government and politics on Correction

Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence.

Lord Jesus, for our sake you were condemned as a criminal: Visit our jails and prisons with your pity and judgment. Remember all prisoners, and bring the guilty to repentance and amendment of life acc...

What does true forgiveness and reconciliation look like? The world was given such an image the day Nelson Mandela was sworn in as President of South Africa. What was so significant was not just that a...

After several years of engagement in justice work Warren says in reflection on the story of the Good Samaritan, “I realized it’s not okay to have a road that perpetuates the beating, robbing, and pote...

Some of you may be remember the classic photograph from the 1948 Presidential Election, in which Harry Truman holds a newspaper triumphantly, with the title, “Dewey Defeats Truman”. What you may not k...

Horace Gray was a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. During one of his cases, a criminal was about to be released, not because he was innocent, but because of a technicality. As Gray prepared to relea...

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart. May God bless you...

We are all imperfect. we can not expect perfect government.

Therefore let us repent and pass from ignorance to knowledge, from foolishness to wisdom, from licentiousness to self-control, from injustice to righteousness, from godlessness to God.

In his insightful work, Beyond Racial Gridlock, George Yancey provides a multi-faceted picture of both the brokenness of American race-relations, as well as a response couched in the gospel. In this e...

Returning from the wilderness [a man] becomes a restorer of order, a preserver. He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forebears and his heritage, and gives his blessing to his succes...

Gracious God, we don’t live as Christ did. Although You give us specific instructions for an ordered way of life that stands out from the rest of the world, we settle for lukewarm Christianity. Our li...

O God, we thank thee thou that hast made man in thine own image. Help us to see ourselves as thou seest us, all standing in need of thy mercy yet dear unto thee. We confess to the many injustices and ...

When we allow darkness to overcome the light, forgive us, Lord. When we reduce Christmas to plastic and tinsel, have mercy on us, Father. When hardness of heart keeps us from seeing and hearing an...

Heavenly Father We confess before you and before one another that we do not always trust your goodness. We are worried about losing control of our lives, and we are scared of what taking up our cros...

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

Force may make hypocrites, but it can never make converts.

We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection.

On a TV detective show some years ago I saw a story of an old man in his eighties, an ex-Marine, sadly broken down and accused of a crime. Two big, strapping military police and a snarling Navy lawyer...

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one needs.

Lord our God, we have sometimes not listened for your summons to praise you; we have not acknowledged that this good news we proclaim is for the whole world; and we have too often been silent to the s...

In Words We Live By, Brian Burrell tells of an armed robber named Dennis Lee Curtis who was arrested in 1992 in Rapid City, South Dakota. Curtis apparently had scruples about his thievery. In his wal...

Merciful Jesus Give us courage to deny privilege to lay down favor and safety in order to take up the cross of opportunity and justice Too often we fail to do this Merciful Jesus Give us courage to d...

In the context of justice, I think what Christians need to confess about their pride isn’t so much about taking credit away from God but from the people we help. One version of this is sometimes refer...

We bring before you, O Lord, the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the we...

Practicing confession is one way to guard against paternalism in both extreme and more subtle ways. For example, we can tell stories of justice in a way that discounts other people’s agency—that is, t...

Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful.

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the war room.”

In the Christian faith, we frequently take for granted how radically Jesus evens the playing field. No matter your wealth, your position, let alone your race or gender, all of us are equal in God’s ey...

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.