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<\/a>I\u2019m a middle-aged white guy, who grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, Canada.\u00a0 The son of a minister, I went to church every Sunday, and I\u2019ve heard a lot of sermons in my life.\u00a0 Growing up evangelical, I know the Bible pretty well.\u00a0 So I was well familiar with Matthew 25, and Jesus\u2019 discussion of sheep and goats.\u00a0 Sheep are those who visit the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit those in prison.\u00a0 Goats don\u2019t.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been a goat for most of my life.\u00a0 But this past year I met a sheep, who invited me to join him.\u00a0 His name is Joe Ingle.\u00a0 He took me to death row, and he has introduced me to a bunch of other sheep.\u00a0 And because I\u2019m an academic, those sheep recommended a few books for me to read. The first one was Michelle Alexander\u2019s <\/span>The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness<\/em>.\u00a0 My new friends and that book taught me painful truths that I had too easily neglected to see for most of my life.<\/span><\/p>\nMy favorite poem is \u201cA Ritual We Read to Each Other,\u201d by William Stafford, and in it, Stafford writes: \u201cI call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.\u201d\u00a0 The witness of Reverend Ingle and friends, along with Alexander\u2019s book forced me to recognize some difficult facts.\u00a0 Just one fact should be enough to get us to re-think how we do things in this country: One in every three African American males born in this century will be incarcerated in their lifetime.\u00a0 And the social and psychological effects of this simple fact are cascading and profound. Here\u2019s another one: The United States incarcerates 2.2 million of its citizens\u2014more than any other nation in the world.\u00a0 And finally, our crime rates do not account for our incarceration rates.\u00a0 What, in God\u2019s name, are we going to do about that<\/em>?<\/p>\n At Vanderbilt Divinity School, I direct the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions.\u00a0 Our program is dedicated to developing leaders who have a strong moral purpose.\u00a0 For me, this means developing in ourselves and others the capacity to recognize the truth in its fullness, and to do something about it.\u00a0 Fortunately, there are a lot of strong moral leaders in Nashville, including folks here in our Divinity School, who work the problem of mass incarceration.\u00a0 For example, Dan Joranko has long been involved at Riverbend prison, and oversees our program there. \u00a0Before him, Harmon Wray served as a strong theological voice for the imprisoned and organized our program here at VDS.\u00a0 Many students and faculty have followed in his footsteps over the years, regularly going into prisons to learn from and with inmates.\u00a0\u00a0 Other students and faculty have worked in prisons, visiting, ministering, and bringing the gospel to and from those places.\u00a0 And there are people here and around Nashville working tirelessly to make us more aware of the simple fact: when it comes to incarceration in the United States, we have a big problem.\u00a0 It is a problem of injustice in the very structure of our justice system\u20142.2 million people are in prison. \u00a0And they have families. \u00a0If you are black or brown, you are much more likely to suffer the consequences of this system, which is dehumanizing and debilitating.\u00a0 Prison is hell.\u00a0 Crime and punishment are not aligned, nor fairly distributed.<\/p>\n The Cal Turner Program wants to do something in response to the leadership we see here at the Divinity School and in our community, to help address the problem of mass incarceration.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have any expertise, but we do know how to get people together, so we are doing what we can.\u00a0 We organize lunches, convene working groups, and strive to listen to those who work more closely on the issues and in the prisons.<\/p>\n As part of this effort, we are organizing a conference, entitled Re-visioning Justice in America<\/em>.\u00a0 It will be held April 17-19th<\/sup>.\u00a0 It will bring people from across the country and provide opportunities for learning and sharing best practices around issues of mass incarceration, race and new possibilities for justice.\u00a0 Keynote speakers include:<\/p>\n Michelle Alexander<\/a>, JD,\u00a0a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar, and\u00a0author of <\/span>The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the\u00a0Age of Colorblindness<\/em><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Bryan Stevenson<\/a>, JD,\u00a0founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, professor at New York University School of Law, and author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Howard Zehr<\/a>, PhD, pioneer in restorative justice, professor at Eastern Mennonite University and author of Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n In addition, we will be offering several presentations, panels and workshops, addressing a variety of topics, including racial discrimination in sentencing, the business of mass incarceration, the Cradle to Prison Pipeline, the possibilities and challenges of education in prisons, advocacy for the incarcerated and their families, post-incarceration discrimination, theological resistance to the death penalty, and reforming public policy.<\/p>\n Here at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I am learning anew what it means to read the Bible and to pay attention.\u00a0 I feel fortunate to work with faculty and students who see in our religious traditions a call to advocate for justice and to act on behalf of the disadvantaged.\u00a0 The prison industrial complex, which has emerged over the last 40 years, has created grave injustices and a clarion call for moral leadership.\u00a0 Please tell us your own stories of leadership around injustice and consider joining us in our efforts to confront the problem our nation faces.\u00a0 It\u2019s too easy to read our sacred texts, to observe the signs around us, and not recognize the fact.\u00a0 Sometimes, just paying attention is an act of moral leadership. \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s time for the sheep to show up.<\/p>\n