Law, Criminal Justice, Restorative Justice, Retribution, Restitution, Reconciliation

ALLARD, Pierre (-)

***__________.  “Christianity:  The Rediscovery of Restorative Justice,” in The Spiritual Roots of Restorative Justice, pp. 119-41.  Edited by Michael L. Hadley.  Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001.  {23p.}

BELL, Jr., Daniel M. (1966-)

**__________.  “Justice and Liberation,” in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, pp. 182-95.  Edited by Stanley Hauerwas and Sam Wells.  Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003.  {14p.}

BERMAN, Harold J[oseph]. (1918-2007)

***__________.  “Religious Foundations of Law in the West: An Historical Perspective,” Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer 1983): 3-43.  {41p.}

***__________.  “Theological Sources of the Western Legal Tradition,” in Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition, pp. 165-198; notes, pp. 591-599.  Cambridge, MA / London, UK: Harvard University Press, 1983.  {34p.; 9p.}

BONTRAGER, William D. “Bill” (-)

**__________.  “A Theory on the Implications of the Atonement of St. Anselm.”  Shepherds for Peace.  {3p.}  Online:  http://www.shepherdsforpeace.com/writings/ANSELM.php (accessed 10/20/2009).

__________.  “Comparing Governance/Law of State and Church.”  Shepherds for Peace.  {5p.}  Online: http://www.shepherdsforpeace.com/writings/comparing_lawchurch.php (accessed 10/20/2009).

**__________.  In Search of Justice.  {124p.}

**__________.  Restorative Justice: A Primer.  {120p.}

BRUNK, Conrad G[rebel]. (1945-)

__________.  “Restorative Justice and the Philosophical Theories of Criminal Punishment.”  In The Spiritual Roots of Restorative Justice, pp. 31-56.  Edited by Michael L. Hadley.  Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001.  {26p.}

CARLSON, David R. (-)

**__________, editor.  Contributing editors, Daniel W. Van Ness and Evelyn Bence.  Beyond Crime and Punishment: Restorative Justice.  Washington, DC: Prison Fellowship, 1991.  {30p.}

COREY, Benjamin L. (1976-)

***__________.  “Justice Broken: How a Poor Theology of the Cross Created America’s Broken Justice System.”  Formerly Fundie: The Official Blog Post of Benjamin L. Corey, January 27, 2014; http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/broken-justice/ last accessed April 21, 2014.

CRAGG, Wesley (-)

__________.  The Practice of Punishment: Towards a Theory of Restorative Justice.  London and New York: Routledge, 1992.  {x, 255?}

ELLUL, Jacques (1912-94)

**__________.  The Theological Foundation of Law.  Translated from the French by Marguerite Wieser.  New York: Doubleday & Co., 1960.  {140p.}  (Le Fondement Theologique du Droit.  Neuchatel and Paris: Editions Delachaux & Niestle S.A., 1946.)  [Overlooks the premial side of “retributive” justice, and therefore takes recourse to a “substitutive” as over against either “distributive” or “retributive” justice.]

FOUCAULT, Michel (1926-84)

__________.  Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison.  Translated by Alan Sheridan.  London: Penguin, 1977; New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

GORRINGE, Timothy J[ervis]. (1946-)

***__________.  God’s Just Vengeance: Crime, Violence and the Rhetoric of Salvation.  Cambridge Studies in Ideology and Religion 9.  Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.  {xiv, 280p.}

GRIFFITH, Lee (1948-)

__________.  The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God.  Eerdmans, 2002.

HADLEY, Michael L. (1956-)

__________, ed.  The Spiritual Roots of Restorative Justice.  Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001.  {}

KOHN, Alfie (1957-)

__________.  Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes.  With a New Afterword by the Author.  Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999 (1993).  {xiv, 431p.}

MARSHALL, Christopher D. (-)

**__________.  Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment.  Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans; Aukland, N.Z.; Sydney, Australia: Lime Grove House Publishers, 2001.  [Yet ironically, it lacks a consistently restorative paradigm of the Atonement itself, so its cogency suffers; see esp. pp. 53-69, 172-3, 301.]

**__________.  “Grounding Justice in Reality: Theological Reflections on Overcoming Violence in the Criminal Justice System.”  In Overcoming Violence in New Zealand, pp. 81-95.  Edited by J. Roberts.  Wellington, N.Z.: Philip Garside Publishers, 2002.  {15p.}

MOBERLY, Sir W[alter]. H[amilton]. (1881-1974)

**__________.  The Ethics of Punishment.  London: Faber, 1968.  {}

NAGASAWA, Mako A. (1972-)

***__________.  “Donald Trump’s Scapegoating and the Myth of Retributive Justice, Part 1.  [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted February 12, 2016.  {[c. 7+]p.}  Online:

***__________.  “Is Retributive or Restorative Justice the Highest Form of God’s Justice?  Does Atonement Theology Impact Criminal Justice?”  [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted

__________.  “A Neuroscientific Reason for Why Retributive Justice is from the Fall, and Penal Substitution is Immature.”  [Boston]: New Humanity Institute, posted April 28, 2016.  {[c. 15+]p.}  Online:

NICHOLS, Joel A.  See WITTE Jr., John J.

