Prison & Restorative Justice in sermons

Prison & Restorative Justice comes up in 0.7% of the 49,328 transcribed sermons on Divining, most often in Unitarian Universalist (0.9%), United Methodist (0.8%), United Church of Christ (0.8%) churches. Its share has held steady since 2025 (0.6%).

0.7% of sermons326 sermons14 denominations

Sermons on this theme talk about mass incarceration, visit those in prison, the imprisoned, restorative justice, the death penalty, returning citizens. Part of Justice, Mercy & the World. Least common in Jewish churches (0.0%).

Year by year

ProgressiveMainlineBlack churchEvangelicalAll churches
0%0.5%1%1.5%2%201620182020202220242026Progressive 2016: 2.0%Progressive 2017: 1.2%Progressive 2018: 0.7%Progressive 2019: 1.9%Progressive 2020: 0.8%Progressive 2021: 1.0%Progressive 2022: 0.8%Progressive 2023: 1.0%Progressive 2024: 0.9%Progressive 2025: 1.0%Progressive 2026: 0.9%Mainline 2016: 0.0%Mainline 2018: 1.5%Mainline 2019: 0.0%Mainline 2020: 0.0%Mainline 2021: 0.0%Mainline 2022: 0.1%Mainline 2023: 0.5%Mainline 2024: 0.8%Mainline 2025: 0.2%Mainline 2026: 1.0%Black church 2022: 0.0%Black church 2023: 0.0%Black church 2024: 0.0%Black church 2025: 0.3%Black church 2026: 0.5%Evangelical 2016: 0.0%Evangelical 2017: 0.0%Evangelical 2018: 0.0%Evangelical 2019: 0.8%Evangelical 2020: 1.2%Evangelical 2021: 0.7%Evangelical 2022: 0.1%Evangelical 2023: 0.9%Evangelical 2024: 0.5%Evangelical 2025: 1.0%Evangelical 2026: 0.3%All churches 2016: 1.1%All churches 2017: 0.9%All churches 2018: 0.5%All churches 2019: 1.3%All churches 2020: 0.8%All churches 2021: 0.7%All churches 2022: 0.5%All churches 2023: 0.9%All churches 2024: 0.8%All churches 2025: 0.8%All churches 2026: 0.6%

By denomination

Unitarian Universalist: 0.9% of 21,206 sermonsUnitarian Universalist0.9%United Methodist: 0.8% of 3,745 sermonsUnited Methodist0.8%United Church of Christ: 0.8% of 2,752 sermonsUnited Church of Christ0.8%Christian / non-denominational: 0.7% of 7,785 sermonsChristian / non-denominational0.7%Presbyterian: 0.7% of 300 sermonsPresbyterian0.7%Mennonite: 0.4% of 227 sermonsMennonite0.4%African Methodist Episcopal: 0.4% of 1,402 sermonsAfrican Methodist Episcopal0.4%Catholic: 0.3% of 334 sermonsCatholic0.3%Unity: 0.2% of 844 sermonsUnity0.2%Lutheran: 0.2% of 639 sermonsLutheran0.2%Baptist: 0.1% of 6,663 sermonsBaptist0.1%Episcopal: 0.0% of 2,010 sermonsEpiscopal0.0%Orthodox: 0.0% of 305 sermonsOrthodox0.0%Jewish: 0.0% of 242 sermonsJewish0.0%

All churches: 0.7%. Denominations with 150+ tagged sermons.

Preached alongside

Themes that share a sermon with Prison & Restorative Justice more often than chance (×2 = twice as often as in sermons overall).

Peace & Nonviolence ×3.4Racial Justice ×2.7Forgiveness & Reconciliation ×2.6Faith & Civic Life ×2.4Poverty & Compassion ×2.1Suffering & Perseverance ×1.9Service & Spiritual Gifts ×1.8Immigration & Refuge ×1.8

Churches that preach it most

Listen to sermons on Divining

Share of transcribed sermons on Divining with at least one chapter on a theme, from Divining’s topic segmenter; 2016 to Nov 2026. Updated Nov 2, 2026 · Site map · Divining: a deeper search for meaning · build_seo_pages v0.0.1