A Short Introduction to Abolition Theology

Someone recently asked me what my religious or spiritual orientation is, an appropriate question in context because we were meeting in relation to a divinity school. I started to tell him I was raised conservative/evangelical/charismatic/nondenominational, that I drifted from that interpretation of Christianity in college, floated around a hipster church in grad school (studying theology), but haven’t been to church in ten years. I told him my recovery community is situated in a Buddhist meditation center, and I love studying that tradition, but feel no need to identify as Buddhist. I am a student of religions, I said, but don’t belong to any particular one. I could feel his dissatisfaction with the ambiguity of this response because I shared that sentiment. Then, I grabbed the book by my desk, Mariame Kaba’s latest tome, and thumping it like a Bible, I told him I wish it sufficed to say that I’m an abolitionist. Kaba’s work is deeply spiritual to me. Abolition is my religion.