Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Folsom Prison Blues
Folsom Prison Blues
Mar 17, 2025 10:39 AM

I received an email today from the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, an independent outreach of Prison Fellowship Ministries. It seems the initiative is facing rising program costs due to legal battles over the legitimacy of its Christian makeup. And constant critics of the program, like Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, seem rather incredibly cold-hearted to the plight of today’s prisoner.

The InnerChange Freedom Initiative is one of the few elements in prisoners’ lives that has the ability to give them hope. And this hope is not just hope for release from physical bonds, but hope for release from the spiritual bonds of sin and corruption. Here are some of the key facts about the initiative:

The corrections system in America is broken. More than 600,000 people will be released from U.S. prisons and jails this year, and 52% of those ex-inmates will be return to prison within three years.Departments of Correction are seeking help, asking for proposals for values-based prisoner rehabilitation alternatives.The InnerChange Freedom Initiative, a biblically based, round-the-clock prison program works. An independent study by the University of Pennsylvania showed that only 8% of prisoners who graduated from our IFI program in Texas were reincarcerated within two years of their release.

This final point gets at the heart of the prison problem in America. For a system that is supposed to be based in large part on “rehabilitation,” recidivism rates are disturbingly high. This remains the case because the root issues are spiritual, and the state is spectacularly incapable of addresses such concerns. Johnny Cash, a Christian who had to push to record Gospel albums, recorded a hit song in 1968, “Folsom Prison Blues.” The lyrics of this song attest to the spiritual nature of criminality (emphasis added):

I hear the train in’; it’s rollin’ ’round the bend,

And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when.

I’m stuck at Folsom Prison and time keeps draggin’ on.

But that train keeps rollin’ on down to San Antone.

When I was just a baby, my mama told me, “Son,

Always be a good boy; don’t ever play with guns.”

But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.

When I hear that whistle blowin’ I hang my head and cry.

I bet there’s rich folk eatin’ in a fancy dining car.

They’re prob’ly drinkin’ coffee and smokin’ big cigars,

But I know I had in’, I know I can’t be free,

But those people keep a movin’, and that’s what tortures me.

Well, if they freed me from this prison, if that railroad train was mine, I bet I’d move on over a little farther down the line, Far from Folsom Prison, that’s where I want to stay, And I’d let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Peter Heslam on wealth creation among the global poor
Throughout our debates about global poverty and economic inequality, critics of capitalism routinely raise the point that half of the world’s population live on less than $2 per day, while wealth among the other half continues to “concentrate.” The underlying assumption is clear: For so many to be making so little, someone (somewhere) must surely be takingmuch. Yet given that such a statistic actually represents a high-water mark in human historyfor all people — rich and poor alike — we’d...
We are all New Deal socialists now
President Trump is known for public unveiling his inner thoughts on Twitter. But one of the most ments he’s ever made came recently in a private discussion with lawmakers about trade policy. According to Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., when senators visited the White Housethey told the president what farmers want is access to markets, not a payment from government. To this Trump replied, “I’m surprised, I’ve never heard of anybody who didn’t want a payment from government.” Unfortunately, the president...
The folly of ‘following your passion’
If you’re a young person in America, you’ve undoubtedly been bombarded by calls to“follow your passion,” “pursue your dreams,” or “do what you love and love what you do.” But do these sugary mantras truly represent the path to vocational clarity, economic abundance, personal fulfillment, and human flourishing? Not according to a new study by researchers from Stanford University and Yale-NUS College, which found that “following your passion” is likely to lead to overly limited pursuits, inflated expectations (career, economic,...
When it comes to plastic straw bans, won’t somebody please think of the children?
Twenty years ago on The Simpsons, Helen Lovejoy gave us one of the most ubiquitous rallying cries in politics: Homer: Mr. Mayor, I hate to break it to you, but this town is infested by bears. Lovejoy: Think of the children! [The mayor sets up a Bear Patrol, which costs tax money. One week later, the citizens have a plaint.] Homer: Down with taxes! Down with taxes! Lovejoy: Won’t somebody please think of the children? The attempt to gain support...
‘If anyone was ever a socialist it was Jesus’: Democratic Socialists of America leader
Last week, Kelley Rose told the national media why she helped found a chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America: Jesus made her do it. Fittingly, she told her story at taxpayer expense. ments came as part of a glowing profile of the DSA that National Public Radio posted on July 26 mistitled, “What You Need to Know About the Democratic Socialists of America.” Rose, a 36-year-oldwho co-founded the DSA’s North Central West Virginia chapter, told NPR: “I might be...
Justin Welby reimagines a poorer and less free Britain
“Christian leaders are often guilty of ‘souping up, mon good,” says Noah Gould in this week’s Acton Commentary. “Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, is no exception. In his latest book, Reimagining Britain: Foundations for Hope, Welby sets out to create a new social and political vision for the United Kingdom based on mon good.” The most precise definition Welby offers is that mon good “looks not to averages but to the totality of flourishing in a group.” He uses the...
Adam Smith and the morality of commercial society
Over at Arc Digital today I take a look at Adam Smith’s moral teachings, particularly in light mercial society and Christian theology. This essay serves as a brief introduction to one of the Moral Markets projects I am working on, as well as a teaser for further exploration of the relationship between Christianity and classical political economy. As A.M.C. Waterman describes the developments following the publication of Smith’s Wealth of Nations (WN), “Whether Smith actually intended WN to be read...
FAQ: The U.S.-EU plan to reduce tariffs
On Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced a new transatlantic plan to “make our planet a better, more secure, and more prosperous place” by lowering tariffs, trade barriers, and regulations between the U.S. and the EU. Here’s what you need to know. What did the two leaders announce? The U.S. and EU signed a joint statement of intention to pursue four goals: “First of all, to work together toward zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers,...
Foreign aid fraud concerns ‘valid,’ says UK chief
The man who oversees the UK’s foreign aid budget says that public concerns about fraud, abuse, and futility associated with international development programs are “valid.” And he plans to fight those perceptions by launching an evangelistic campaign on behalf of the government. Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary for the Department for International Development (DfID), told a civil service website that foreign aid skeptics raise two chief objections: Either they believe that “the problems are too big” to fix or that “the...
C.S. Lewis on why we have cause to be uneasy
If, like me, you spend a lot of time online—especially on social media—or watching the news you probably have a constant, low-level sense of anxiety. Always focusing on the problems in the world can cause us to feel a perpetual sense of unease. But while we may try to blame this feeling on the state of the world, deep down we know there must be something more to it. We have a sense that something is truly wrong, as if...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved