Over one million violent crimes were committed in the United States in 2025. The staggering number of perpetrators and victims in the United States means it is likely you attend church with someone whose life has been changed by violence. You probably rub shoulders on a regular basis with someone who has been drawn, through their choices or some else’s, into the justice system. Given this reality, Matthew T. Martens uses his book Reforming Criminal Justice to answer the question, How should Christians think about the machinery of criminal justice in America?

The premise of the book is straightforward: Since the highest command of Christ with respect to our neighbors is to love them, a biblical ethic of criminal justice is one that reflects love for both the victim and the criminal. Love does not mean indulgence. Sometimes love means discipline, which can look rather harsh when we are talking about discipline for violent crimes. Even so, our discipline should be done in love, recognizing the criminal defendant remains a person created in the image of God.

What does it mean to love our neighbor in the context of criminal procedure? Martens proposes five criteria: A criminal justice system shows love through accuracy, due process, accountability, impartiality, and proportionality. Each of these topics receives a chapter-length defense of its place in a biblically informed vision of criminal justice. Martens then uses the remainder of the book to compare this ideal of biblical justice with the reality of criminal procedure in the United States.

This book is a strong contribution to Christian thinking about criminal justice. It has the benefit of not being overly partisan. As a defense attorney, Martens offers concrete proposals that often lean in favor of protecting or expanding the rights of criminal defendants. Even so, the book avoids vilifying law enforcement or falling into a naive idealism that supposes brutal crimes do not actually happen or can just be ignored. Perhaps the highest commendation we can give the book is it has aspects that will offend both sides of the political aisle. Several areas stand out as particularly helpful contributions to a discussion of Christians and criminal justice.

First, Martens reminds us that law, at its core, is the threat of violence (35–41). When we criminalize something, we are making a declaration that we intend to use violence against those who have committed or are contemplating committing such an act. The violence is not always immediate. Sometimes, like when we violate speeding laws, cooperation between the offender and the police officer results in a peaceful exchange. But the threat of violence is what makes a law a law. If you see the lights in your rearview mirror and refuse to pull over, at some point the police will make you. Often, this is a good thing. We are thankful when someone uses force to stop others from robbing us, entering our homes uninvited, or worse. It is certainly loving our neighbor to support consequences for those who would deprive them of their rights. But it should also give us pause, remembering that such use of violence should fit the criteria for justice outlined above. In a country whose federal criminal code reaches four thousand pages, we should be cautious in expanding it. If every time we thought “There ought to be a law” we understood ourselves to be saying, “We should use violence against…,” there might be less litigation and more conversation in this country.

Second, Martens does an excellent job highlighting the ways in which our criminal justice system falls short. He gives examples in many areas (jury selection, judges, witnesses, sentencing, and the death penalty), but one area is worth highlighting: the plea bargain. While crime dramas and legal thrillers give the impression that every encounter with law enforcement will end in the courtroom, almost the exact opposite is the case: Ninety-five percent of criminal cases are resolved through guilty pleas (201). This might be less concerning if it were not for the troubling facts we know about guilty pleas. Many individuals plead guilty to crimes they are innocent of. On the face of it, this seems preposterous. Why would anyone accept fines, probation, or imprisonment for something they did not do? Financial considerations are one reason. If prolonged litigation is likely to bankrupt you or your family, it is not unreasonable to sign a guilty plea to save time and money. Speaking of time: Many defendants can wait a year or more for their “speedy” trial, a year they may well spend incarcerated. Such a possibility looms as a real threat to many: “What if choosing instead [of a plea] to prove one’s innocence means sitting in a hellhole like Rikers Island for another year or two awaiting trial?” What if exercising your right to a trial means more time in prison (208–9)? Sentencing guidelines authorize up to a decade more prison time for a trial conviction over a guilty plea. Remember, this is for the same crime. It is difficult to see how a criminal justice system can be impartial or accurate if we punish individuals for exercising their constitutional rights. Christians are right to seek to reform these sorts of injustices.

