Christianity Today Book Award Winner Justice requires perseverance--a deep perseverance we can't muster on our own. The world's needs are staggering and even the most passion-driven reactions, strategies, and good intentions can falter. But we serve a God who never falters, who sees the needs, hears the cries, and gives strength--through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit--to his people. Offering a comprehensive biblical theology of justice drawn from the whole story of Scripture, this book invites us to know more intimately the God who loves justice and calls us to give our lives to seek the flourishing of others. The authors explore stories of injustice around the globe today and spur Christians to root their passion for justice in the persevering hope of Christ. They also offer practices that can further form us into people who join God's work of setting things right in the world. Now in paper with an added reader's guide.
This collection of sermons adds compelling clarity to the growing chorus of Christian voices that are passionate about LGBTQ justice and equality--not in spite of their faith but precisely because of it. With a combination of pastoral sensitivity, scholarly insight, and courageous vision, these sermons are a must-read not only for LGBTQ people longing to know they don't have to deny their religious convictions in order to embrace their sexuality and/or gender identity, but also for people of faith who wonder if they have to disregard the Bible in order to fully accept their LGBTQ neighbors, friends, and family members. This volume is an ideal resource for small groups, Sunday school classes, preachers, church leaders, and all people everywhere who are interested in recognizing how the rich resources in the Bible can be cultivated in order to celebrate--rather than condemn--LGBTQ friends and neighbors.
The American church avoids lament. But lament is a missing, essential component of Christian faith. Soong-Chan Rah's prophetic exposition of the book of Lamentations provides a biblical and theological lens for examining the church's relationship with a suffering world. Hear the prophet's lament as the necessary corrective for Christianity's future.
Examines the concept of biblical justice and the meaning of righteousness, using evangelical theology and personal narratives to show the importance of giving one's life away and living with justice, mercy, and humility.
An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival. What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? “Design justice” is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims expilcitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world. This book explores the theory and practice of design justice, demonstrates how universalist design principles and practices erase certain groups of people—specifically, those who are intersectionally disadvantaged or multiply burdened under the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and settler colonialism)—and invites readers to “build a better world, a world where many worlds fit; linked worlds of collective liberation and ecological sustainability.” Along the way, the book documents a multitude of real-world community-led design practices, each grounded in a particular social movement. Design Justice goes beyond recent calls for design for good, user-centered design, and employment diversity in the technology and design professions; it connects design to larger struggles for collective liberation and ecological survival.
“A brilliant and bracing analysis of the Palestine question and settler colonialism . . . a vital lens into movement lawyering on the international plane.” —Vasuki Nesiah, New York University, founding member of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Justice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict’s most vexing challenges have been resolved by judicial intervention. Occupation law has failed to stem Israel’s settlement enterprise. Laws of war have permitted killing and destruction during Israel’s military offensives in the Gaza Strip. The Oslo Accord’s two-state solution is now dead letter. Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures—from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza—Noura Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel’s interests than the Palestinians’. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable. Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine. “Careful and captivating . . . This book asks that the Palestinian liberation struggle and Jewish-Israeli society each reckon with the impossibility of a two-state future, reimagining what their interests are—and what they could become.” —Amanda McCaffrey, Jewish Currents
Spatializing Justice calls for architects and urban designers to do more than design buildings and physical systems. Architects should take a position against inequality and practice accordingly. With these thirty short, manifesto-like texts—building blocks for a new kind of architecture— Spatializing Justice offers a practical handbook for confronting social and economic inequality and uneven urban growth in architectural and planning practice, urging practitioners to adopt approaches that range from redefining infrastructure to retrofitting McMansions. These building blocks call for expanded modes of practice, through which architects can imagine new spatial procedures, political and economic strategies, and modalities of sociability. Challenging existing exclusionary policies can advance a more experimental architecture, one not bound by formal parameters. Architects must think of themselves as designers not only of things but of civic processes, complicate the ideas of ownership and property, and imagine new sites of research, pedagogy, and intervention. As one of the texts advises, "the questions must be different questions if we want different answers." Cruz and Forman are principals in ESTUDIO TEDDY CRUZ + FONNA FORMAN, a research-based political and architectural practice in San Diego. They lead a variety of urban research agendas and civic/public interventions in the San Diego-Tijuana border region and beyond. The work has been exhibited widely in prestigious cultural venues across the world.
