In the two months since North Carolina’s legislature laid off most of its prison chaplains, Betty Brown, director of prison chaplaincy services, has been crisscrossing the state searching for volunteers who can attend to the religious needs of Native American, Wiccan and Rastafarian prisoners.
State legislators had assumed volunteer ministries would jump in and help prisoners meet the ritual and devotional needs of their faiths. But so far, that hasn’t happened.
“It’s been tough locating volunteers for those faith groups,” said Brown, whose department lost 26 full-time prison chaplains as part of an effort to close a $2.6 billion state budget gap.
Plenty of tax-cut advocates argue that if you cut taxes, charity will fill the gap. We’ll see how that works out.
[blockquote] Plenty of tax-cut advocates argue that if you cut taxes, charity will fill the gap. [/blockquote]
You forgot the asterisk.
Plenty of tax-cut advocates argue that if you cut taxes, charity will fill the gap.*
* Unless it’s complete crap.
Plenty of tax-and-spend liberals go on and on about the need for separation between church and state, until it’s a social program being cut.
Is it a tragedy that witches and druggies don’t feel strongly enough about their spirituality to evangelize?
(No, it’s not.)
RE: “searching for volunteers who can attend to the religious needs of Native American, Wiccan and Rastafarian prisoners.”
Heh. Looks like there isn’t much of a market for those religious needs.
You gotta wonder what percentage of the prison population are Rastafarians.
How is it that the ACLU allowed these to be paid positions by the state to begin with?
Prisons are pretty tense places on the best of days. When an inmate cannot even have the solace of participating in his or her chosen faith, things can go from bad to worse. Are there huge populations of these groups, nope. But that doesn’t mean that they are any less important. Ask almost any Warden or Correctional Officer and you’ll probably hear that they appreciate have a TRAINED, PROFESSIONAL Chaplain who is there interacting with both staff and inmates every day.
I shed nary a tear. Perhaps if this minority prison population is no longer encouraged in their paganism by their own shamans and what have you, they might be more open to the ministrations of the Christian chaplains and the truth of Christianity.
The “ministrations of the Christian Chaplains” are more acceptable to the “minority prison population” when they do not see the Christian Chaplain as their enemy but rather as someone who they can approach. I’ve had more conversations about Christianity with inmates who are of a different faith simply because I’m willing to listen and help them. They expect people to come in and hammer them with a heavy handed evangelical message. What they don’t expect is someone living a confident, Christian life in their midst and offering to stand beside them.
#8
I’m quite sure your approach is the correct one. Thank you for work in this challenging ministry.