Chuck Colson - #5

A great man - Chuck Colson died on April 21. He is number five on the list to pass away. 

Tributes to Chuck Colson

In the meantime, tributes from friends of Chuck's are pouring in. He was such a beloved man and a gentleman of the highest order. While many news articles over the weekend seemed to concentrate on Chuck’s White House years, those of us who really knew him know that it was the second half of his life serving the Lord through Prison Fellowship that truly defined him. To only see him through the lens of the Watergate scandal is to see an incomplete portrait of one of the most influential saints of our era. It’s like walking out of a great movie before the plot is fully developed.

I look forward to sharing more about Chuck in the days and weeks to come, but for now, here are some thoughts from those who knew him best:

When I get to Heaven and see Chuck again, I believe I will also see many, many people there whose lives have been transformed because of the message he shared with them. - Dr. Billy Graham

It is hard to imagine the Christian landscape without Chuck Colson. About the time I began my walk with Christ, Born Again was published. He will be sorely missed. But let us rejoice at the power of a redeemed life. May God bring healing to the hearts of his family and friends and glory to His name. - Max Lucado

The world has lost one of the most brilliant Christian leaders and articulators of the faith, Chuck Colson. He was a scholar, a constitutional lawyer, and a compassionate humanitarian who befriended lost and lonely prisoners for nearly 40 years … Chuck Colson was a Marine captain (there are no former Marines) and a man’s man. He was like a brother to me and I grieve his loss. His influence on my life has been profound. I look forward to seeing this godly soldier in heaven some day. I am certain he has now heard these words of welcome from his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” - Dr. James Dobson

I salute my friend, brother, and fellow Marine, Chuck Colson, who “fought the good fight, finished the course, and kept the faith.” – Chuck Swindoll

Just as Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus, we who are our Lord’s disciples weep at the death of Chuck Colson, our beloved friend and brother in Christ, who passed away this afternoon. We grieve but not as those who do not know that Christ has conquered death. We mourn the loss of a great leader but we confidently entrust him to Jesus Christ who is our hope in both life and death. -- Robert George

Like so many of you, I first encountered Chuck through books “Born Again” and “Loving God.” Classics, must reading. I’m not old enough to remember Chuck as a controversial political figure during Watergate, so I have always thought of him mainly as an inspiring Christian leader … Over the past decade, Chuck went from being a demanding boss to being a mentor and a father figure, even a friend. He has been both supportive of my efforts and generous with his praise and his time. -- Eric Metaxas

I was with him the afternoon before his collapse. To an assembled group of friends, he told us with such easy conviction, “I am entirely sold out to Jesus Christ.” For many of us, those were the last words we heard him speak this side of eternity. They ring in the ears. – Timothy S. Goeglein

Mr. Colson struck me as a man who fell in love and stayed in love with the Lord. He touched countless lives during his pilgrimage. – Peter Wehner

Although his physical voice may be silenced, his ideas and convictions will carry on via a generation committed to reconciling redemption with reconciliation. -- Reverend Samuel Rodriguez

Chuck Colson's life was an endlessly eloquent demonstration of the power of God and of Truth to change hearts and transform lives. He was a man of courage--a man who called Christians to take a stand and not bend to the cultural and political whims of the day. – Alan Sears

He stood in a long line of celebrated converts, beginning with the Apostle Paul on the Damascus road, and including figures such as John Newton, G.K. Chesterton and Malcolm Muggeridge. They were often received with skepticism, even contempt. Conversion is a form of confession — a public admission of sin, failure and weakness. It brings out the scoffers. This means little to the converted, who have experienced something more powerful than derision. In his poem, “The Convert,” Chesterton concludes: “And all these things are less than dust to me/ Because my name is Lazarus and I live.”

It is a strange feeling to lose a mentor — a sensation of being old and small and exposed outside his shade. Chuck’s irrational confidence in my 21-year-old self felt a little like grace itself. The scale of his life — a broad arc from politics to prison to humanitarian achievement — is also the scale of his absence. But no one was better prepared for death. No one more confident in the resurrection — having experienced it once already. So my grief at Chuck’s passing comes tempered — because he was Lazarus, and he lives. -- Michael Gerson.

Colson was an attorney and political advisor who served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1970. Once known as President Nixon's "hatchet man", Colson gained notoriety at the height of the Watergate scandal, for being named as one of the Watergate Seven, and also for pleading guilty to obstruction of justice for attempting to defame Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg.[1] In 1974 he served seven months in the federal Maxwell Prison in Alabama, as the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges.

Colson became an evangelical Christian in 1973. His mid-life religious conversion sparked a radical life change that led to the founding of his non-profit ministry Prison Fellowship and, three years later, Prison Fellowship International, to a focus on Christian worldview teaching and training around the world. Colson was also a public speaker and the author of more than 30 books.[3] He was the founder and chairman of The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, which is a research, study, and networking center for growing in a Christian worldview, and which produces Colson's daily radio commentary, BreakPoint, heard on more than 1,400 outlets across the United States currently presented by John Stonestreet.

Colson was a principal signer of the 1994 Evangelicals and Catholics Together ecumenical document signed by leading Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholic leaders in the United States.

