Colson seeks to convert prisoners to Christianity, not necessarily to rehabilitate them. If they repair their lives, all the better, but souls matter most. This fact shadows Colson's ambitious Inner Change project. Colson's volunteers run the daily lives of about 200 Texas inmates. From dawn to dusk, the inmates attend prayer meetings, Bible study, and chapel.
All activities are explicitly evangelical and Protestant.
Though Inner Change is being widely praised and imitated, Muslims in the program complain of ostracism, and civil libertarians are alarmed at the project's aggressive promotion of Christianity. Christian conservatives such as Robertson and Falwell craved national prestige. But they sought it crudely. They were hinterlands preachers, not political sophisticates. They didn't speak the language of politics, and their shrill self-righteousness scared away millions and made the Christian right a bugaboo.