Making Ministers Behind Bars

[Valin]

First Thoughts:

Betsy Childs

6/10/13

 

 

When the ACLU approves of a Baptist Bible college in a state penitentiary, you know there is something extraordinary going on.

 

An article in The New York Times, Bible College Helps Some at Louisiana Prison Find Peace, chronicles the remarkable story of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, more commonly known as Angola. The largest maximum security prison in the U.S., Angola has a horrible history, but since the arrival of Warden Burl Cain in 1995, it has become a model of prison reform.

 

Cains tenure as warden came on the heels of The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act passed in 1994, which made prisoners ineligible for Pell Grants and devastated education within the penal system. Cain invited New Orleans Baptist Seminary to open a Bible college within the prison walls. Since then, the privately-funded seminary extension has awarded fully-accredited bachelors degrees to over two hundred inmates, and associate degrees or certificates to hundreds more.

 

(Snip)