God’s Law and Order : The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America

**Winner of a __Christianity Today__ Book Award** **An incisive look at how evangelical Christians shaped—and were shaped by—the American criminal justice system.** America incarcerates on a massive scale. Despite recent reforms, the United States locks up large numbers of people—disproportionately poor and nonwhite—for long periods and offers little opportunity for restoration. Aaron Griffith reveals a key component in the origins of American mass incarceration: evangelical Christianity. Evangelicals in the postwar era made crime concern a major religious issue and found new platforms for shaping public life through punitive politics. Religious leaders like Billy Graham and David Wilkerson mobilized fears of lawbreaking and concern for offenders to sharpen appeals for Christian conversion, setting the stage for evangelicals who began advocating tough-on-crime politics in the 1960s. Building on religious campaigns for public safety earlier in the twentieth century, some preachers and politicians pushed for "law and order," urging support for harsh sentences and expanded policing. Other evangelicals saw crime as a missionary opportunity, launching innovative ministries that reshaped the practice of religion in prisons. From the 1980s on, evangelicals were instrumental in popularizing criminal justice reform, making it a central cause in the compassionate conservative movement. At every stage in their work, evangelicals framed their efforts as colorblind, which only masked racial inequality in incarceration and delayed real change. Today evangelicals play an ambiguous role in reform, pressing for reduced imprisonment while backing law-and-order politicians. __God's Law and Order__ shows that we cannot understand the criminal justice system without accounting for evangelicalism's impact on its historical development. "God's Law and Order is a religious history of mass incarceration. The book charts the history of evangelical Christian influence in modern American criminal justice, exploring the connection of the massive rise in imprisonment and the surge in evangelicalism's popularity and influence during the second half of the twentieth century. The book's central argument is that crime and prison concern were central to evangelical entry into American public life, and that one cannot understand the state of modern American criminal justice without accounting for evangelicalism's impact. Each aided the rise of the other"-- Provided by publisher There is more to the story of mass incarceration than civil rights backlash politics. It is also a religious story. Aaron Griffith points to the key role played by evangelical Christians, who worked for conversion of prisoners and pushed an anticrime agenda that, while ostensibly colorblind, exacerbated racial inequality in the justice system. Churchdom's war on crime -- Jesus Christ Is the only control -- Religion Is a real weapon -- God's law and order -- A sermon in your cell -- There are better ways