Photo credit: Unknown, Creative Commons Zero.

 

Introduction

This page highlights the impact of racism on U.S. criminal justice, in chronological order in which they appeared, from convict-leasing to lynching to modern hate crimes. For more general issues in Criminal Justice, which highlights the biblical, church historical, and practical importance of Christian restorative justice, and spotlights problems with the definition of crime, policing, prosecution, sentencing, prisons, and rehabilitation.

Messages and Resources

Lecture on the Biblical Ordering of Justice, Criminal Justice Reform, and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow

For a church called Reality San Francisco (Apple Podcasts, May 9, 2016). This is a 68 minute presentation, starting with the four principles of justice (0:00 - 34:30), then moving on to applying restorative justice to the current issues of systemic racism in the U.S. criminal justice system and mass incarceration of non-violent drug offenders (34:30 - 1:09:00). See the slides. For a shorter version of the presentation, which was given on other occasions, see slides, shorter version; unfortunately no audio or visual recordings are available of the shorter version.

Politics, the Church, and Jesus’ Restorative Justice

Slides of a presentation given to the 2022 Reconstruction class. The introduction features John Winthrop vs. Roger Williams to highlight the debate over freedom of religious Conscience vs. Christendom. The presentation highlights Christian accomplishments in health and hospitals, education and schools, land ownership and economic justice, and criminal justice reform.

A series of blog posts where we explore how Christian (mostly Protestant) heresies started and continue to influence our modern political and racial challenges. This includes the very notion of race itself, and how our modern economics, housing, schooling, and policing systems have been shaped. Christians must take responsibility for these heresies in the framework of repentance.  We have designed a study guide to accompany the blog posts.  Please consider using it for personal reflection or discussion in your family, church, organization, etc.

Study and Action Guide to Dominique Gilliard’s Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores

A nine week study and action guide for small groups to discuss, compare belief systems, and consider advocacy and action steps. Gilliard identifies five pipelines to prison, contributing to mass incarceration: drug policy, immigration, lack of mental health, the school-to-prison pipeline, and private prisons. Gilliard holds up restorative justice to contrast with retributive justice, and says the Church must act restoratively because God in Christ acts restoratively.

Study and Action Guide to Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

A seven week guide for groups to discuss, compare belief systems, and consider advocacy and action steps. Constitutional law professor Michelle Alexander examines the war on drugs as a political tool, and how it eroded the Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights of American citizens. Implicit racism has affected the criminal justice system at every level: policing, prosecution, plea bargaining, jury selection, sentencing, and reintegration.

 
 

Race: Topics:

This page is part of our section on Race, which contains the following:

Church and Empire: Topics:

Race is a construct created by European colonialism. For more background, consider the Church and Empire section of our website. This section reminds us what Christian faith was like prior to colonialism, and in resistance to colonialism, to show that Christianity is not “a white man’s religion.”