When the law won't work, you have to work the law... The murderer stalking the quiet town of Warwick, Rhode Island in the late summer of 1989 was an unrepentant psychopath--"a living, breathing killing machine," in the words of a Boston Globe columnist. He butchered a family in their home--not far from the site where he had killed another woman two years earlier--just for the thrill, it seemed, of watching them die. When Craig Price was apprehended by police two weeks later, he grinned cheerfully and confessed to the crimes. He was tried and convicted, but sentenced to a mere five years imprisonment--the maximum penalty allowed by law. At the age of twenty-one he would be sent back to the streets and no one doubted he would kill again...unless drastic measures were taken. A Call for Justice is the gripping true story of how a cop willing to put his career on the line, members of the victims' families, and other enraged citizens banded together and dedicated years of their lives to keeping a remorseless young killer behind bars. They would gain national media attention, enlist the aid of Rhode Island's attorney general, and even capture the ear of the President of the United States. Theirs is a cautionary tale of a flawed legal system ill-equipped to dispense true justice--and of a community's determination to see justice done, even if it meant twisting the law until it worked.When the law won't work, you have to work the law... The murderer stalking the quiet town of Warwick, Rhode Island in the late summer of 1989 was an unrepentant psychopath---"a living, breathing killing machine," in the words of a Boston Globe columnist. He butchered a family in their home---not far from the site where he had killed another woman two years earlier---just for the thrill, it seemed, of watching them die. When Craig Price was apprehended by police two weeks later, he grinned cheerfully and confessed to the crimes. He was tried and convicted, but sentenced to a mere five years imprisonment---the maximum penalty allowed by law. At the age of twenty-one he would be sent back to the streets and no one doubted he would kill again...unless drastic measures were taken. When the law won't work, you have to work the law... The murderer stalking the quiet town of Warwick, Rhode Island in the late summer of 1989 was an unrepentant psychopath---"a living, breathing killing machine," in the words of a Boston Globe columnist. He butchered a family in their home---not far from the site where he had killed another woman two years earlier---just for the thrill, it seemed, of watching them die. When Craig Price was apprehended by police two weeks later, he grinned cheerfully and confessed to the crimes. He was tried and convicted, but sentenced to a mere five years imprisonment---the maximum penalty allowed by law. At the age of twenty-one he would be sent back to the streets and no one doubted he would kill again...unless drastic measures were taken. A CALL FOR JUSTICE is the gripping true story of how a cop willing to put his career on the line, members of the victims' families, and other enraged citizens banded together and dedicated years of their lives to keeping a remorseless young killer behind bars. They would gain national media attention, enlist the aid of Rhode Island's attorney general, and even capture the ear of the President of the United States. Theirs is a cautionary tale of a flawed legal system ill-equipped to dispense true justice---and of a community's determination to see justice done, even if it meant twisting the law until it worked.
From John Douglas—the legendary FBI criminal profiler, #1 New York Times bestselling author, and inspiration for the Netflix show Mindhunter—comes a chilling journey inside the mind and crimes of Larry Gene Bell, one of the most dangerous serial killers Douglas confronted, and the desperate effort to identify and catch him. On May 31, 1985, two days before her high school graduation, Shari Smith was abducted from the driveway of her family home in South Carolina. Based on the crime scene and the abductor’s repeated and taunting calls to the family, law enforcement quickly realized they were dealing with a sophisticated and highly dangerous criminal. A letter arrived the next day entitled “Last Will & Testament,” in which Shari, knowing she was to be murdered, wrote bravely and achingly of her love for her parents, siblings, and boyfriend, saying that while they would miss her, she knew they would persevere through their faith. The abduction rocked her quiet town, triggering a massive manhunt and bringing in the FBI, which enlisted profiler John Douglas. A few days later, a phone call told the family where they could find Shari’s body. Then nine-year-old Debra May Helmick was kidnapped from her yard, confirming the harsh realization that Smith’s murder was no random act. A serial killer was evolving, and the only way to stop him would be to use the study of criminal behavior to anticipate his next move before he could kill again. Douglas devised a risky and emotionally fraught strategy to use Shari’s lookalike older sister Dawn as bait to draw out the unknown subject. Dawn and her parents courageously agreed. One of the most haunting investigations of Douglas’s storied career, this case details how the eerily accurate profile he created—alongside his carefully crafted and stage-managed manipulation of the killer’s psychology—combined with dedicated police work and cutting-edge forensic science to end a reign of criminal terror. As Shari’s family took incredible personal risks to lure her killer from the shadows, Douglas and the FBI pushed criminal profiling to its limits, culminating in one of his most dramatic and effective confrontations with a sadistic and remorseless killer.
From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible proclaims justice and abundance for the poor. Yet these powerful passages about poverty are frequently overlooked and misinterpreted. Enter the Poor People's Campaign, a movement against racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism, and religious nationalism. In We Cry Justice, Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the campaign, is joined by pastors, community organizers, scholars, low-wage workers, lay leaders, and people in poverty to interpret sacred stories about the poor seeking healing, equity, and freedom. In a world roiled by poverty and injustice, Scripture still speaks. Organized into fifty-two chapters, each focusing on a key Scripture passage, We Cry Justice offers comfort and challenge from the many stories of the poor taking action together. Read anew the story of the exodus that frees people from debt and slavery, the prophets who denounce the rich and ruling classes, the stories of Jesus's healing and parables about fair wages, and the early church's sharing of goods. Reflection questions and a short prayer at the end of each chapter offer the opportunity to use the book devotionally through a year. The Bible cries for justice, and we do too. It's time to act on God's persistent call to repair the breach and fight poverty, not the poor.
