April 15, 2008 | By Paul F. South
NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary will officially dedicate its new educational initiative at Phillips State Prison in Georgia on April 17.
Classes began at the Buford, Ga., facility April 2, said John Morris, director of the newest prison program. It is the third prison extension program initiated by the seminary. Degree programs are also in place at Angola State Prison in Louisiana and Parchman Prison in Mississippi.
The Georgia program is supervised by the seminary’s North Georgia hub.
Thirty inmates are part of the first class at Phillips, a close security facility in Buford, Ga., which houses some of the state’s most violent offenders. Students were selected from inmates who applied for the program from prisons across Georgia.
“These are violent criminals, or at least they were at one point, in which God has done a transforming work,” Morris said.
The success of the Angola and Parchman programs was critical to the Georgia initiative, Morris said. Morris also praised the Georgia Department of Corrections.
“The commissioner here (James Donald) is very advanced in his thinking,” Morris said. “His goal is to reduce recidivism. He can do that in two ways: One is by training the inmates better, that is through the program, but also by using them as ministers inside the prison to prepare people who are getting out for their life outside. The whole deal is to reduce the number of people who come back in.”
Officials faced a difficult challenge in choosing students for the program, Morris said.
“Going through the applications, the first part you read is their crime. You read about these terrible crimes, and the thought ran through my mind was ‘I’m going to lock myself in a room with 30 of these people?,’” Morris said. “But the second part involved their testimony, their spiritual journey. You just read that and you say, ‘God has done a miraculous work in this man.”
Morris added: “One of the challenges I faced in talking to these guys is balancing the hideousness of their crime with the redemptive power of God. I’m just awestruck.”
Morris, who also teaches at the seminary’s North Georgia hub campus in suburban Atlanta, is impressed by his new students at Phillips, who have an almost unquenchable desire for biblical teaching. All of their material possessions fit in an area the size of a kitchen cabinet. They have nothing else.
The program offers a bachelor’s degree in Christian Ministry, as well as a two-year associates’ program. Morris hopes to flood Georgia’s prisons with ministers of the gospel.
“My vision goes beyond the academic degree,” Morris said. "My vision is to totally change this prison; to take this prison for God. And then use the ministers to go out and have an impact on the rest of the prisons in Georgia. I think that’s possible.”
The featured speaker at the April 17 event will be Larry Wynn of Hebron Baptist Church. Dr. Jerry Pounds, assistant to NOBTS President Chuck Kelley, will speak on behalf of the seminary. Other state officials and other dignitaries are slated to attend the 11 a.m. ceremony.
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