use of quotations of Scripture. Images for figures in Jewish interpretation provide a rich resource for these authors as they describe the significance of the work of Jesus for the people of God. This chapter features four passages with a network of scriptural references to illustrate the breadth of Christology represented in the New Testament Epistles.