John Charles Boger

Reforming Criminal Justice

Christian Living

“This extraordinary work embraces three or four books in one, all beautifully and clearly written, deeply researched, and organically knit together. Its gift to readers includes the profound framework author Matt Martens builds to examine the Christian requirements of justice and ‘social justice’ and his subsequent use of that framework to explore America’s criminal justice system. This would be an ideal book for a season-long study by an adult Sunday school class or a community reading group. Matt Martens guides readers step-by-step through his thinking, often sharing vivid personal vignettes in a confessional voice. Yet the depth of his scholarship is remarkable; he’s at home not only in the Gospels, the Pauline Letters, and the Old Testament Scriptures but also in the writings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Martin Luther King Jr.—learning he wears lightly but employs deftly to support his most important conclusions. A work of love and grace.”