Interview!
National Exposure
The Christian Century magazine has a powerful interview of James Enoch Banks in its August issue. Check it out! Please check it out! You will be so glad you did. Here is a link that will take you to the August issue.
I met Enoch in 2015 at a Christian retreat inside Torres. I became his mentor and fostered his writing and the formation of Enoch Says, a Texas non-profit corporation.
I’m particularly pleased with the substantive and challenging elements of Enoch’s interview in Christian Century. Enoch says—“My goal is to teach men to love themselves so they can love others.” Sounds a lot like Jesus’ Second Commandment.
There is no worse place in the United States today than its prisons. Even those living on the streets have it better in many ways than the men and women who are incarcerated in Texas. Enoch says “The primary goal is for each individual who goes through the Men’s Workshop process to find the better part of himself.” There are incarcerated men in Texas using the Men’s Workshop course to help themselves and fellow inmates find the better part of themselves and, in turn, to form healthier communities in prison and also in the outside world.
Enoch says—“When you don’t have an identity, you go out and find an identity. In prison, the most convenient place to get an identity is from the negativity that’s in your face.”
Enoch had a life-changing dream of a surgeon with an open toolbox placed near individuals who were striped of their insides, and, apart from the surgeon, were grown men walking. Enoch understood two things from the dream—“First, if we don’t get the heart problem right, we are going to fail. . . Second, two things cannot possess the same place at the same time.” To have life abundant, things already in the cup need to be replaced by better things.
Enoch identifies a major obstacle that impedes his ministry. “Apathy must leave before empathy can arrive. It’s not just the individuals who are locked up—it’s the culture we come from.” It is you and me, the church and our society, who need to wake up to our pernicious “system of justice.”
Enoch Says, the Texas 501(c)(3) corporation that James Enoch Banks works through, needs help. While money is always welcome, what is most needed are volunteers who can make the existing website, www.enochsays.com, an effective tool and volunteers who can shepherd social media and help us with podcasting. We especially need leadership who can help guide Enoch Says forward.
Please help!