New Book “Down in the Chapel” Studies Religious Life in Jail

Writer Joshua Dubler has published a book, Down in the Chapel, about “the most religiously ecelctic sliver of real estate in the history of the world”—a prison chapel.

Over six years, Dubler interviewed a sample of prisoners at Graterford, the largest maximum security prison in Pennsylvania. The interviews, along with his observations on religious life inside the concrete walls, were part of his dissertation during his graduate studies at Princeton University. They’ve been adapted and combined with various theses on religious life while in Princeton to form Down in the Chapel.

Journalist Casey N. Cep describes the book and Dubler’s experiences in detail in an article on Pacific Standard, titled “What Does Religion Look Like in Prison?”

Cep says:

[quote]“Down in the Chapel is most interesting when it focuses on the thoughts, questions, concerns, and beliefs of the prisoners themselves. These are the voices we long to hear, the perspectives we realize are missing from our own considerations of religion. Eavesdropping on these conversations is the real gift offered by Dubler’s book.”[/quote]

Click here to read the full article.

Resources

• “What Does Religion Look Like in Prison?”
• Pacific Standard
• Casey N. Cep on Twitter
• Joshua Dubler
• Down in the Chapel