Books

The Business of Incarceration

There has been perhaps no political issue in contemporary America able to garner as widespread agreement as the need to end our system of mass incarceration. This book provides tools for Christians seeking to understand this massive social injustice, its theological and historical origins, and faithful ways of resisting and ending this system. The Business of Incarceration places the political-economic system that is the prison-industrial complex at the center of the story it tells, the analysis it provides, and the engagement it recommends.

Praise

“This is a book that deserves to be read, shared, and discussed! It contains some of the most thorough and accessible writings on the business and practice of mass incarceration that I have read. Christians and non-Christians alike will learn from this book, including strategies for resisting mass incarceration in ways that are restorative, transformative, and abolitionist.”

—Barb Toews, Associate Professor, School of Social Work and Criminal Justice, University of Washington, Tacoma

“The authors of this text go beyond critiquing the exploitative systems of incarceration; they do the hardest work of all—they give us hope for actual Christian resistance and ignite our imaginations for building new worlds not governed by the business of incarceration.”

—Rachelle R. Green, Assistant Professor of Practical Theology and Education, Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, Fordham University

The Business of War

The Business of War interrogates the development and contemporary implications of the military-industrial complex. It exposes the moral dangers of life in neoliberal economies dependent upon war-making for their growth and brings the Christian tradition’s abundance of resources into conversation with this phenomenon. In doing so, the authors invite us to rethink the moral possibilities of Christian life in the present day with an eye toward faithful resistance to “the business of war” and its influence in every aspect of our lives.

Praise

“The Business of War is full of theologically critical, morally challenging, and epistemologically innovative voices! The superb collection of well-argued and researched essays disrupts the conventional wisdom about the necessity of the military for peace by revealing that war has been always a lucrative profit-making business. Retrieving Christianity’s long history of resistance to war, the book presents the possibilities of peace, embodied by audacious and compassionate peace activists since the birth of Christianity.”

—Keun-Joo Christine Pae, Associate Professor of Religion/Ethics, Chair of the Religion Department, Denison University

“This book is about an urgent moral problem: war is a wildly profitable and growing business. Most of us who are complicit in this problem do not think about it nearly often or deeply enough, but The Business of War offers the tools needed for Christians to take up that work: thoughtful analysis of the roots of the problem, accounts of its impacts on human lives and the world around us today, and paths of resistance and protest. This is an excellent, important book.”

—Kevin J. O’Brien, Dean of the Division of Humanities and Professor of Christian Ethics, Pacific Lutheran University

Learn more about The BOW

Read this symposium on the book at the Political Theology Network, including three authors who contributed to the book and three respondents who work at the intersections of Christian theology and militarism.

Learn More About Dr. McCarty