QUICK, O[liver]. C[hase]. (1885-1944)

**__________.  Christianity and Justice.  News-Letter Series.  1940.  {}  (?)

ROSENBAUM, Thane (1960-)

**__________.  The Myth of Moral Choice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What’s Right.  New York: HarperCollins, 2004.  {xiii, 364p.}

**__________.  Payback: The Case for Revenge.  Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.  {[ix], 314p.}

SNYDER, T. Richard (1936-)

__________.  The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Punishment.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.  {xii, 159p.}  [Strangely, he never explores the connection between Restorative Justice in the criminal justice system or in the Atonement!]

SPOONER, Lysander (1808-87)

__________.  An Essay on the Trial by Jury.  Boston: John P. Jewett and Co. / Cleveland, OH: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, 1852.  {224p.}  [An eloquent and exceedingly well-crafted elucidation of the history and value of the jury system.]

STAHL, Friedrich Julius (1802-61)

__________.  Rechtsphilosophie (II, 1, No. 56-59).

TORRANCE, Alan J.  (1956-)

VAN NESS, Daniel W. (1949-)

*__________.  Crime and Its Victims.  Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986.  {}

*__________, et al.  Restorative Justice: Theory.  Washington, DC: Prison Fellowship, 1989.  {}

*__________, et al.  Restorative Justice: Principles.  Washington, DC: Prison Fellowship, 1990.  {}

*__________, et al.  Restorative Justice: Practice.  Washington, DC: Prison Fellowship, 1990.  {}

*__________, and Karen Heetderks Strong.  Restoring Justice.  Second edition.  Ellen S. Boyne, Editor; Elizabeth A. Shipp, Assistant Editor.  Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing Co., 2001 (1997).  {}

VOLF, Miroslav (1956-)

***__________.  “Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Justice.”  Chapter twelve in Stricken by God?: Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ,” pp. 268-86.  Edited by Brad Jersak and Michael Hardin.  Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2007.  {19p.}

WINK, Walter (1935-2012)

__________.  “Breaking the Spiral of Violence: The Power of the Cross,” in Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, pp. 139-155.  Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.  {17p.}

WITTE Jr., John J. (1959-)

***__________.  God’s Joust, God’s Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition.  Emory University Studies in Law and Religion, John Witte Jr., general editor.  Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2006.  {xiv, 498p.}

WITTE Jr., John J. (1959-) and Joel A. NICHOLS (1972-)

__________.  Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment.  Fourth Edition.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.  {xiv, 403p.}

WOLTERSTORFF, Nicholas (1932-)

***__________.  Justice in Love.  Now with a new preface.  Emory University Studies in Law and Religion, John Witte Jr., general editor.  Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2015 (2011).  {xvii, 285p.}

**__________.  Justice: Rights and Wrongs.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.  {}

YODER, John Howard (1927-97)

__________.  “Theological Critique of Violence,” New Conversations 16 (1994): 3-6.  {4p.}

ZEHR, Howard (1944-)

__________.  Changing Lenses—A New Focus for Crime and Justice.  Third edition.  Herald Press, 2005 [1990, 1995].  {}

__________.  The Little Book of Restorative Justice.  Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2002.  {[iv], 72p.}  [Not a word is mentioned about Jesus Christ, his cross, resurrection, atonement, or God’s justice in this little guide by “the grandfather of restorative justice.”  Sadly, this is quite in line with the absence of a “restorative justice” approach to any of these topics—i.e., to the Gospel message itself!—in the otherwise worthy writings of most Anabaptist and other Peace Tradition theologians I have so far encountered.  I find this puzzling in the extreme.]

77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #30)

30.     How did the sin-offering take away sin?

The murderous crime against God’s only-born Son took away sin by immediately evoking the Father’s righteous judgment to reverse the unjust sentence even after its lethal execution!  God himself condemned the sins Christ bore, which wrongly condemned him, by raising him from the dead, immortal and glorified, and exalting him to heaven’s throne, thus making his avenging completely pointless with respect to those who forthwith repented and believed this News.  The Law of Moses had demanded nominal overcompensation by offenders on behalf of their victims.  But the enormity of a capital crime was far too great for such restitution, so the death of the offender was exacted in its place.  Yet this makeshift obviously could not truly rectify such a tragic loss.  However, when God finally got in the act, a new dynamic emerged.  He requited His Son with a superabundant overcompensation in response to his collective murder (this is what the collective laying of hands on the sacrificial animal denoted), which included a wonderfully indescribable present:  the Holy Spirit.  Ever after, all believers receive the Spirit as a pure gift that actually (objectively) cleans us internally (subjectively) from our sins.  By giving us this pledge of everlasting life in our hearts, God enables us to rule over the decadent cravings of our mortal flesh so they don’t break forth inordinately in thought, word, or deed.  That’s not everything we get, but it’s a flying start!