{"id":1117,"date":"2011-09-30T01:03:26","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T05:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=1117"},"modified":"2011-09-30T01:03:26","modified_gmt":"2011-09-30T05:03:26","slug":"fun-friday-church-as-alternative-to-alabama-slammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/09\/fun-friday-church-as-alternative-to-alabama-slammer.html","title":{"rendered":"Fun Friday: Church as Alternative to Alabama Slammer?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ever play that game &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rrrather.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Would you rather<\/a>?&#8221; Here&#8217;s a Fun Friday edition: Would you rather spend a year in jail or church?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not entirely theoretical, at least not for nonviolent, first-time offenders in Alabama:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8211;<a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/09\/27\/jesus-or-jail-alabama-town-offers-options-for-serving-time\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jesus or jail? Alabama town offers options for serving time <\/a>(CNN)<\/li>\n<li>&#8211;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\/index.php?\/rnstext\/ala._criminals_offered_choice_between_pews_and_the_pokey\/\" target=\"_blank\">Criminals offered choice of time in pews or the pokey <\/a>(RNS)\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>&#8211;<a href=\"http:\/\/old.news.yahoo.com\/s\/nm\/20110927\/us_nm\/us_crime_alabama_church\" target=\"_blank\">Alabama offer of church attendance or jail draws protest <\/a>(Reuters)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And for a related question: If you get arrested under <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2011\/08\/where-do-white-evangelicals-stand-on-strict-state-immigration-laws.html\" target=\"_blank\">Alabama&#8217;s strict new immigration law<\/a>, could you serve time by going to church instead of jail? That would certainly be convenient for clergy concerned that such laws will penalize Good Samaritans!<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<\/a><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever play that game &#8220;Would you rather?&#8221; Here&#8217;s a Fun Friday edition: Would you rather spend a year in jail or church? It&#8217;s not entirely theoretical, at least not for nonviolent, first-time offenders in Alabama: &#8211;Jesus or jail? Alabama town offers options for serving time (CNN) &#8211;Criminals offered choice of time in pews or the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[481,14,480],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aclu","tag-christianity","tag-operation-restore-our-community"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fun Friday: Church as Alternative to Alabama Slammer? - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/09\/fun-friday-church-as-alternative-to-alabama-slammer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fun Friday: Church as Alternative to Alabama Slammer? - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ever play that game &#8220;Would you rather?&#8221; Here&#8217;s a Fun Friday edition: Would you rather spend a year in jail or church? 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A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1126,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions\/1126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}