That's exactly what modern-day theologian, Richard Beck, experienced when he first led a Bible study at a local maximum security prison. Beck believed the promise of Matthew 25 that states when we visit the prisoner, we encounter Jesus.

Local and national journalists fanned the flames by promoting the stories' salacious aspects, while aggressive prosecutors sought to make their careers by unearthing an unspeakable evil where parents feared it most.

"I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Echoing Hosea, Jesus defends his embrace of the unclean in the Gospel of Matthew, seeming to privilege the prophetic call to justice over the Levitical pursuit of purity.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations.

In Trains, Jesus, and Murder, Beck explores the theology of Johnny Cash by investigating a dozen of Cash's songs.

We live in a post-Christian world characterized by doubt and skepticism. Richard Beck argues that this is evidence not of a crisis of belief but of a crisis of attention.

" Beck argues that in the face of this predicament, resurrection is experienced as liberation from the slavery of death in the martyrological, eccentric, cruciform, and communal capacity to overcome fear in living fully and sacrificially ...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.