The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America [Paperback]

Mark Lewis Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 23, 2001

Winner, Best General Interest Book for 2001, Association of Theological Booksellers Between 1980 and 2000, the number of prisoners in the U.S. has tripled to over 2 million people, 70 percent of them people of color. Indeed, by 2000, 3,600 people were on America's death rows. This growth industry currently employs 523,000 people. Among abuses that Mark Taylor notes in this "theater of terror" are capital punishment, inordinate sentencing, violations of fairness in both process and results, racism in the justice system and prisons, prison rape and other terrorizing techniques, and paramilitary policing practices. With twenty-five years of involvement with prison reform, Taylor passionately describes and explains the excesses and injustices in our corrections system and capital punishment to foster compassionate and effective Christian action. His book convincingly relates the life-engendering power of God - demonstrated in Jesus' cross and resurrection - to the potential transformation of the systems of death and imprisonment.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As more Christians begin taking stands on the justice system (see review of Charles Colson's Justice That Restores, this issue), some are critiquing it as an "injustice" system. In The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America, Princeton Theological Seminary professor Mark Lewis Taylor attacks U.S. prisons as racist and unjust. Taylor discusses violations such as prison rape, excessively long sentences and capital punishment, employing the example of Jesus as a means of transforming an evil system. "It is time to confess forthrightly that in Jesus of Nazareth, God suffered not just death but execution... supported by religious officials," he notes. Taylor's voice is strident and uncompromising, making this a moving if controversial read.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this work, Taylor (theology and culture, Princeton Theological Seminary) discusses the similarities between the current U.S. prison system and that of imperial Rome, where Jesus Christ and his followers were considered a criminal element. He explains how economics, a culture of terror, and other methods of catalyzing people have created a "lockdown society" in which the downtrodden suffer punitive indignities. The rise of the prison population, under the premise of protecting society, has diminished the freedom for society as a whole, with the United States leading the way for a global lockdown. Taylor shows how ancient Rome saw the crucifixion as a just deterrent and method of control over poorer and slave populations who might threaten the system of imperial privilege if they resisted authority. Jesus created a popular movement that dared to challenge the elite, leading Pontius Pilate to deploy his only means of control over the unrest execution. Taylor points to a current movement that also seeks to undermine police brutality, prison industries, and the death penalty. This book serves as a reminder and expos of the systemic failure of criminal justice as it creates more victims of crime and dishonors those already victimized, but Taylor strays from his premise. This is recommended only for larger religious and sociology collections. Leo Kriz, West Des Moines P.L.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers (April 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800632834
• ISBN-13: 978-0800632830
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #370,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Lewis Taylor is Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Theology and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. His most recent book is entitled, _The Theological and the Political: On the Weight of the World_ (Fortress Press, 2011).

Previously, his most recent book was _Religion, Politics and the Christian Right: Post-9/11 Politics and American Empire_ (2005), and currently is speaking on themes of that volume. In his book, _The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America_(2000), Taylor developed a Christology in response to U.S. empire in relation to issues of the contemporary prison-industrial complex, police brutality and the death penalty. He is also founder, and now co-coordinator, of "Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal," a group of teachers from all levels of education university teachers organizing for a new trial for Abu-Jamal, a journalist on Pennsylvania's death row since 1982. He has also been an activist in other movements to end U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan, to reform radically U.S. prisons, to abolish the death penalty, while pressing for immigration rights and reform, and for change in US policy toward Mexico and Latin America. He also serves on the board for the Masters degree in Community Organizing, offered by the U.S.-Mexico Solidarity Organization and accredited with the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Cross and Prison Reform, January 11, 2004

By 

John T. Farrell (Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Paperback)

According to Mark Lewis Taylor, the "executed God," the God who suffered not just death but execution, is, "a force of life that is greater than all imperial powers and thus can foment the resistance and hope that all suffering peoples need." Comparing contemporary America to imperial Rome, Lewis, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, argues passionately against a penal system he regards as monstrously punitive, inherently unjust, and deeply racist. Using both statistical evidence and experiences drawn from a quarter century's involvement in prison reform, Taylor describes the American prison system as a "theater of terror" that relies on the institutionalization of prison rape, excessive sentences, and executions to maintain a prison population that has tripled since 1980 to two million.

