Charles Colson
Almost 40 years ago, Charles W. Colson was not thinking about reaching out to prison inmates or reforming the U.S. penal system. In fact, this aide to President Richard Nixon was "incapable of humanitarian thought," according to the media of the mid-1970s. Colson was known as the White House "hatchet man," a man feared by even the most powerful politicos during his four years of service to Nixon.
When news of Colson's conversion to Christianity leaked to the press in 1973, The Boston Globe reported, "If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everybody." Colson would agree.
In 1974 Colson entered a plea of guilty to Watergate-related charges; although not implicated in the Watergate burglary, he voluntarily pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the Daniel Ellsberg Case. He entered Alabama's Maxwell Prison in 1974 as a new Christian and as the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges. He served seven months of a one- to three-year sentence.
After leaving prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976, which has since become the world's largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. Today, Colson remains a member of the board of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
A sought-after speaker, Colson has written more than 30 books, which collectively have sold more than 5 million copies. His autobiographical book, Born Again, was one of the nation's best-selling books of all genres in 1976. Another bestseller, co-authored by Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live, is considered one of the most important books written on the subject of Christian worldview. His most recent book, The Faith, is a powerful appeal to the Church to re-embrace the foundational truths of Christianity.
In 1991 Colson launched BreakPoint, a unique radio commentary that provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. BreakPoint is currently aired weekdays to more than 1,300 outlets nationwide that reach and estimated 2 million listeners.
Today Colson is focused full time on developing other Christian leaders who can influence the culture and their communities through their faith. The capstone of this effort is The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, an online research and training center launched in 2009 for the promotion of Christian worldview teaching. In addition to a vast library of worldview materials, the Colson Center provides online courses and serves as a catalyst for a growing movement of Christian organizations dedicated to impacting the culture. The Colson Center website also hosts Colson's popular weekly Two-Minute Warning video commentary aimed at engaging a younger generation with a biblical perspective on cultural issues.
In 2009, Colson was a principal writer of the Manhattan Declaration, which calls on Christians to defend the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage and religious freedom. Nearly half a million people have signed the Manhattan Declaration. Collaborating with other Christian ministries, BreakPoint aims to launch other ecumenical grassroots movements around moral and ethical issues of great concern.
In recognition of his work, Colson received the prestigious Templeton Prize for progress in religion in 1993, donating the $1 million prize to Prison Fellowship. Colson's other awards have included the Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation's second-highest civilian honor (2008); the Humanitarian Award from Dominos Pizza Corporation (1991); The Others Award from The Salvation Army (1990); the Outstanding Young Man of Boston from the Boston Chamber of Commerce (1960); and several honorary doctorates from various colleges and universities (1982-2000).
“The Bible- banned, burned, beloved. More widely read, more frequently attacked than any other book in history. Generations of intellectuals have attempted to discredit it; dictators of every age have outlawed it and executed those who read it. Yet soldiers carry it into battle believing it is more powerful than their weapons. Fragments of it smuggled into solitary prison cells have transformed ruthless killers into gentle saints. Pieced together scraps of Scripture have converted whole whole villages of pagan Indians.”
“People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well”
“But all at once I realized that it was not my success God had used to enable me to help those in this prison, or in hundreds of others just like it. My life of success was not what made this morning so glorious -- all my achievements meant nothing in God's economy."No, the real legacy of my life was my biggest failure -- that I was an ex-convict. My greatest humiliation -- being sent to prison -- was the beginning of God's greatest use of my life; He chose the one thing in which I could not glory for His glory.”
“It is not what we do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through us. God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of paradox, where through the ugly defeat of a cross, a holy God is utterly glorified. Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self.”
“A government cannot be truly just without affirming the intrinsic value of human life.”
“Moral crusaders with zeal but no ethical understanding are likely to give us solutions that are worse than the problems.”
“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”
“What we do flows from who we are.”
“When God wanted to defeat sin, His ultimate weapon was the sacrifice of His own Son. On Christmas Day two thousand years ago, the birth of a tiny baby in an obscure village in the Middle East was God's supreme triumph of good over evil.”
“Christians should never have a political party. It is a huge mistake to become married to an ideology, because the greatest enemy of the gospel is ideology. Ideology is a man-made format of how the world ought to work, and Christians instead believed in the revealing truth Scripture.”