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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Freedom in Information

The internet is both a blessing and a curse for the cause of religion in the world. The fact that information can be exchanged instantaneously means ideas—bad ones as well as good ones—can be widely accessed.

So generally, the Internet is helping Christians, at least, share their message throughout hitherto unreached lands. People in Iranian coffeehouses have access to the Gospel. And as they and others do likewise, tyrannical regimes all over the Muslim world will be shaken.

I remember going to Russia while Gorbachev was still in power. I asked every dissident why the regime was crumbling. I always received two answers, in this order: Reagan and the fax machine. The spread of information can spread the truth, particularly with the life-changing power of the Gospel in it.

I shudder to think, however, about what e-mail discourse has done to the English language, or what the Bible might look like had the Internet arrived in the age between Moses and the Apostle Paul. It would certainly not be the grand majestic literary work that it is. In fact, it might not even be intelligible.

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