Self-Forgiveness, Servant-Leadership, and Religious Volunteers in a Juvenile Incarceration Setting

Abstract

Engaging volunteers with religious backgrounds in a juvenile incarceration setting leads to encountering white saviorism (Raypole, 2021, para. 4) and white evangelicalism as expressed through the theology of these volunteers and their racial demographic. Additionally, white evangelicalism used the language and values of Christian nationalism (Boston, 2021). Servant-leadership is an antidote to white Christian nationalism and can balance the inequalities of relationships between volunteer and incarcerated youth. Specifically, self-forgiveness as a practice of servant-leadership and of incarcerated youth can lead to healing from white Christian nationalism and healing from a criminal background.