Third, Martens helpfully reminds readers that simply because something is biblical in origin does not mean it can be supported in our current practice. To give an ecclesiastical example: Just because Jesus instituted the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine as a sacrament in his church does not mean he approves of the Roman Catholic Mass. This obvious point is often lost on us when we discuss Christianity and public policy. Martens observes that just because the Bible approves of the death penalty (he believes it does) does not mean Christians should approve of the death penalty as it is currently practiced in the United States. He offers considerable statistical data to demonstrate that the death penalty in America is racially biased and therefore ought to be abandoned until we can make reforms in the system (328–38). Statistics are notoriously difficult to interpret, but it is nevertheless a point Christians ought to contemplate.

While there is much to admire in this book, it is not without certain weaknesses. The first is Martens’s dependence on Christopher Marshall for his understanding of “justice as love” (5), the central theological claim of the book. Marshall’s work is a sustained attack on the doctrines of God’s wrath and penal substitutionary atonement.¹ Obviously, one need not agree with everything an author writes in order to cite him or her. But to offer a Christian proposal based on the work of someone who denies fundamental articles of Christian soteriology demands, at a minimum, an explanation. Is Marshall’s work relevant despite his denials? If it is, how does Martens understand the relationship between God’s wrath and criminal procedure?

Between the cross and civic justice? These are complex questions. The reader is entitled to expect Martens to offer some explanation of his dependence on Marshall, but no explanation is given. To my mind, the fact that God’s wrath is retributive and he delegates such retributive responsibility to human beings (Genesis 9; Romans 13) says a lot about how we should structure our criminal justice system. While restitution and restoration are important goals, in light of God’s own justice there is a necessary role for retribution as well. Furthermore, how does Martens’s dependence on Marshall square with his views on the death penalty? While Martens argues the death penalty is not categorically unjust (335), Marshall declares the death penalty is “incompatible with a gospel of redemption and reconciliation.”² Martens would do his readers a service by expanding on how his theological understanding of justice uses Marshall while differing from him at key points.

Second, it seems some of Martens’s suggested solutions need to be injected with a note of realism. A refrain found repeatedly throughout the book and emphasized in his last chapter on practical solutions is the need for Christians to “vote differently.” The call for Christians to vote with purpose is rooted in his assertion that “every few years, we select who among us will carry the sword for us. We decide who among us will exercise a power to kill that we have conferred” (68). Unfortunately, this really is not true. The vast majority of those responsible for carrying the sword are not subject to removal via the ballot box and will keep their positions regardless of how we vote. Furthermore, the bulk of Reforming Criminal Justice is taken up with analysis of how Supreme Court decisions have impacted criminal justice procedures in the United States. The Supreme Court, however, is purposely insulated from the pressures of the electorate. Even when voters influence who is put on the court, the results are often not what they expect. (When pro-life voters helped put Ronald Reagan in office, did they anticipate his first Supreme Court nominee would do more to expand abortion in America than anyone since the judges in Roe v. Wade?) Real change requires a focus on discipling Christian lawyers, judges, and jurors who can change the system from within. Even with such change, we should never lose sight that true justice awaits our coming King. Martens knows this; the reader would benefit from its being more fully fleshed out. This is where Reforming Criminal Justice could be helpfully supplemented by works that emphasize the ways Christians can be faithfully present while acknowledging their status as sojourners in this world.³

As the nation on earth with the highest incarceration rate, debates about criminal justice in the United States are not going away anytime soon. Christians ought to be informed about such debates, that they might make meaningful contributions as pilgrim citizens in the country they dwell in. Reforming Criminal Justice is a good place to start.

Note

1. Christopher Marshall, Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment (Eerdmans, 2001), passim, but see particularly 65ff.
2. Marshall, Beyond Retribution, 253.
3. Among such works see David VanDrunen, Politics After Christendom: Political Theology in a Fractured World (Zondervan Academic, 2020); and James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010).

©Zach Whetsel. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• Zach Whetsel

  

  Zach Whetsel is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California, where he earned a Master of Arts in Historical Theology. He currently serves as assistant pastor of Trinitas Presbyterian Church (PCA) and teaches history and current world issues at a local Christian school. He and his wife, Tiffany, live in Washington state with their sons.

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