Gospel-powered prison reform – Denison Forum

In a rare reminder that sometimes helping people can be more important than maintaining party lines, President Trump joined with members on both sides of the aisle in Congress this week to announce that he will support a bipartisan prison reform bill. It might reach his desk as soon as next month. The bill will roll back certain elements of existing crime laws with regard to issues like minimum sentencing for nonviolent crimes.

President Trump stated that it was his “honor to be involved, and it’ll be an even greater honor to sign” the new law. As Ja’Ron Smith, the president’s domestic policy adviser, said of the bill, “What we’re doing here is finding a better way to be smart on crime. We want prison to serve as a place to lock up the people who are the most detrimental to society.”

But what about those prisoners who will be relatively unaffected by the new legislation?

There’s encouraging news for them as well.

The chance to be human again

As Yonat Shimron writes for Religion News Service, seminaries across the country are increasingly partnering with prisons to help inmates get bachelor’s degrees in subjects like pastoral ministry and biblical studies. The goal is to train inmates to “become ‘field ministers’ who can serve as counselors for other inmates, lead prayers, assist prison chaplains and generally serve as a calming influence in prison yards.”

To that end, “Applicants must be felons serving minimum 15-year sentences with a high school diploma or GED and a clean disciplinary record for at least a year.” The point is to equip inmates to be positive forces for the gospel from inside the prison.

And the program works.

Burl Cain was a former warden at one of the first prisons to adopt this kind of program. He remarked, “It changes the culture of the prison from within. [The program’s graduates] calm it down. You get rid of gangs. It really makes a difference.”

James Benoy, who has been taking classes for…