Charles "Chuck" Colson

Charles W. "Chuck" Colson

Founder, Prison Fellowship ministry

Charles W. "Chuck" Colson is founder of Prison Fellowship, a Christian outreach ministry to the prison population of this country, as well as to ex-prisoners and crime victims. The "On Faith" panelist's daily radio commentary, BreakPoint, is aired daily on over a 1,000 radio outlets nationwide. Colson also is a syndicated columnist, lawyer, and author of 25 books, most recently The Faith (2008). He served as special counsel to the late President Richard M. Nixon (1969-73). After pleading guilty to a Watergate-related charge of obstruction of justice in 1974, Colson served seven months of a one to three-year federal prison sentence. His 1973 Christian conversion was documented in the internationally best-selling book and film, Born Again. He founded Prison Fellowship in 1976. In 1993, Colson was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion and donated the $1 million prize to Prison Fellowship. In the last 28 years, Colson has visited more than 600 prisons in 40 countries and, with the help of nearly 50,000 volunteers, has built Prison Fellowship into the world's largest prison outreach, serving the spiritual and practical needs of prisoners in 93 countries including the U.S. Close.

Charles W. "Chuck" Colson

Founder, Prison Fellowship ministry

Charles W. "Chuck" Colson is founder of Prison Fellowship, a Christian outreach ministry to the prison population of this country, as well as to ex-prisoners and crime victims. The "On Faith" panelist's daily radio commentary, BreakPoint, is aired daily on over a 1,000 radio outlets nationwide. more »

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Scripture and Experience Set Clear Familial Order

Gay unions violate the natural created order in which man and woman join in holy union to bear and raise children. Homosexuality, like many other behaviors, violates this order.

I would not be free to change my mind since the biblical teaching is clear, as is the accumulated wisdom of centuries of human experience.

Likewise, I could not condone clergy who are practicing homosexuals any more than I would condone clergy engaged in an adulterous heterosexual relationship. Clergy are to be held at higher standards of moral behavior as the Bible prescribes it; they are, after all, leaders of the Church for which Christ gave himself up.

That said, Christians also have a duty to love others. I believe Christians can and should be firm about their moral convictions even as we extend mercy and love to those struggling with sin, whether that be those struggling with homosexual desires or those struggling with adulterous heterosexual sin or other types of sin.

Every true Christian understands how much he or she has been forgiven. We know our only hope is in Jesus Christ. As we understand our own sin, we understand that we are all beggars in search of bread.

So, even as we refuse to condone sinful behavior, we see ourselves as sinners saved by grace, calling other sinners to repentance and faith -- beggars showing other beggars where the bread is.

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