Religion & American Law

Church Comes First! New Prison Fellowship Ministries Reentry Programs

In an article published this week on ReligionDispatches.org, Mark Bergen discusses a new development of the rapidly spreading Prison Fellowship Ministries program. For those that are unfamiliar, Prison Fellowship Ministries (PFM) states that their mission is “to seek the transformation of prisoners and their reconciliation to God, family, and community through the power and truth of Jesus Christ.” This program was launched by Charles “Chuck” Colson, who was incarcerated for 7 months himself after the notorious Watergate scandal, in 1976. PFM then went inside the prisons to serve as an “alternative” rehabilitation program for prisoners. For further information on the values and history of the PFM please see their website.

This article on RD deals directly with a new PFM program called Out4Life. Out4Life began in Louisiana and has gained tremendous popularity recently and will be spreading to more than 10 other states in the coming years. Out4Life’s basic structure will vary in each state; however, the basic structure “will mirror the one in Louisiana, set in place with “a partnership with state and church,” says Jean Bush, Out4Life’s National Director. Is this a viable partnership?

What is of particular interest here is not the fact that PFM wishes to help ex and current criminals change their lives through Jesus Christ, but that it is a government funded program within the prison system. Therefore issue for programs like Out4Life is this: Is it a violation of the Establishment Clause for the government to sponsor and aid a religious, and clearly evangelical Christian, program?

Dr. Winnifred Sullivan published her book Prison Religion last year after being called as an expert witness in the case in Iowa involving the PFM and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Her book is a detailed account of her experience as a witness, the trial, and the programs in place in the Iowa prison. When questioned by the defense on behalf of the PFM, Sullivan was frequently pushed to agree that on paper PFM is a non-sectarian group with a completely secular purpose: to transform prisoners. However, I defy anyone who looks at the PFM website listed above and reads their mission statement and core values section to claim that this is an inherently secular and not a religious group.

With that in mind, is there a clear violation of the Establishment Clause? Judge Pratt found that in Iowa there most certainly was. However, the PFM continues to grow inside and outside of the prison walls. In fact, President Obama recently set aside $144 million to support these reentry programs put in place by former President George W. Bush. Despite the fact that PFM has bipartisan support, is it constitutionally legal for the government to support and endorse such overtly religious programs? It is my understanding that with the precedents set up in cases such as Everson v. Board of Education there is to be a “high and impregnable wall” between Church and State. Recently, it seems that this wall has become a 2-way swinging or revolving door. If the government wishes to continue to state that they remain totally and completely neutral to religion, this wall must remain high and impregnable. If it does not, I have a feeling that we will see many more cases like the one in which Dr. Sullivan testified in Iowa.

About : Raja CRN

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