ANGOLA, La. (AP) _ A Southern Baptist seminary has students behind bars in Angola, Louisiana.
About 150 prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary have earned Bachelor of Arts degrees from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and another 100 are on track to graduate.
Many of them will never leave Angola and will minister to fellow inmates serving life sentences.
Since starting the program at Angola, the Baptist seminary has begun similar ones in the Mississippi and Georgia prisons.
At Angola, everyone has a job. For some it’s working in the fields or in the prison hospice program. For those enrolled in the seminary, it’s going to school.
Prison officials say applicants are selected on a number of criteria, but religious affiliation is not one of them. The warden notes that a Muslim prisoner completed the course and received his degree.