The IFI Ruling: It's Time to Get Personal

As you know from listening to BreakPoint, a federal judge has ordered the state of Iowa to shut down the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, commonly referred to as IFI. It’s a successful faith-based pre-release program. The judge ruled that IFI violates the establishment clause of the Constitution.

One week ago, IFI, Prison Fellowship, and the state of Iowa filed notice of an appeal in the case. Why would Prison Fellowship spend so much time and money fighting this case? As you’ve heard me say, it’s a matter of religious freedom. We can’t sit idly by while the courts make it nearly impossible for prisoners to receive the ministry they’ve requested or for faith-based organizations to provide invaluable social services.

And you’ve also heard me say, it’s a matter of public safety. This country cannot afford to merely warehouse its 2.3 million prisoners. As a recent report by a blue ribbon commission stated, idleness in prison breeds frustration, frustration breeds violence, and that violence spills out into our communities when inmates are released from prison. So the last thing we need is courts shutting down effective rehabilitation programs in our prisons.

But now it’s time to get personal. I’d like to introduce you to just two of the faces behind the legal abstractions, men who have gone through the IFI program, and now have been transformed by the grace of God.

Aaron Ganfield grew up around drugs and alcohol. By 18 he was a full-blown cocaine and methamphetamine addict. At 22, Aaron was arrested for packing drugs and a gun. The court slapped him with a 50-year prison sentence.

Aaron soon applied for the IFI program, where, he says, “Christ began transforming me in new and wonderful ways.” Aaron completed the program and was released in 2003. He attended college. He got married. Today he serves as the facility manager of Wildwood Hills Ranch, a faith-based camp that ministers to children who have suffered neglect, abuse, and poverty.

Every day Aaron touches the lives of youth who are headed down a perilous path—helping them discover the same hope and promise for change that he found in Christ.

Or take Robert Sutton. Caught up in gangs and drugs on the streets of Houston, he ended up in a Texas prison, serving a 35-year sentence for murder. But in 1997, he applied for the IFI program in Texas. It was there that he learned about personal responsibility and how crime ravages victims and the community. After his release from prison, he became a custodian and a van driver at his Houston church and is a productive citizen. In 2003, he attended a meeting at the White House, where he told President Bush and several cabinet members how Christ and the IFI program changed his life forever.

We’re fighting this ruling and appealing the judge’s decision to close down IFI because we will not turn our backs on men like Aaron and Robert, or the hundreds of others now participating in IFI.

And, in the end, we believe that the appeals courts will find that helping prisoners become productive citizens is indeed constitutional. And right now we need to know that you stand with us in this struggle. Please, today, go to our website www.prisonfellowship.org to indicate that you stand with us by registering your support of the IFI program and our appeal of this case. We’d like to send you regular updates on the case and how it’s progressing.

There are links to further information at the source document.

If anyone wants on or off my Chuck Colson/BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

Been praying for Mr. Colson lately. His prison ministries have changed the path of more prisoners in its sort time of existence than all of the progressive rehab programs of the last 50 years. Which is why he is hated.

2 posted on 07/10/2006 5:55:17 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)

To: 05 Mustang GT Rocks; 351 Cleveland; AFPhys; agenda_express; almcbean; ambrose; Amos the Prophet; ...

BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!

If anyone wants on or off my Chuck Colson/BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

3 posted on 07/10/2006 6:02:07 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback (Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof - Lev. XXV, v. X)

4 posted on 07/10/2006 6:15:25 AM PDT by P8riot ("You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." - Al Capone)

Secularists cannot devise values that are in any way superior to the spiritual values found in the Bible.

Even so, they would rather destroy the lives of prisoners than allow any religious values to transform the lives of even a few for the better.

I worked in a state prison where this program was in effect. It divided the inmates, created a sense of "privilege" among those who were involved, and was a disaster. Moreover, it was monitored by conservative, right-wing zealots with militant and violent opinions on minorities, women, children and families. I drove the program out of our prisons and I hope you will all take time to do the same in yours. The men involved PLAY the game... there is no God but God. Colson is a distant second to the true working of the spirit.

You took the trouble to sign up today just to trash Chuck Colson's program? You libs ARE obsessed.

Sorry "Rev," but I know liberal punks like you are desperate to discredit these good works. I've seen the fruits of Prison Fellowship's work firsthand, nad there's no chance of me or any other person with any sense believeing your lies.

Calling in some heat...

9 posted on 02/22/2007 6:08:21 PM PST by Mr. Silverback ("Logic" is as meaningless to a liberal as "desert" is to a fish.--Freeper IronJack)

Yeah, a guy signs up and posts one post in a thread that's over six months old? Seems to me our guest is from PAW or (more likely) is one of their sympathizers, living in Mamam's basement and all ticked off because "his" tax dollars might pass somewhere in the same hemisphere as a program that actually helps people for real.

10 posted on 02/22/2007 6:11:46 PM PST by Mr. Silverback ("Logic" is as meaningless to a liberal as "desert" is to a fish.--Freeper IronJack)

SKYBIRD SKYBIRD DO NOT ANSWER

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11 posted on 02/22/2007 6:13:14 PM PST by Mr. Silverback ("Logic" is as meaningless to a liberal as "desert" is to a fish.--Freeper IronJack)

"conservative, right-wing zealots"

OH NOES TEH REPUBLICANS!!!!!!!

Well you've come to the right place because we just hate those types.

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