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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God of Hope and Healing

Christians respond by grieving with the victims. Christians pray with the victims, listen to them, and allow them to mourn.

Christians reach out in love to those who suffer, and do so in the name of Christ, who suffered Himself on the cross.

Explaining this evil is more difficult. The Christian answer is that God loved us so much that He gave us a free will—God did not desire humans to be mere automatons. A free will presupposes that we may chose bad rather than good. Christians believe in the Fall, which means that man disobeyed God and introduced sin and evil into the world. Humans, therefore, are responsible for suffering and injustice.

God, however, has not remained passive in the midst of suffering. He entered the world, suffered Himself to provide redemption and an avenue for all to draw close to Him through repentance and faith.

Christians also believe that God Himself comforts those who mourn the dead. We believe He sent His Holy Spirit, whom Jesus calls “the Comforter.”

Ultimately of course, Christians believe that death does not have the final word. On the cross, Christ triumphed over death; He will give eternal life to all who faith in Him. In the end, as it is written in Revelation, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

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