Bang. An iron door slams shut. A convicted murderer is heading out on a 24-hour leave. He’s leaving his prison cellblock to minister in a church he started. The story of a criminal embracing an evangelical faith behind bars has become common in one of Argentina’s most violent areas. It’s a story of redemption brought about only by the gospel.

Jorge Anguilante exits the Argentine prison every Saturday. This burly, 6-foot-1, ex-hitman must return by 8 a.m. the next day to a prison cellblock known to inmates as “the church.”

Anguilante says his life as a criminal is behind him. God’s word, he says, turned him into “a new man.”

Jesus offers such change. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” Paul says, “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Before he leaves, prison guards remove his handcuffs. They stare silently at the hit-man-turned-pastor. He utters a single word: “Blessings.”

Many in Argentina’s Santa Fe province and its largest city of Rosario began peddling drugs as teenagers. Spiraling violence led some to their graves, others to overcrowded prisons.

Argentine prison authorities have encouraged, to some extent, the creation of units basically run by evangelical inmates. Sometimes officials grant them extra privileges, such as more time in fresh air.

The evangelical blocks are much like the rest of the prison. But they are safer and calmer than the regular units.

“We bring peace to the prisons. There was never a riot inside the evangelical cellblocks. And that is better for the authorities,” says the Reverend David Sensini of Rosario’s Redil de Cristo church.

Plus, breaking the rules can get an inmate sent back into the normal prison. That’s a deterrent to bad behavior.

Rosario is a major agricultural port—and a talent factory for soccer players, including stars such as Lionel Messi. But the city also has high levels of poverty and crime. Violence between gangs has helped fill its prisons.

Some evangelical churches exert a strong influence in Santa Fe province’s prisons. They have evangelized inmates since the late 1980s—while Catholicism’s influence has waned.

During a recent church service in Rosario, Sensini asked those who had ever been imprisoned to identify themselves. About a third in the room raised their hands.

Hymns blare from loudspeakers while TV cameras record the ceremony for other worshippers watching via a YouTube channel.

“No one else is going to jail. Not your children, not your grandchildren,” Sensini shouts. “Change is possible!”

He speaks truth. For with God, all things are so. (Matthew 19:26)

Why? God is always at work in His creation, bringing His purposes to completion, especially in the redemption of sinners through the power of the gospel.