2016-2019 — Nashville and Beloved Community

The following year, 2016, marked another breakthrough. “People and Policing: Compassion for our Violence” featured, among others, Neill Franklin, a retired Maryland police officer and leader in criminal justice reform, and Preston Shipp, who later joined our Board as president.

Preston shared the story of his own conversion: as a state appellate prosecutor, he had denied Cyntoia Brown’s appeal. Later, when he met her as his student in a prison degree program, he came to recognize his own participation in a cruel and racist system.

Since then, Preston has worked tirelessly for prison reform and for Cyntoia’s release.

When Preston joined our board, he invited Theology & Peace to Nashville, where he was active in a vibrant community of activists working for racial justice, mass incarceration reform, advocacy for formerly incarcerated people, support for victims of sex trafficking, and protection for children at risk of falling into the cradle-to-prison pipeline.

That invitation marked another pivotal moment. Theology & Peace was no longer only a place to study mimetic theory, nor only a conference series about nonviolence. We were becoming a community of practice — a Beloved Community of theologians, clergy, activists, scholars, and laypeople learning how to recognize violence, interrupt scapegoating, and create peace together.