WASHINGTON (BP)–Both sides of a church-state legal battle found something to celebrate in a federal appeals court’s opinion on a Christian ministry in an Iowa prison.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis, ruled Dec. 3 that a federal judge was correct in deciding the state’s support of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative operated by Prison Fellowship violated the bans on government establishment of religion in both the U.S. and Iowa constitutions. The court, however, reversed the part of Judge Robert Pratt’s 2006 decision that ordered Prison Fellowship to shut down the program and return to the state $1.5 million it received to help run it.