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DARRINGTON MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON UNIT, NEAR ROSHARON, Texas—Through an unusual partnership, 40 long-term inmates at the Darrington maximum-security prison unit are now receiving pastoral seminary training behind bars.
The new program, open to any inmate meeting the academic standards to enter college and given clearance by the state, is being funded partly by a $116,200 grant from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. The SBTC, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Heart of Texas Foundation are collaborating on the program.
The grant will provide library books, classroom furniture, technology and half of the ongoing costs for professors’ salaries and travel expenses for the first two years. For its part, SWBTS is providing from money outside its Cooperative Program allocation to fund the remaining half of the ongoing costs as well as scholarships for each student. And while the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has allowed SWBTS to use classroom space at Darrington, no state funds support the program.
HOW IT STARTED
Houston native Grove Norwood toured the 5,000-inmate Angola maximum-security prison in Louisiana after an Angola prisoner viewed the movie “Heart of Texas,” which documents Norwood’s radical forgiveness following the tragic hit-and-run death of his daughter. While at Angola, Norwood learned of the Bible college program offered by New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary within the facility.
Since its inception in 1995, that program has been credited with a 70 percent reduction in inmate violence, with murders dropping from 20-30 per year to no murders committed during each of the past three years and assaults dropping from 400-500 per year to only 40 last year. In addition, graduates of the program have been sent out in pairs to other prisons throughout the state.
“The key to what God has done in our programs is application. Every student must be involved in ministry in the prison,” Chuck Kelley, the New Orleans Seminary president, told the TEXAN. “They learn to do, not to merely know. Raising up godly, trained inmate leaders is what sets prison transformation in motion. As our students became ministers, light began pushing back the darkness.
“All that we are doing was set in motion when a Baptist layman took his faith to work. His work happened to be serving as warden in the largest and toughest maximum security prison in the nation. He saw the need and came to us to see if we would be a partner in training leadership. We said yes, and the rest is history.”
A documentary of the NOBTS program at Angola can be viewed at the North American Mission Board website: onmission.com/A-New-Hope/.
Impressed with what he saw, Norwood came back to Houston in May 2010 and asked two Texas state senators, John Whitmire, D-Houston and Dan Patrick, R-Houston, along with representatives from the SBTC and SWBTS, to visit Angola with him. As members of Texas’ Senate Criminal Justice Committee, the senators were convinced to establish a similar program in Texas, which has 13 maximum-security prisons to Louisiana’s one. Joe Davis, the SBTC’s chief financial officer, was also at Angola during that visit and was equally impressed.
“We were just amazed at the things that had happened at Angola because of the Bible college program New Orleans seminary had here,” Davis said. “And we were amazed and excited to think something like this could happen in Texas. We saw what it did in the system in Angola. It completely changed the prison. The men there have turned their hearts to Christ.”
Since their visit last spring to Angola Prison, Denny Autrey, dean and professor of pastoral ministries at Southwestern’s Houston-based J. Dalton Havard School for Theological Studies, has been working with the SBTC and TDCJ to work out the details of the Texas program. As a result, 40 students began their coursework this past spring semester. After completing the 125 credit-hour program over four years, graduates will receive the bachelor of science degree in biblical studies. A similar degree program is also planned for Southwestern’s Fort Worth and Houston campuses.
Autrey said he is most encouraged by the influence the program at the prison could have on the seminary.
“This is a God-given thing that Southwestern has been asked to do this,” Autrey said. “It will bring strong doctrine and biblical inerrancy into the prisons. Anyone can apply for the program, but we are going to teach the exclusivity of Christ and the inerrancy of Scripture.”
In contrast to other moral rehabilitation programs that bring in outsiders to work with prisoners prior to their parole or release, Southwestern’s program focuses on long-term prisoners. To be eligible, inmates must to be at least 10 years from parole, with preference given to inmates with even longer sentence terms remaining. The stated purpose is to give graduates five or more years to be an influence on other inmates within the prison system.
“These guys are in prison 24-7, not like ministries that come and go or just focus on evangelism,” explained Ben Phillips, Southwestern professor of systematic theology and preaching at Havard who serves as director of the program at Darrington. He noted that participants would live among the general prison population, not in one of the faith-based dorms that are available to Darrington inmates.
“These inmates will not just evangelize in the prison, but minister and pastor with street credit.”
Phillips said that roughly 600 inmates applied for the program, and of those the department of criminal justice passed along 155 applicants to Southwestern for consideration.
From that number, 40 inmates were chosen for the first cohort, along with 20 alternates—any student who creates a discipline issue in the prison will lose his seat in the program, something they are not eager to do.
“The students are ecstatic and abundantly grateful for our presence there,” said Brandon Warren, administrative assistant at Havard who taught at Darrington this spring. “I served a total of six-and-a-half years in prison myself, and I’ve been out almost seven years now. So the students and I relate to each other well in a number of areas, and they’re very passionate about serving and succeeding in the program.”
In choosing participants, Southwestern looked for inmates with a desire to serve their fellow prisoners.
“Criminals by nature are incredibly selfish,” Phillips explained. “They will lie, steal, and even murder to get what they want. So when someone like that shows desire to serve others, we take it as pre-conversion work of the Holy Spirit. And we believe if you give them four-and-half-years of solid Bible teaching, they will either come out Christians or be strengthened in their walk, and they will know how to use the Bible to serve their fellow offenders.”
Phillips emphasizes the changes that happen when inmates with life sentences embrace Christ and minister in his name.
“What we’ve seen in Angola is that if you change lifers, you actually see the guards’ attitudes change, and eventually you change the whole culture in the prison. That reduces violence in the prisons and cost to the justice system. And when you minister to guys who will get out, now those changes begin to happen on the streets, in the lives of their children and families and in the reduction in the number of new victims.”
According to Autrey, the program has already made changes, as four of the 40 men have made professions of faith within the first semester. He hopes to see that continue as Southwestern works to move the program out into the remaining 12 maximum-security prisons, as well as the 100 other prisons in the state.
“TDCJ has asked us to move the program out as soon as possible,” Autrey said. “We hope to be in two or three more units, and into a woman’s prison unit as well.” He said in order to accomplish this Southwestern and the Heart of Texas Foundation are reaching out to the many churches in Texas that already have prison ministries. “We feel the next step is connecting with our churches,” Autrey said.
For Phillips, the excitement comes in imagining how the inmates’ lives will be a testimony to Christ in the coming years as the program adds 40 participants each of the next three years until it reaches 160 students enrolled at once.
Citing the first chapter of 1 Timothy, Phillips noted in verses 13 through 16 that Paul emphasizes how violent and wicked he had been before he met Christ. Yet, Paul says, Christ saved him so that his life would be living evidence to the power of the gospel.
“If these guys can have their lives transformed,” Phillips said, referring to inmates in the program, “if God can transform murderers into the image of Christ, then that shows that the gospel has real power.”
