Download or read book Jesus Christ in the Criminal Justice System written by C. W. Fleming and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jesus Christ in the Criminal Justice System gives readers an inside glimpse of American prisons both past and present. It is an insightful guide inside of the prison walls and into the thoughts of those who inhabit them. It is a message to incarcerated individuals who feel forgotten and forsaken; and seeks to be a banner of hope to them in spite of their present predicament. At the same time, it is a call to arms for those who believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Download or read book Jesus on Death Row written by Prof. Mark Osler and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the most infamous criminal proceeding in history--the trial of Jesus of Nazareth--have to tell us about capital punishment in the United States? Jesus Christ was a prisoner on death row. If that statement surprises you, consider this fact: of all the roles that Jesus played--preacher, teacher, healer, mentor, friend--none features as prominently in the gospels as this one, a criminal indicted and convicted of a capital offense. Now consider another fact: the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus bear remarkable similarities to the American criminal justice system, especially in capital cases. From the use of paid informants to the conflicting testimony of witnesses to the denial of clemency, the elements in the story of Jesus' trial mirror the most common components in capital cases today. Finally, consider a question: How might we see capital punishment in this country differently if we realized that the system used to condemn the Son of God to death so closely resembles the system we use in capital cases today? Should the experience of Jesus' trial, conviction, and execution give us pause as we take similar steps to place individuals on death row today? These are the questions posed by this surprising, challenging, and enlightening book
Download or read book God s Law and Order written by Aaron Griffith and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of a Christianity Today Book Award An incisive look at how evangelical Christians shaped—and were shaped by—the American criminal justice system. America incarcerates on a massive scale. Despite recent reforms, the United States locks up large numbers of people—disproportionately poor and nonwhite—for long periods and offers little opportunity for restoration. Aaron Griffith reveals a key component in the origins of American mass incarceration: evangelical Christianity. Evangelicals in the postwar era made crime concern a major religious issue and found new platforms for shaping public life through punitive politics. Religious leaders like Billy Graham and David Wilkerson mobilized fears of lawbreaking and concern for offenders to sharpen appeals for Christian conversion, setting the stage for evangelicals who began advocating tough-on-crime politics in the 1960s. Building on religious campaigns for public safety earlier in the twentieth century, some preachers and politicians pushed for “law and order,” urging support for harsh sentences and expanded policing. Other evangelicals saw crime as a missionary opportunity, launching innovative ministries that reshaped the practice of religion in prisons. From the 1980s on, evangelicals were instrumental in popularizing criminal justice reform, making it a central cause in the compassionate conservative movement. At every stage in their work, evangelicals framed their efforts as colorblind, which only masked racial inequality in incarceration and delayed real change. Today evangelicals play an ambiguous role in reform, pressing for reduced imprisonment while backing law-and-order politicians. God’s Law and Order shows that we cannot understand the criminal justice system without accounting for evangelicalism’s impact on its historical development.
Download or read book Justice that Restores written by Charles W. Colson and published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2001 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Something clearly is wrong with the current justice system in which repeat incarceration is high, injustice is rampant, and 25 percent of African-American males can expect to spend time behind bars. Colson's biblical ideas for reform have the potential to turn the system around, keep innocent people out of prison, and give victims some relief.
Download or read book The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth written by Max Radin and published by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned for its impeccable legal reasoning and lucid prose, this compelling study reconstructs the 4 gospels. The final 2 chapters put them into the context of Jerusalem's legal & political environment. Radin's goal is not to pass judgment, but to reconstruct one of the most significant events in history, which he does with remarkable skill.
Download or read book Christianity and Criminal Law written by Mark Hill QC and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection, by leading legal scholars, judges and practitioners, together with theologians and church historians, presents historical, theological, philosophical and legal perspectives on Christianity and criminal law. Following a Preface by Lord Judge, formerly Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and an introductory chapter, the book is divided into four thematic sections. Part I addresses the historical contributions of Christianity to criminal law drawing on biblical sources, early church fathers and canonists, as far as the Enlightenment. Part II, titled Christianity and the principles of criminal law, compares crime and sin, examines concepts of mens rea and intention, and considers the virtue of due process within criminal justice. Part III looks at Christianity and criminal offences, considering their Christian origins and continuing relevance for several basic crimes that every legal system prohibits. Finally, in Part IV, the authors consider Christianity and the enforcement of criminal law, looking at defences, punishment and forgiveness. The book will be an invaluable resource for students and academics working in the areas of Law and Religion, Legal Philosophy and Theology.
Download or read book Let My People Go written by Stan Moody and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The judgment scene in Matthew 25 is a call for believers in Jesus Christ to get out of our clubhouses and onto the streets, where the “least of these my brothers” (v.40) may be found. Let My People Go is a twelve-step invitation to our American church culture to examine what we are supposed to be doing as Christians, what we are doing, and whether what we are doing is standing in the way of what we are supposed to be doing. The man who deeply affected author Stan Moody as a Christian was a brilliant, sixty-four-year-old convicted sex offender by the name of Sheldon Weinstein. On April 24, 2009, Shelly died in solitary confinement at Maine State Prison of a ruptured spleen about an hour after Moody requested toilet paper for him. Moody has chronicled his death in a narrative titled “Death in B117.” With America now boasting 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, the last vestige of hope for these discarded citizens in our jails and prisons and on our streets is a faith community now facing declining membership and shrinking revenues. Poverty and homelessness has at last come home; how we respond to it is a reflection of the seriousness of our faith.
Download or read book Responsibility Rehabilitation and Restoration written by U S Conference of Catholic Bishops and published by USCCB Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely work, the bishops open a new dialogue on crime and justice in the United States.
Download or read book The Convict Christ written by Jens Soering and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inmate for life, Jens Soering tells stories of prison life that are shocking and inspiring. He confronts us with Jesus's challenge to love not only the least amongst us but those who are perceived as the worst amongst us. Anyone interested in what goes on behind the walls of our nation's prisons--and in seeing the face of Christ in everyone--will value this authentic, harrowing, and visionary search for redemption. The subject of a recent profile in The New Yorker Jens Soering has been incarcerated in Virginia since 1990. He is the author of The Way of the Prisoner and An Expensive Way to Make Bad People Worse.
Download or read book The Last Judgment written by Professor Andrew Skotnicki and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a culture obsessed with law, judgment, and violence, this book challenges Christians to remember that Jesus urged his followers to judge no one, bring harm upon no one, and follow no law save the law of altruistic love. It traces Christian history first to show that Christians of an earlier age took very seriously the gospel injunctions against punitive legal judgment and then how the advent of formal legal codes and philosophical dualism undermined that perspective to create a division between a private Christian spirituality and a public morality of order and legally sanctioned violence. This historical approach is accompanied by an argument that the recovery of a Christian ethic based upon unconditional love and forgiveness cannot be accomplished without the renewal of a Christian spirituality that mirrors the contemplative spirituality of Jesus.
Download or read book Thinking Theologically about Mass Incarceration written by Antonios Kireopoulos and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the fruit of a multi-year dialogue among Christian churches in the United States, addressing—from theological perspectives—mass incarceration as an issue in need of radical reform.
Download or read book Beyond Retribution written by Christopher D. Marshall and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently a growing number of Christians have actively promoted the concept of "restorative justice" and attempted to develop programs for dealing with crime based on restorative principles. But is this approach truly consistent with the teaching of Scripture? To date, very little has been done to test this claim. Beyond Retribution fills a gap by plumbing the New Testament on the topics of crime, justice, and punishment. Christopher Marshall first explores the problems involved in applying ethical teachings from the New Testament to mainstream society. He then surveys the extent to which the New Testament addresses criminal justice issues, looking in particular at the concept of the justice of God in the teachings of Paul and Jesus. He also examines the topic of punishment, reviewing the debate in social thinking over the ethics and purpose of punishment -- including capital punishment -- and he advocates a new concept of "restorative punishment." The result of this engaging work is a biblically based challenge to imitate the way of Christ in dealing with both victims and offenders. - Publisher
Download or read book Reforming Criminal Justice written by Matthew T. Martens and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book argues that, for the Christian, the driving principle underlying any reformation of our criminal justice system is found in Jesus Christ's command to love our neighbors as ourselves. The conundrum is that when it comes to criminal justice, we have two "neighbors": the victim and the perpetrator. When forming or reforming a criminal justice system, Scripture demands that we love both our neighbors who are crime victims as well as our neighbors accused of being crime perpetrators, and it provides several guideposts (accuracy, proportionality, and impartiality) for doing so. This book explains how various aspects of the criminal justice system function in practice and asks whether the system we have chosen is the one you would choose if you had to live with it. Or stated another way: Does the design and operation of American criminal justice reflect Christian love? As the cause of criminal justice reform and racial justice has gained momentum in recent years, Christians more than ever need the tools to be meaningful participants in the reform debate. Yet no Christian book currently exists on that topic. This book seeks to fill that gap, exploring both how the Scriptures speak to the issue of criminal justice and how the modern American justice system measures up to that biblical ideal"--
Download or read book Prosecuting Jesus written by Mark Osler and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who is Jesus? Christians have been arguing about the answer to that question since there have been Christians, and it seems unlikely that they're going to agree on an answer anytime soon. Mark Osler, always a bit uncomfortable in church, was never able to find a Jesus that seemed real to himâ€"until he put Jesus on trial. Drawing on his training as a federal prosecutor and professor of law, he and a group of friends staged the trial of Jesus for their church, as though it were happening in the modern American criminal justice system. The event was so powerful that before long Osler received invitations to take it on the road. Each time he served as Christ's prosecutor, the story of Jesus opened up to him a bit more. Prosecuting Jesus follows Osler in this extraordinary journey of discovering himself by discovering Jesus. Juxtaposing things we rarely put together, like the passion of Christ and our ideas about capital punishment, Osler explores an active engagement between Jesus and our contemporary law and culture.
Download or read book Reforming Criminal Justice written by Matthew T. Martens and published by Crossway. This book was released on 2023-10-16 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Noted Attorney and Seminary Graduate Matthew T. Martens Answers the Question: Does the Design and Operation of the American Criminal Justice System Reflect Christian Love of Neighbor? Jesus told his followers that the entirety of the Old Testament's law is encapsulated in the commands to love God and to love their neighbors as themselves. In Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal, Matthew T. Martens argues that love of neighbor must be the animating force for true reformation of the criminal justice system, obligating us to seek the best for both the criminally victimized and the criminally accused. Using his theological training Martens reveals how Scripture provides several guideposts (accuracy, due process, accountability, impartiality, and proportionality) for loving our neighbors as it relates to criminal justice. Then, drawing on his near quarter century practicing criminal law, he examines how America's justice system falls short of the biblical standard. By understanding how our current system operates and considering how love of neighbor relates to issues of crime and justice, we will be better equipped to seek true Christian reform of the justice system. A Biblical Perspective on Criminal Justice: Offers a biblical framework for thinking about the concept of justice for both the victim and the perpetrator Examines the History of the American Criminal Justice System: Surveys the evolution of the criminal justice system in the United States with a focus on its misuse from the time of the Civil War to the civil rights movement Assesses the Criminal Justice System: Examines the operation of the American justice system today, including plea bargains, assistance of counsel, the death penalty, and more Foreword by Derwin L. Gray: Pastor of Transformation Church in Indian Land, South Carolina, and the author of How to Heal Our Racial Divide and Building a Multiethnic Church
Download or read book More God Less Crime written by Byron Johnson and published by Templeton Foundation Press. This book was released on 2011-05-15 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In More God, Less Crime renowned criminologist Byron R. Johnson proves that religion can be a powerful antidote to crime. The book describes how faith communities, congregations, and faith-based organizations are essential in forming partnerships necessary to provide the human and spiritual capital to effectively address crime, offender rehabilitation, and the substantial aftercare problems facing former prisoners. There is scattered research literature on religion and crime but until now, there has never been one publication that systematically and rigorously analyzes what we know from this largely overlooked body of research in a lay-friendly format. The data shows that when compared to current strategies, faith-based approaches to crime prevention bring added value in targeting those factors known to cause crime: poverty, lack of education, and unemployment. In an age of limited fiscal resources, Americans can’t afford a criminal justice system that turns its nose up at volunteer efforts that could not only work better than the abysmal status quo, but also save billions of dollars at the same time. This book provides readers with practical insights and recommendations for a faith-based response that could do just that.
Download or read book Justice That Heals written by Arthur Paul Boers and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2008-02-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do we deal with crime? It is inescapable. Since 1960, crime in the U.S. has increased 500% while the population has grown by only 41%. What is our responsibility to the victim and the offender? What is the Christian response? Explore the inadequacies of North American criminal justice systems and discover the alternative the Bible has to offer. Listen to stories of those involved in the system and from those pursuing a more restorative justice. Hear clearly God's words of hope, challenge, and counsel.
