Down in the Chapel

Four black men from South Philadelphia—two Christian and two Muslim—are serving life at maximum-security Graterford Prison. All of them work in the chapel, a place that is at once a sanctuary for religious contemplation and an arena for disputing the works of God and man. Everything is rather ordinary—until one of them disappears. Down in the Chapel tells the story of one week at Graterford. We learn how the men there pass their time, care for themselves, and commune with their makers. We observe a variety of Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, and others at study and prayer, and we listen in as an interloping scholar of religion tries to make sense of it all.