The Real Coercion

This week I read the decision in Americans United for Separation of Church and State v. Prison Fellowship Ministries, in which Judge Robert Pratt ruled that state funding for the InnerChange prison rehabilitation program amounted to an unlawful establishment of religion.  Pratt's ruling made much of the fact that inmates who volunteered to join the program were in fact coerced into becoming Christians because the program was pervaded by Christian teaching.

If you want to know what real coercion looks like, just ask Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig from Fox News.  Although these two men were recently released by their captors in Gaza City, it was not before they were forced at gunpoint to read words like these: "My name is Steve. I'm an American. After I entered Islam, I changed my name to Khaled. I have embraced Islam and say the word Allah, and my leader is the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him."  The conversions were not genuine, of course, only a desperate concession by men who were trying to save their skins. 

The contrast between these two situations of incarceration reminds us of one of the distinctives of authentic gospel ministry: it is non-coercive, recognizing that true spiritual change can only occur by the power of the Spirit himself.