Source: (1992) Akron, PA: Mennonite Central Committee Office of Criminal Justice, May, 46p.
This is a theological essay regarding criminal conflict in the Bible. Northey presents several aspects of biblical justice and biblical peace including atonement, reconciliation, and justification. He concludes that state punishment rarely is redemptive, in experience or by design, and is, therefore, opposite to the mercy of God. The overarching goal of a Biblical theology of peacemaking and its application to criminal conflict is to seek the re-establishment of right relationships wherever relationships have been broken by the criminal act. Northey calls for the church to be agents of change to prevent cooptation of peacemaking reform programs, such as church-based Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs.
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