Proposing a radical Christian response to this scandal as a "theatrics of counterterror," Taylor places the Way of the Cross at its heart. To redress the agony of our prisons, he outlines a solution based in adversarial politics, dramatic action, and the building of people's movements. A God entangled in crucifixion is, in Taylor's scheme, "an antidote to pieties and theologies that would seek their God above the earth and its suffering peoples." The executed God takes believers on a journey into the pain and suffering of a broken world and proffers the power to persist and transform. The Way of the Cross finds God in the marginalized, abandoned, and despised, the people who know life through struggle.

The Executed God is an important book grappling with an important topic. Taylor himself, however, diminishes his book's effectiveness. His tone is shrill and his language polemical, perhaps too polemical for those he seeks to persuade. His arguments, especially in Part Two, often rely on emotive generalities and could be more tightly structured and detailed. References to "gulag America," the "theatrics of terror," "big house nation," "lockdown America," and the like seem pugnacious rather than passionate after reading them a few times. And his use of the plight of Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted Philadelphia police killer and cause celebre, as the centerpiece of an argument against injustice in America is bound to be controversial and alienate otherwise sympathetic readers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A one-sided approach to a multi-faceted problem, August 9, 2010

By 

Steve (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Paperback)

I was a little surprised upon reading Mark Lewis Taylor's "The Executed God."

In favor of the book, it displays many problems with the contemporary criminal justice system and articulates a Christian message of justice amidst these problems. Yet, the book is very one-sided, a dichotomous construction of black and white, good and bad (in this instance prison inmates being "good" and the criminal justice system being "bad"). It articulates the abuses of institutional and social oppression, but dismisses the Christian imperatives of personal choice and responsibility.

"The Executed God" offers a picture for many who have never been the victims of institutional oppressions that such things exist and demand justice. However, Taylor's suggestions for reform such as "No more prisons!" (p. 142) are very questionable and I was a little surprised at such an easily drawn conclusion. How should those who commit crimes be dealt with? How can incapacitation take place if one is a threat to others? Can society afford to just eliminate prisons and expect everything to work out? This book simply points out much that is wrong with the criminal justice system without acknowledging that something(s) may be right. It holds the oppressive system responsible for its actions but not anyone else.

Also, the tone of the book is rather harsh and polemical.

Recommended if you are interested in looking at some serious problems in the current criminal justice system. Not recommended if you are looking for reasonable solutions as well.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars God Against Empire, September 23, 2004

By 

Tedd Steele (Naperville, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Paperback)

If you want a simple summary of the book, there it is. God is against all forms of manipulative, power-hungry empire, especially what Taylor terms "lockdown America." According to the book, police brutatliy, prison life, and the death penalty are all "theatrics of terror" designed to increase America's imperial power. We are meant to be terrorized by our own government. Taylor proposes a way of counterterror, consisting of an adversarial politics, dramatic action, and peoples' movements. Basically, it is civil disobedience with drama.
Alright, lets get to the good things. There are three qualities that bring this book to the 3 star range. Frist, the problem he has identified is real. Although the language is harsh (perhaps too harsh) the reality just may be worse. Second, Taylor's understanding of a political Jesus is right on. Third, Christians do need to do something.
Now, the problem with this book is it proposes the wrong solution. His take on civil disobedience has been done. It is part of the democratic culture, although a part that most people wish would go away. Second, the "executed God" ends up being the god of the lowest common denomenator of all religious people. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will not be reduced to lowest common denomenator. What is needed to fight injustice is a church, which Taylor abandons. The church must not only provide dramatic action, it must provide an alternative drama to the one that democratic capitalism assums. Perhaps the most radical action we can do is to gather around the Lord's Table together, all being equal. That is a radical form of justice. When we grasp the true meaning of God's justice and live it in the church, America and the world will have no choice but to sit up and take notice. The church needs to be a justice filled alternative culture.