The last of a three part series: Transforming Ourselves, Transforming the Church, Transforming the World.
Last week a delegation of twelve clergy from the Justice in Action network met with Lancaster County Attorney Pat Condon, to ask him to expand who is eligible to participate in pre-trial diversion programs. It was my turn to be the spokesperson for Justice in Action.
If you came by the church last Tuesday or Wednesday, there is a good chance you saw me huddled with Olivia Butts, the Justice in Action organizer for criminal justice reform, as we worked through exactly how we were going to phrase our asks, how we would respond to counterpoints, and how to stay focused on the issues we were bringing instead of getting dragged into a juvenile debate about tactics and the county attorney’s hurt feelings. He had, in previous conversations, told us he was offended by our tone in asking for changes.
Side note: The man supervises a staff of 40 attorneys, is the lead prosecutor in Lincoln, and has been in public office for decades. The idea that the tactics of a coalition of 24 churches trying to create a more just Lincoln is actually laughable. But laughing is not a serious negotiating strategy, so Olivia and I spent time working through what we would say when, as predicted, he objected to our tone and tactics. This is how healthy civic engagement works, we said. Groups in the community who think there is a problem come to their elected officials to ask for changes. That’s not objectionable, that’s democracy.
We came with four specific asks, all around the eligibility criteria for pre-trial diversion. As a brief overview: in Lancaster, if you are arrested for a misdemeanor (say, possession of Marijuana, 1 oz or less, possessing alcohol while underage, or disturbing the peace) you can apply for admission to a pre-trial diversion program.
The programs vary, but most involve regular check ins with an officer of the court or social worker, regular drug testing, and a goal of breaking the cycle of behavior that led to the misdemeanor arrest. When you complete the program, you do not go to trial, and often the arrest record is expunged. We know these programs work: folks who complete them are vastly less likely to get arrested again than those who go to the jail.
We asked Pat Condon to make four changes to who is eligible to participate in these programs. Right now, if you have ever been convicted of a felony, even thirty years ago, you are permanently ineligible to ever apply for pre-trial diversion for a later misdemeanor. We asked him to change that. He said no.
If you have been convicted of more than two misdemeanors in the last ten years, you are ineligible to apply for pre-trial diversion. We asked him to change that. He said no.
If, for whatever reason, you take longer than 90 days from the date of your first scheduled court date to decide whether diversion is the right step for you, you cannot apply. We asked him to change that. He said no.
These programs cost money to participate in. Often several hundred dollars. Now, for me, that’s not a barrier. But if you are unemployed, or on a fixed income, that cost can be prohibitive. We asked Pat Condon to eliminate fees for these programs, because money should not be a barrier for someone getting the help they need. He said no.
It would be easy, walking out of that meeting, to feel discouraged. To feel like transformation, in the county attorneys office at least, was not going to happen. But I am not discouraged. I left that meeting angry, absolutely, but also energized for what comes next.
Before we talk about that, let’s back up a bit, and talk about what we mean when we talk about transformation in society. Over the last two weeks we’ve talked about transformation on a personal level, and transformation in our congregation. But our vision statement ends that the Unitarian Church of Lincoln is here to transform ourselves and the world.
This morning we sang Felix Adler’s hymn “Hail the Glorious Golden City.” Adler wasn’t Unitarian – he was a Jewish New Yorker who founded the Ethical Culture Society, but his writing captures the goal of a lot of Unitarian activism over the last century. It is a kind of realized eschatology: a view that history has a goal that it works toward (1), that goal is here, in this world (2), and that the goal (the promised land) will be built with human hands (3). If there is a promised land, then we aren’t going to count on God transforming the world supernaturally. We are going to build it.
So great. We won’t look for Royal Cities descending from on high, but build the promised land (the beloved community) right here. That’s a big goal. What is our theory of social change, at the heart of that vision? Justice in Action is grounded in a particular view of social change – one that is countercultural in some ways, but does work within existing power structures to make change. And that kind of institutionalist, incrementalist model is not without its critics.
Our reading, and the scripture it quotes, lays out the revolutionary case for social change. Sometimes the system is so broken that there is no repairing it. Instead we need to create a world anew. That school of thought is often pretty skeptical of organizations like Justice in Action, working to change things at the scale of diversion eligibility criteria. That transformation only happens within the context of existing frameworks, and does not fundamentally change the whole rotten system.
This is the Audre Lorde critique of organizations like Justice in Action: “…the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” That’s a fair critique, and one many people I work with and love share. Maybe those critics are right – I cannot discount that this may be a moment that calls for changing the whole system, creating some kind of revolutionary change that fundamentally shifts the conversation.
