Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 28:1 (Spring 2024)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

Book Reviews

Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal. By Matthew T. Martens. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023, 416 pp., $24.99.

Matthew T. Martens is a trial lawyer and partner at an international law firm in Washington DC. He has practiced criminal law for over twenty-five years, served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist at the US Supreme Court, and holds both a JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law and a MABS from Dallas Theological Seminary.

In Reforming Criminal Justice, Martens aims to accomplish two goals: (1) demonstrate that the biblical concept of justice is rooted in love, and (2) reveal how America’s criminal justice system falls short of biblical justice. Part 1 explains how a biblical framework of love and justice supports American legal concepts such as due process, accuracy, and impartiality. Part 2, then, provides a brief history of the United States’ criminal justice system before demonstrating how America’s current practices regarding issues like plea bargaining, jury selection, enforcement of the death penalty, and others fail to meet the standard of a truly just system from a biblical perspective. In the final chapter, Martens urges his readers in response to think, speak, and vote differently on issues surrounding criminal justice.

This book is thoroughly-researched and convicting for Christians who are unfamiliar with the details of America’s criminal justice system. Martens presents compelling criticisms of modern American legal practices and argues convincingly for stronger Christian involvement in criminal justice as a political issue. As he develops in chapters 2 and 3, if those accused and convicted under the law are nevertheless our neighbors according to Scripture, then Christians are duty-bound to advocate for a system that is predicated on justice-as-love rather than merely retribution or punishment. That is, the government’s use of physical force against criminals can only be considered “moral” when it is both motivated and restrained by the principle of neighborly love (53). According to Martens, a system that best fits the biblical model is one dedicated to principles of accuracy, due process,

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accountability, impartiality, and proportionality. Rooting these principles in both the Old Testament law and Romans 13, he claims that any system which fails to uphold these virtues cannot be considered a truly just system of government.

Martens dedicates the remainder of his book to demonstrating how America’s system is currently failing to uphold these particular principles. In chapters 10 and 11, he reveals how differing definitions of “crime” throughout US history, as well as t...