Prison Closes Christian Discipleship Course for Violating "Diversity Policies"

The Prison Service has ditched a groundbreaking discipleship course for inmates at Dartmoor prison on the grounds that it failed to comply with “diversity policies”.

|TOP|The closure of Inner Change, as it was called, could implicate dangers for other such courses in British Prisons, for example the Alpha course, as they risk violating the government’s multi-faith approach.

The founder of the course, Lady Georgie Wates, of the Prison Fellowship, claimed that the future of Christian teaching and chaplaincy in prisons was hanging in the balance.

She said: “There are two reasons for the closure. First we don’t comply with the diversity policy of the Prison Service because we teach the sanctity of heterosexual marriage as the Bible says, which is seen as homophobic.

"And secondly, because we don’t fit in with the multi-faith agenda. They think we should be teaching a bit of every religion and that what we’re teaching offends other faiths”, reports the Church of England Newspaper.

Inner Change was based upon similar discipleship courses found in the US. The course was adopted last year for a pilot programme by the Rev Bill Birdwood, the Chaplain of Dartmoor.

Inner Change is based around Alpha. The aims of the course are to create a Christian community in the prison and includes follow-up and Christian mentoring after inmates are released.

The programme seems to have been effective in America, with some states reporting a reduction of recidivism to eight percent.

However it has not been without problems. Aside from the decision of the Prison Service to close it, Inner Change’s principles and practicability were questioned by the Chaplain General, the Venerable William Noblett in a visit last year.

|AD|Noblett has asked chaplains to sign up to a multi-faith covenant in which they are required not to “knowingly say or do anything which insults or in any way denigrates the faith of any other person. Should we unwittingly offend we ask that the one we offend helps us in a gentle and gracious way to understand how that insult occurred. We will not knowingly distribute or display any literature which offends another Faith tradition.”

Lady Wates however pointed out that some aspects of Christian teaching are liable to offend those of other faiths. She said: “If we teach Jesus is the Son of God, of course it is going to offend people. I’m amazed and bitterly disappointed to see a programme which is having such an impact and seeing change being stopped.”

Inner Change was run by volunteers and did not receive it’s funding from the Prison Service. Prison officers testified at a recent accreditation review that the programme had had a positive effect on previously difficult prisoners, according to the Church of England Newspaper.

The closure of Inner Change was much regretted by the Rt Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester. Nazir-Ali has recently been expressing concern for the marginalisation of Christianity in chaplaincies.

He claimed that the closure came about because Inner Change was “too Christian”. He added that the claim that the course was “proselytising”, despite it’s voluntary nature and its openness to people of other faiths, could affect the nature of chaplaincy work across the board.

This week the Home Office said that all “offending behaviour programmes” must be approved by an accreditation panel and that Inner Change was closed in June this year.