Churches Standing Up and Reaching out to Prisoners By Daniel Pugh The following post originally appeared on the Justice Fellowship blog. An August report released by the National Association of Evangelicals showed that 95% of evangelical leaders have been involved in regular ministry to prisoners. “It demonstrates the evangelical conviction that God offers redemption and reconciliation to all, regardless of what they have done,” said Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Justice Fellowship is excited to see so many Christian leaders involved in encouraging and equipping the Church “behind the walls.” The report also noted evangelical leaders’ involvement in justice reform and the NAE’s own endorsement of the Smarter Sentencing Act (SSA). The SSA, a bipartisan bill endorsed by a diverse spectrum of faith groups and denominations, would lower mandatory minimums for some non-violent drug crimes and would give judges greater freedom to give sentences below the mandatory minimum for non-violent drug offenses. You can read Justice Fellowship’s press release on SSA here. Many denominations have recently stated their support of reform efforts through resolutions on criminal justice. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) adopted a resolution that declares its commitment to comprehensive criminal justice ministry and advocacy. The ELCA identifies families of victims and prisoners, affected communities, and those who work in the system as deserving the church’s attention and service—groups that are largely forgotten in the criminal justice process. According to the document, the ELCA will support reforms and legislation that emphasize victims’ rights and needs, use restorative justice practices, implement community-based alternatives to incarceration, reduce sentences for certain offenses, institute specialized courts, and focus on reentry. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) also passed a resolution this June declaring support for legislative policies that would reduce high incarceration rates without jeopardizing public safety. The SBC acknowledged the high incarceration rate in the United States, particularly in Southern states. In order to pay for prisons, governments at all levels are devoting a significant part of their budget to corrections. The resolution also called on SBC members to offer the love of Jesus to those who are incarcerated and to assist in reintegrating people who reenter society after serving their sentence. You may also recall this past Easter when Pope Francis raised some eyebrows by washing the feet of a dozen youth detained in a juvenile detention center in Rome. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 2000 pastoral statement, Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice, affirms the biblical principles that support Pope Francis’ symbolic act: Just as God never abandons us, so too we must be in covenant with one another. We are all sinners, and our response to sin and failure should not be abandonment and despair, but rather justice, contrition, reparation, and return or re-integration of all into the community.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 10:04:00 +0000
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