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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

A Consequential Man, Home Now With His God

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  April 21st, 2012 at 07:23 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Chuck Colson was a genuine hero of mine. I am saddened by his passing, but rejoice that he is now face to face with the Lord he dedicated his life to.

Chuck Colson’s life is a very American story and very Christian story — his is a story of grace and redemption.

He worked for Richard Nixon and conspired to commit the Watergate burglary over which he was indicted and went to prison. Along the way, reading Mere Christianity led Colson to become a Christian.

He spent seven months in prison, was disbarred, and saw his son arrested in the fall out over Watergate. But God opened his eyes during his time in prison. He saw the condition of the prisoners, the failures of rehabilitation, and felt led by the Lord to do something about it.

Colson would go on to create Prison Fellowship, an organization loved and supported by many regardless of politics. He was a voice of clarity on the need for evangelicals to engage a world they so often feel as if they are just passing through.

Chuck Colson led a life for Christ Jesus our shared Lord and so many benefited from his ministry. He was a man of great consequence in American history and in the history of the evangelical movement.

He will be missed.

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  • SoFiMil

    .

  • ashland_avenue

    I like what you said about Chuck Colson. Even though he was unquestionably Christian, there are ways in which his life represents the very best of Jewish values as well.
    Surely you are aware that we have two main holiday seasons each year. One, which we just celebrated, is about affirming who we are and restating for the children about where we come from. This is Passover.
    The others are of course High Holidays, and they are meant to creat a mechanism for each person to settle up with his God for the mistakes and sins of the previous year. Th is is why the culmination is a Day of Atonement.
    Charles Colson’s life is/was a magnificent example of facing up to the Lord’s demand for accountability. He owned up mistakes which by today’s standards seem almost mild. He spent the balance of his own time improving circumstances for many of those incapable of speaking/acting for their own.
    Despite his mistskes, for which he paid, his was a life well lived, by either your standards or mine, and I join you in saluting it.

  • lakeshore

    Thanks for that great tribute, Erick. His is a story of redemption and finding a better life, a better future, and a true eternity with God.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    in the late 1980′s. Got to hear him speak, and his personal testimony was a powerful one. One thing that you don’t get from the media coverage is how much his ministry was based on hope. Hope for a better life was as much a part of his message to prisoners as was personal salvation.

  • kcdude

    Chuck Colson being interviewed by Dr. Dobson. He was free the moment he received Christ. He did great things for the Kingdom. He is now in that ‘better country’ that EE referenced one of his other posts today.

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    I have a column coming out tomorrow on the above and more…

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    I believe it was Thomas L. Phillips, then Chairman of Raytheon, who gave Colson the Lewis book. Phillips never served in the Senate.

  • mizzou1776

    Mr. Colson found a way to aid the least among us without resorting to “programs or propaganda”. The power he called on was Jesus Christ.

  • vandalii

    Chuck Colson’s ministry showed the world that recidivism could only be overcome by true change of heart to that of Christ. Our sad society pins its hopes on, well, nothing, so changes, well, nothing. The recidivism of prisoners involved in Prison Fellowship and other Christian prison ministries is exceedingly lower than that of humanist programs or no program at all. So regardless of any broo-ha-ha about “religion” being supported by the state with faith-based initiatives, the statistics speak volumes. But then, facts never really deter the fanatically ignorant :-( .

    Hope and change must be based on something dependable that is also greater than those doing the hoping. That is why our current President does not get it and why Chuck Colson did.

    Chuck will be missed. He was one of the last bastions of consistent Christian behavior in media limelight. Most of the rest end up caught in one nasty scandal or another (thereby becoming media-worthy :-( ). Billy Graham, Chuck Colson, not a lot left in that class of humans committed to true hope and change.

  • soljerblue

    characterize Chuck Colson’s life for me.

    “Inasmuch as you have done it for the least of these, you have done it unto me.” Jesus Christ

    “The kingdom of God will not arrive aboard Air Force One.” — Chuck Colson

  • celador2

    Christianity is made for sinners. No one is too far gone to be saved and experience redemption along a path to everlasting glory. Chuck Colson inspired millions by his good works with the needy and most despised among us. Colson showed them the way, that someone loved them and that Jesus’ love knows no bounds or time limits. His efforts were successful.

    God Loves us all and Colson was able to spread Christ’;s message of Eternal love to those in prisions and to their families. His Prision Fellowship was expecially concerned about Christmas gifs. Such a vulnerable population but not forgotten at Christmas. Prison Fellowship brought home the Christmas message to share and feel joy and they showed we all can make a difference with gifts through PF.

    .We will all miss Evangelical servant Chuck Colson and must continue the support to Prision Fellowship. A truly Christian charity.

    EE, RS thank you for the tribute.

    Cel

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  • aesthete

    I would highly recommend his book “Kingdoms in Conflict” to anyone who hasn’t read it — while I can’t say that I agree with everything in it, it’s a balanced and practical take on the role of the church and believers in politics, and deals with the subject with a maturity and thoughtfulness which is too often absent in the modern “religious right” movement.

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    I have read Colson’s book numerous times since the early 80′s and in preparation for this column; have seen the movie several times and read Mere Christianity at least once every few years and reference it often in my extensive archives. I know me some CS Lewis and Colson history and so was careful in my wording of the column. But God bless you for being keen to the details Erick. Of course, columns can’t cover everything given the parameters of word counts and time!

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    and look forward each night more and more to your radio show during my now over 6 month TV sabbatical and since HH’s show is getting increasingly silly too often with too many anti-Michigan and pro-OSU non-humor!

    smile

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    regarding the podcast of your show 1-2 Fridays ago in which you discussed the need for better moral arguments against Obama’s tax plans.

    But all of us are busy, I understand. But since you had time for that subject line suggesting I might make a mistake on Phillips and Hughes, ….smile

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    could have thought that I thought Hughes gave him the book based upon the wording of that comment of mine above. So read my column and feel free to reco! It may be in the AJC later this week btw …

  • davidlloydjones

    Apart from ennobling himself with his prison ministry, Chuck Colson spent his last yeasrs in another noble cause — that of the people of Southern Sudan.

    No doiubt he was drawn to that cause through his church work. Both His Holiness the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury had taken flying stop-overs of doubtful legality to identify themselves with the peoples of the South, a great many of whom are Christian. The Sudanese part of my own family are almost all pre-Talmudic Jews, or crypto-Jews who date their religious provenance perhaps somewhat folklorically to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Nevertheless we suffer as much as the others from the evil of a supposedly “revolutionary” and “Islamic” government which is neither, which is purely a gang of armed thugs.

    Wherever he started from, Chuck Colson understood this utterly, and used both his Washington voice and his public presence to protect the oppressed peoples.

    God bless him.

    -dlj.

  • Michael Johnson

    “conspired to commit the Watergate burglary over which he was indicted and went to prison”

    Was I absent the day Charles Colson changed his story and said he had something to do with Watergate after all?

    That is definitely not what he went to prison for. During his trial, he admitted to defaming Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 during his trial over the release of the Pentagon Papers. That is why Colson was sent to prison.