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Thank you for adding to my list of heroes and role models who practice and proclaim a "whole gospel" that includes God's justice and his care and concern for the poor and oppressed ["The Pragmatic Prophets," June 14]. John DiIulio, Millard Fuller, and Jim Wallis are men in positions of power and influence seeking to honor God with what they have been given by "preaching good news to the poor" and seeking to love and serve them. May God raise up many more like them who will lead the church into a greater understanding of God's nature and character as a God of justice and righteousness.

Todd Mintum
San Luis Obispo, Calif.

The profile of Prof. John J. DiIulio of Princeton ["The Criminologist Who Discovered Churches," June 14] credits DiIulio as the first crime expert to recommend religious faith as the solution to the crime problem—a common misimpression, for in 1994 I published a book titled Crime and the Sacking of America. Its thesis—controversial and novel then—was that crime is the most extreme form of selfishness, and that the only true solution to crime is religion. Through God's grace, the book became the most ac claimed conservative book on crime in two decades.

In September 1995, William Bennett told me he had recommended my book to DiIulio. Up to that time, DiIulio had not recommended religion as an antidote to crime. Indeed, only four years before, in his 1991 book No Escape: The Future of American Corrections, he took essentially the opposite view.

Less than three months after my conversation with Bennett, DiIulio published a now-famous article in the November 27, 1995, issue of the Weekly Standard. In CT he proclaimed that religion was the nation's best hope for reducing our high crime rates. No mention of my work was made. In fairness, perhaps his conversion was a result of an epiphany he experienced; God does work in mysterious ways.

Tim Stafford, the writer of your article, was justified in questioning DiIulio's assertions about the genesis of this idea. "The way DiIulio likes to tell the story," Stafford wrote, "he got to faith-based ministry strictly by following the data." The record suggests that I proffered the idea first.

Andrew Peyton Thomas
Phoenix, Ariz.

* Thank you for the article on Jim Wallis ["Mr. Wallis Goes to Washington, June 14]. As a conservative (theologically) evangelical Christian, it was refreshing to see Wallis seriously considered in CT. Wallis has been a refreshing voice in evangelical circles for many years, and one that needs to be taken seriously.

Rev. David Haberer
Far Rockaway, N.Y.

I read your article "God's Contractor" on Millard Fuller; my prayers to God are for him and the hard work with Habitat for Humanity. One statement bothered me: "Jesus wouldn't want us to kill this so and so because he killed my daughter." True, Jesus doesn't want us to kill, but he never condemned the Romans of his time for capital punishment. Apparently God thinks it works or he wouldn't have had laws for capital punishment in the Word. Since studies show that our prison system doesn't deter crime, let's do away with prisons and let the unjust go on doing evil.

In June 1997, three teens came to my home claiming their car broke down. I agreed to give them a ride home. They held me in the car seat and slit my throat, but I got away from them, received 80 stitches in my throat, died once on the operating table, and should be dead by all doctors' accounts. At the trial I told the boys I forgave them and they needed to turn their lives around and get saved because there is a Judgment Day coming. Since studies show that prison doesn't deter attempted murder, robbery, rape, etc., I asked the judge to let them go. Not. Capital punishment is not an individual doing murder; it's the government, which is ordained by God to carry out laws to protect. Fuller should rethink his capital punishment statement.

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August 9 1999, Vol. 43, No. 9