Suspect Tenderness opens with a narrative concerning the capture of Daniel Berrigan, related in his continuing friendship and pastoral relationship with Stringfellow and co-author Anthony Towne. It continues with an examination of the ethical and theological implications of the Berrigan witness, in which middle-class American piety is asked to face the fact that Jesus was a criminal. Stringfellow insists that every state feels threatened by Christ's claim to a moral authority over death, and sees the community of resistance as a community of resurrection.