Two parables that have become firmly lodged in popular consciousness and affection are the parable of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Prodigal Son. These simple but subversive tales have had a significant impact historically on shaping the spiritual, aesthetic, moral, and legal traditions of Western civilization, and their capacity to inform debate on a wide range of moral and social issues remains as potent today as ever. Noting that both stories deal with episodes of serious interpersonal offending, and both recount restorative responses on the part of the leading characters, Compassionate Justice draws on the insights of restorative justice theory, legal philosophy, and social psychology to offer a fresh reading of these two great parables. It also provides a compelling analysis of how the priorities commended by the parables are pertinent to the criminal justice system today. The parables teach that the conscientious cultivation of compassion is essential to achieving true justice. Restorative justice strategies, this book argues, provide a promising and practical means of attaining to this goal of reconciling justice with compassion.

Your invitation to move beyond pity, helplessness, and outrage, and your playbook for making a difference right where you are. As the daily newsfeed full of suffering and injustice scrolls by, it's all too easy to question what one person can really do to enact the profound change the world needs. Like moviegoers, we often watch and witness with care, but assume the script has already been written. Disruptive Compassion dares to make a bold counter: you possess the power to provoke real and meaningful change. Why? Because God has empowered you to rewrite the story of tomorrow. Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus created a model for revolutionaries that has been followed ever since. These principles are just as powerful to guide our journey today. With raw and inspiring stories from the world's most desperate places and his own journey to find meaning, Convoy of Hope founder and CEO Hal Donaldson will take you on a tour along the frontlines of courage and compassion. Let this book be your crash course in what it means to become a revolutionary, as you learn how to: Evaluate the resources you already have Navigate real concerns and risks Check your motives And ultimately become equipped as an agitator with purpose With principles and insights gleaned from two decades of relief work, Hal reveals what he's learned from the journey and what we can take with us as we join the revolution.

On a Good Friday in a picturesque village in Upstate New York, the spring weather is unusually warm and school is closed. It's an ideal day for tanning and partying in the park until Shawnee Padrushky, age 17, drives up in his dad's new pick-up and comes out shooting with one victim in mind--Gunther Smith--the only black student in Shawnee's class, the adopted son of white parents. The Crime of Being explores the effects of a racial incident--how it divides a seemingly homogenous community over the course of a summer and exposes its dark secrets. Tarred by the media as "the most racist town in America", the people of Liberty face tangled questions of whether racism or insanity were at the root of a white teenager's violent assault of his black classmate, and whether the community as a whole can be implicated? Until the incident, the Smiths and the Padrushkys lives rarely intersected, but in its aftermath, their trajectories run strangely parallel as they are forced to look at how they have managed (and mismanaged) their parental responsibilities. Ironically, Shawnee and Gunther, perpetrator and victim, find themselves sharing the territory of otherness as their definitions of self are changed forever.