But, if I’m honest, I am more of an institutionalist than a radical, more incrementalist than revolutionary. When I was in my twenties, I served in the United States Peace Corps. And one of the founding ideals of the Peace Corps is an idea from Sargent Shriver, the founding director of the agency. He said that a goal of the Peace Corps was to develop practical idealists: young people who would have the fire and commitment to make a difference in the world, but who also had the skills and tools to make that happen. Folks who would have the drive for transformation, but the ability to work within systems in order to change them. I get hung up on the revolutionary framework because I struggle to bring it from the abstract to the practical: what will this look like in practice, today in our community?
From the starting point of either practical idealism or incrementalism in our work in Lincoln, I would say 1) yes, work within the existing frameworks. Because we have them. The County Attorney is an elected position, we have a peaceful revolutionary option on the calendar in 2026. 2) We work in the world as it is, moving it toward the world as it ought to be. The first part is important – we work in the world as it is. That is our starting point.
We do not get to absent ourselves from working in the world as it is, the systems that are already in place, just because they do not meet our high moral and ethical standards. Especially for those like me, who by unearned circumstance of birth can work in existing systems without danger, we have an obligation to show up in those systems and change them. There are people in the jail right now, who should be in diversion programs, today. There are folks in this state who need access to medical care today. Revolution, in abstract debate, does not serve them.
But church work will serve them, and us. We said at the start of this series on transformation that churches get to work in decades, not weeks. We get to use that! It is a superpower in organizing. Because making a sustained moral case over time can transform the world. Organized churches may not start a revolution, but we can absolutely bury the local powers that be by the weight of our moral argument over time. In practical terms: church folks vote, and elected officials know it.
Here's what that looks like in practice: Yes, Pat Condon said no to every single reform we asked him to make. But that one meeting last week was not the beginning of the conversation, or the last word. He’s not the only actor in the system. Justice in Action, the coalition this church is a part of, is also working with the Director of Community Corrections, who administers pretrial diversion, to make sure there is staffing in place for more folks to get help through these programs. We’re working with the County Commissioners to line up funding for those staff positions. We are talking to Region 5 (mental health services) and officials at the jail to get them on board. We are showing up at every Lancaster County Justice Council coordinating meeting, making it clear that expanding these programs is the consensus in the community.
As for the County Attorney? Our last ask of Mr. Condon had nothing to do with pretrial diversion criteria. It was an ask for him to show up, on May 2, so that he could explain his position in front of 1500 churchgoing constituents at Justice in Action’s Nehemiah Assembly (there’s a sign up sheet out in the Gallery, we’re going to bring 150 Unitarians). At first he told us he would not be able to be there, because he had to take a continuing education units for professional certification. When I pointed out that I too need CEUs, but there are lots of opportunities for that in the year, and only one of these assemblies, he said he would think about it. I then asked him: “Mr. Condon, there are a dozen clergy members with us this morning. They are going to go back to their congregations on Sunday. What should they tell their congregants about what your plans are?”
“I am planning to be there.”
So: Pat Condon is planning to be there on May 2, and we’re going to put some of these same questions to him. This time not in front of 12 clergy, but in front of over a thousand people of faith who believe in second chances. This is how change happens, how the criminal justice system in Lincoln Nebraska transforms. It isn’t a wave that suddenly crashes over a dike – it is a rising tide, building over time until it is impossible to resist.
I want to close with a story you’ve heard before. Fifteen years ago, I wrapped up my Peace Corps service and moved to Baltimore. I would not, at that point, have described myself as a ‘practical idealist.’ I was cynical, not idealistic. I wasn’t sure if it was possible for anything to change, and while other volunteers, friends of mine, had been hurt and killed, I wasn’t sure that we had actually done much good while overseas. But around that time I joined the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore.
And sometime that fall, I had an extraordinary experience. We sang “We’ll Build a Land” together. And for some reason, that song clicked. This was a path forward: not a supernatural promised land. Not a place without mourning. Not a place without hurt. But a promised land that can be, where those who mourn are given garlands instead of ashes. Where justice rolls down like waters, and peace like an ever-flowing stream.
This is a thing we can commit ourselves to. This is what we can build, one day, one meeting, one seemingly short step at a time. Let’s sing that together.
121 We’ll Build a Land.
Transformation doesn’t happen in a day. It doesn’t happen as quickly as we want, and it is hard work. But we know in this place that it does happen, one day, one meeting, one dream at a time. May it be so, and amen.