I was skimming through channels today, and came across "Extreme Clergy", a 13-part documentary series that follows pastors, ministers, priests and rabbis into the world’s most dangerous places and films their struggle for social justice.

In a country where every year thousands of violent offenders are released from prison to enter communities where they will inspire loathing and fear; who will find a way to prevent ex-convicts from re-offending, from destroying other lives and their own: who will reach out to the worst of the worst?

In war-torn nations where non-combatants are caught in the crossfire; in rich lands where natural resources generate untold wealth for the few and deprivation for the many; in parched deserts where those who seek freedom often find death: who will stand up for the forgotten and oppressed?

In a far off broken land, when we send young men to fight and kill and be killed, who will walk beside them in the battle zone, without a weapon; to comfort the wounded and the dying and those left behind?

As the previews say ...

"Only those with the courage of their convictions!"
The episode I watched was about Mennonite Chaplain Harry Nigh of Toronto, who works with the “worst of the worst", repeat sex offenders and murderers newly released from the Canadian prison system.

However, Harry - not surprisingly - doesn't see or treat the the ex-prisoners he meets through his work that way ... but that doesn't make for very good ratings.

Therefore, foreign correspondent Rick MacInnes-Rae, who does the voice-over work, is constantly trying to make things sound sinister every time they go to commercial!

But what Bill would do next ...
would shock EVERYONE ...

"Pastor, I want to get baptized!"

"Really, Bill?!?! I'm shocked: everyone is!"