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 »

Main Page | Charles W. "Chuck" Colson Archives | On Faith Archives


Apologies Meaningless Without Repentance

What would provide real benefit to our national well-being is if people could genuinely repent, that is, express sorrow for sin and pledge not to behave that way in the future.

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All Comments (18)

TDAY:

Bgone,

I have to say, Im really not quite sure if you exist or not. Like the old hippies used to say...'You're way out there, man...like marsville'

I suppose we can all think youre an entertainer or something. You certainly do not come across as a coherent scholar, my friend. Perhaps you can find a blog where 'confusion' is the topic. Your blogging and website would fit well there.

Garak:

Conning a captive audience to believe in supernatural beings without any evidence whatsoever is not repentance. It is yet another crime, this time against human reason.

BGone:

BIGD, when has the sun not gone out or failed to not return? That's what immortal is, infinite set of temporary lives. Think flat earth. Where did the writers of the Bible think the sun went at night?

TDAY, Bill probably read the Bible so much his writing now matches it in scholarship. Gosh you're thick headed. That story, Moses selling his soul is the primary hoax of the big humungus hoax. IF there was a Moses EVER then he sold his soul. Moses is a nickname for Amenophis IV. The high priest that prossecuted her said she sold her soul and condemned her to hell. She couldn't be saved by Jesus because she was Jesus. And her heavenly father the sun was no help at all.

http://www.hoax-buster.org is better written than the Bible by bunches. Even has pictures for the illiterates.

TDAY:

BGONE

If the bible is a hoax, then there couldnt have been any Moses to sell his soul. Whats the scoop? (if you answer, PLEASE be coherent)

Try to inhale fresh air sometime..it will do you good. It clears the brain, enriches the blood. Sorry, but your website looks like the outcome of pollution mixed with confusion.

Ba'al:

I would be convinced of his repentance if his prison outreach program was his only activity, but he has used it as a springboard for renewed activities that are fundamentally political. Since he has this forum, he should speak out. That will happen when pigs fly.

BigD:

BGONE -

Do you own the hoax-buster website? You always reference it and its full of a bunch of garbage. If you are going to try and refute the accuracy of the Bible at least try to do so with something that represents real scholarship.

Besides everyone knows the sun is not immortal - last I heard just a few billion years left at best.

BGone:

F Saint, All you have left to do is have bodiless beings do work. W=Fx, F=ma. Mass is required to do work.

What we can say with certainty is that someone has the wrong formula. Is it the scientist or the pope?

There are still some gods left, electricity/magnetism and gravity. They are bodiless forces at play that are yet to be understood. In the highest tradition of religion, qualifying and quantifying is substituted for knowledge by the scientist, scientific dogma according to Carl Sagan.

Original god is the wind that not oly appeared to do work without a body but also spoke to people. The wind "speaks in tongues" that no one can understand except the high holy ones.

The three great faiths have their feet firmly planted on a conversation the Biblical figure Moses had with the sun, an immortal being that had eternal life (dies every day and comes back to life) right here on earth. From the sun's immortality springs the notion that there will be a resurection of all dead, on judgment day of course, when Jesus (child of the sun Akhenaten, Amenophis IV) returns to earth to reclaim her throne in an everlasting kingdom.

There may be a little more than is known in the present judging from how much was known to be absolutely so in the past. I'm surprised the high holy ones haven't picked up on the bodiless forces, electricity/magnetism and gravity as examples of how the bodiless force God speaks (causes air paritcles to move by applying a force to them). Maybe God has a body? Maybe electricity/magnetism and gravity have bodies?

Maybe religion is a con? http://www.hoax-buster.org proves the Bible is a hoax, Moses sold his soul just like big time religion operators?

Jihadist:

Never mind some of what he wrote in On Faith raised my eyebrows. Mr. Colson has repented and it shows, doing good in his outreach programme in prisons, witnessing transformations there, including his own.

Colson's piece here is the best of the Christian On Faith panelists on this subject, coming as it does from personal experience and observations - heartfelt, and written with brevity and simplicity on forgiveness, repentence and moving on.

Glen:

Colson is the only political criminal that I can think of who has actually gone beyond "I am sorry" to true repentance. Are there other politicians or political flunkies who have taken these extraordinary actions? We may not agree with everything that Colson says but for sure he fessed up, did time for his crimes, and he even transformed his life. He is a new man in Christ.

Frank Saint:

Is an interesting question. Without actually doing work, an apology is meaningless. Takes work to repent. Lip Service is no work at all especially coming from a politician or a talkshow host, they talk all the time.

Now some think that being an Apologist for the Church is their mission in life. Why apologize for a Church committing sin ?

Imus died by the sword he lived by, the shock came back to shock him. Oh, when everyone tuned into hear his shock the company and advertisers were happy. I would say that they all had a good run. He was just a blink in history through new corporate responsibility.

I don't think Vatican ought to be boycotted like refusing to buy cds with offensive language but without an active repentence apologies are meanless.

Remember Einstein and the Vatican Scientist Galileo had laws for the natural universe, one of which is Work=distance x mass.

F. Saint
Rome

BGone:

Repentance means "a change of mind." OK, here something to repent about. The Bible is the word of Devil, http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul

ANDREW, going from the hoosgow to the ministry means NO "change of mind" simply getting into a legal racket.

andrew:

Ba'al,

Doesn't Colson's post answer your question? Colson has worked in prison ministry for 31 years. He has surely more than repaid his debt to society for his Watergate crimes.

Ghostbuster:

Ba'al,

I was actually thinking along the same lines as Greg. That might be a good question to ask him if you are curious. He might read some of the comments to his posts, but I kind of doubt it.

Greg:

Ba'al,
Why don't you write him and ask him about it? Prison obviously had some effect on him since he's spent the last 3 decades trying to help prisoners stay out of jail etc...

Ba'al:

What would convince me? The one lesson that Colson consistently draws from Watergate is that the ends do not justify the means. That is the basis for his criticism of Mark Felt after he was revealed to be "Deep Throat". Colson complains that he and Felt actually committed the same crime, and he didn't want to see anyone turn Felt into some kind of hero. OK. Mr. Colson has had extensive contacts with the White House now and he enjoys a large public forum. A truly reborn Colson would publicly send that message to the current administration in the cases where they are leaking and obstructing justice.

Ghostbuster:

Ba'al: What would convince you that Mr. Colson is truly repentent?

What would it take for any of us to know that a public figure is truly repentent of a wrong?

Robert Byrd, Strom Thurman, Trent Lott, Jessie Jackson, Don Imus...

What about George Wallace? Was he truly sorry and seeking to make ammends or was his conversion just a farce?

I think we are always much more forgiving if the offender's political/religious views line up with ours.

Oh yea, good post Mr. Colson.

Ba'al:

Convicted felon Charles Colson would have you believe he is an expert on this. I am not convinced he is truly repentant for his crimes committed in public service. Perhaps that is why he can detect the lack of sincerity in the current crop of the corrupt, not that it is that difficult to see.

Viejita del oeste:

What would be your suggestion for politicians to show true repentance? Is there a secular way of expressing regret and transformation?

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