Offering Ministry, and Early Release, to Prisoners

[kskiska]

(snip)

Mr. Warren's programs, which have made him perhaps the most influential evangelical minister in America, have acquired a unique status within the California Department of Corrections, the nation's largest. Prisoners who finish the drug program can qualify for an early furlough to a halfway house. Such furloughs have long been available through secular addiction programs, but the Saddleback program — which combines 12-step methods with Christian teachings — is the first religious program accredited in this way, said Terry Thornton, a department spokeswoman.

Next month the Celebrate Recovery program will get its own building in the prison, a 200-bed therapeutic community comparable to the prison's secular recovery building.

Though the program has elicited no protest, some civil libertarians say it amounts to government sponsorship of a religion.

"This is the first program I've heard of where Bible study or religious study gets you early release," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit group that is suing a prison in Iowa for its religion-based programs. "Converting people into being Christians or better Christians is not a legitimate purpose of California government."

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/10/national/10CHUR.html?hp

[AndyTiedye]

1. They are Doing That Here in California??

:wtf: