Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal

“Matt Martens’s book represents careful research and is an excellent primer on the biblical view of justice. I found the claim that true justice is love in action particularly insightful and well argued. Martens explains well the biblical view of justice, comparing and contrasting it with current practices in the United States. We know these matters are complicated and lack easy answers, but Martens’s research helps us chart a way forward as we consider what it means to enact justice in the United States.”

“Before you even go to trial, you could be held legally in jail for years. More shocks like that are in this book. In it, the author informs in order to transform. Matt Martens is a Christian, the son of a pastor, a husband and father, a church member, and an accomplished lawyer. He has worked in both the private and the public sectors for decades. In these pages, he takes the reader on a tour of what really happens when a crime is alleged. Martens provides definitions and historical context for terms familiar to the average reader, gives examples of current challenges, and raises concerns about how we actually practice justice. This book is more than informative—it is engaging to the point of being disturbing. Martens is trying to serve us by helping us get in ‘good trouble.’”

“Reforming Criminal Justice is a book for our polarized times. Guided by classical Christian sources and a biblical vision of love’s relation to justice, Martens draws on his considerable legal experience to offer a critical yet constructive evangelical approach that is at once theologically sensitive and historically informed. Highly recommended for the church and anyone concerned about the lived realities of the American criminal justice system as an urgent moral and political issue.”

“Reforming Criminal Justice is a superb tutorial on the criminal justice system, and it’s much more. An experienced criminal justice lawyer—as a prosecutor and then as a defense attorney—Martens is also a trained theologian. He offers simple, biblically grounded principles for assessing American criminal justice and doesn’t shy away from the issue of race. Highly recommended.”

“A book like this is long overdue and vitally important. Combining theological training, many years of legal experience, and authentically evangelical convictions, Matt Martens is just the person to write it. In part 1 he provides a biblical framework that connects criminal justice with Christian love in light of just war reasoning. In part 2 this framework helps us to appreciate certain features of America’s criminal justice system while identifying an urgent need for reform. As a result, this book will make us better citizens of both Christ’s kingdom and our earthly cities.”

“In a climate in which so many of our positions and policies on matters of criminal law and social justice are driven by party and politics, we need more of the biblical insights and applications Matt Martens offers in this book. Reforming Criminal Justice is a rich resource of wisdom, experience, and knowledge that will serve the church and our nation.”

“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.”

“Drawing on his mastery of law and theology, Matt Martens has crafted a marvelous theory of criminal justice. His major theses—that the gospel demands social justice and that justice is grounded in love—originate in insightful biblical exegesis supported by historical theology and generate solid legal principles. While some will quibble at points, every reader, from the responsible voter to the professional magistrate, will feel profoundly compelled to love more tangibly. For this ameliorating service to our image-bearing neighbors, victims and criminals alike, we all stand in Martens’s debt.”

“Martens is a practicing attorney with experience as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney. In this book, he argues that justice must be rooted in love and mercy. He lays out a compelling case for the need to reexamine the reality of injustice in the American justice system. The system is broken and in need of repair. The evidence he presents is compelling. The argument he makes is convincing. The case he makes is compassionate. It is hard to imagine anyone reading this book and not being angered, saddened, and motivated to act for justice. Love demands it.”

“Everywhere, criminal justice reform continues unabated, higgledy-piggledy. Usually animated by a cliche (‘defund the police’), it is unintelligible. What is required is a return to first principles. That is Martens’s project—from a Christian perspective. Mercifully, he does it in a single volume written in a way that is not sectarian but more general; its appeal, in fact, should be universal.”

“Matt Martens shows great courage, as well as biblical and legal depth, in tackling the controversial and sometimes toxic subject of criminal justice in the United States. The research is meticulous, the historical perspectives helpful, and the impact of his sweeping presentation convicting! This book can’t be ignored by those in the political and legal worlds or by anyone else who cares for a just society.”