Home Page

Monday, August 06, 2012

Lockup - New Mexico (And The Infamous Robert Fry)

This weekend, I watched this 2006 MSNBC TV show "Lockup - New Mexico", describing the maximum security operations at the New Mexico State Penitentiary, near Santa Fe. What an eye opener!

The NM State Pen erupted in a riot in 1980, and 33 people were killed. The TV show covers the period after the riot, and the many, positive changes there in the way they manage the inmates. Still, what a bunch of a**holes to manage!

In particular, there was NM's most-infamous serial killer, Robert Fry, practicing what this fellow calls "cheap grace":
But there is another, uniquely religious aspect that also comes into play: the predilection of fundamentalist denominations to believe in practice, even if not entirely in theory, in the doctrine of “cheap grace,” a derisive term coined by the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. By that he meant the inclination of some religious adherents to believe that once they had been “saved,” not only would all past sins be wiped away, but future ones, too—so one could pretty much behave as before. Cheap grace is a divine get-out-of-jail-free card.
Creepy!

No comments:

Post a Comment