Colson received 15 honorary doctorates, and in 1993 was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the world's largest annual award (over US$1 million) in the field of religion, given to a person who "has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension". He donated this prize to further the work of Prison Fellowship, as he did all his speaking fees and royalties. In 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President George W. Bush.

Charles Wendell Colson was born on October 16, 1931, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Inez "Dizzy" (née Ducrow) and Wendell Ball Colson.[6] He was of Swedish and British descent.

In his youth Colson had seen the charitable works of his parents. His mother cooked meals for the hungry during the Depression and his father donated his legal services to the United Prison Association of New England.[8] Historian Jonathan Aitken notes "Wendell's compassion for prisoners flowed from his Christian ethics, which he instilled into his son's upbringing." Aitken also notes that "Mrs. Colson was proud of being a member of the Episcopal Church and even prouder of her acquaintance with its diocesan bishop, Bishop Fisk, who she thought would be a splendid role model for her Charlie." Aitken holds that his mother's suggestion to the young Colson "You ought to be a minister," were motivated by "social rather than religious" reasons and holds "she had no believing relationship in Christ, and neither did her husband or her son." Noting that "None of them ever read the Bible" and holding that "their extremely rare visits to church were purely nominal", Aitken concludes "religious belief had no part to play in the early upbringing of Charles Colson."

During World War II, Colson organized fund-raising campaigns in his school for the war effort that raised enough money to buy a Jeep for the army.

In 1948, Colson volunteered in the campaign to re-elect the Governor of Massachusetts, Robert Bradford.

 

After attending Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge in 1949, he earned his AB, with honors, in history from Brown University in 1953, and his J.D., with honors, from George Washington University Law School in 1959. At Brown, he was a member of Beta Theta Pi.

Colson's first marriage with Nancy Billings, in 1953, bore three children: Wendell Ball II (born 1954), Christian Billings (1956), and Emily Ann (1958). After some years of separation, the marriage ended in divorce in January 1964. He married Patricia Ann Hughes on April 4, 1964.

Colson served in the United States Marine Corps from 1953 to 1955, reaching the rank of captain. From 1955 to 1956, he was assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Material). He then worked on the successful 1960 campaign of Leverett Saltonstall (U.S. Republican Party for the U.S. Senate), and was his Administrative Assistant from 1956 to 1961. In 1961 Colson founded the law firm of Colson & Morin, which swiftly grew to a Boston and Washington, D.C., presence with the addition of former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Edward Gadsby and former Raytheon Company general counsel Paul Hannah. Colson and Morin shortened the name to Gadsby & Hannah in late 1967. Colson left the firm to join the Richard Nixon administration in January 1969.

Slate magazine writer David Plotz described Colson as Nixon's "hard man, the 'evil genius' of an evil administration." Colson has written that he was "valuable to the President ... because I was willing ... to be ruthless in getting things done". Nixon's White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman described Colson as the president's "hit man".

Colson authored the 1971 memo listing Nixon's major political opponents, later known as Nixon's enemies list. A quip that "Colson would walk over his own grandmother if necessary" mutated into claims in news stories that Colson had boasted that he would run over his own grandmother to re-elect Nixon.

Born Again, Colson's personal memoir reflecting on his religious conversion and prison term, was made into a 1978 dramatic film starring Dean Jones as Colson, Anne Francis as his wife Patty, and Harold Hughes as himself. Actor Kevin Dunn portrayed Colson in the 1995 movie Nixon.

During his time in prison, Colson had become increasingly aware of what he saw as injustices done to prisoners and incarcerates and shortcomings in their rehabilitation; he also had the opportunity, during a three-day furlough to attend his father's funeral, to pore over his father's papers and discover the two shared an interest in prison reform. He became convinced that he was being called by God to develop a ministry to prisoners with an emphasis in promoting changes in the justice system.

After his release from prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship in 1976, which today is "the nation's largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families". Colson worked to promote prisoner rehabilitation and reform of the prison system in the United States, citing his disdain for what he called the "lock 'em and leave 'em" warehousing approach to criminal justice. He helped to create prisons whose populations come from inmates who choose to participate in faith-based programs.

In 1979, Colson founded Prison Fellowship International to extend his prison outreach outside the United States. Now in 120 countries, Prison Fellowship International is the largest, most extensive association of national Christian ministries working within the criminal justice field, working to proclaim the Gospel worldwide and alleviate the suffering of prisoners and their families. In 1983, Prison Fellowship International received special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. During this time, Colson also founded Justice Fellowship, using his influence in conservative political circles to push for bipartisan, legislative reforms in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Colson was later a principal signer of the 1994 Evangelicals and Catholics Together ecumenical document signed by leading Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholic leaders in the United States, part of a larger ecumenical rapprochement in the United States that had begun in the 1970s with Catholic-Evangelical collaboration during the Gerald R. Ford Administration and in later para-church organizations such as Moral Majority founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell at the urging of Francis Schaeffer and his son Frank Schaeffer during the Jimmy Carter administration.

In November 2009, Colson was a principal writer and driving force behind an ecumenical statement known as the Manhattan Declaration calling on evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox Christians not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage and other matters that go against their religious consciences. He previously had ignited controversy within Protestant circles for his mid-90s common-ground initiative with conservative Roman Catholics Evangelicals and Catholics Together, which Colson wrote alongside prominent Roman Catholic Richard John Neuhaus.