Throughout the twentieth century, evangelicals, like Chuck Colson and Bill Glass, founded new prison ministries and developed novel forms of prison outreach. These ministries were wildly successful in transforming the practice of religion in American prisons but faced challenges negotiating the brutal inequalities of the carceral state and complex religious diversity of American prisons. For the 2022 Archival Research Lecture, Aaron Griffith explores this evangelical prison movement and its associated complications, with an eye toward future possibilities for evangelical ministry and advocacy on behalf of incarcerated people.

Following the lecture will be a reception and exhibit of documents from Buswell Library Archives & Special Collections.

Dr. Aaron Griffith is assistant professor of modern American history at Whitworth University, where he specializes in the history of evangelicalism, African American religions, social activism, and American politics. His book, God's Law and Order: The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America (Harvard University Press, 2020), was awarded Christianity Today's Best Book Award for History & Biography in 2022.

For more information contact Buswell Library Archives & Special Collections at 630.752.5910 or archives@wheaton.edu