by Steve | Jan 17, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Books that Helped me Grow
By Charles Colson (1931-2012)
January/February 1985
First and foremost, for me, is Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. It is the book which God used to lead me to Christ. I was impressed most of all by the chapter on pride, because it so thoroughly and accurately described my own life. As a matter of fact it brought me powerfully under the conviction of sin and caused me to seek out the righteous God who would cleanse me. In the first week that I was given Lewis’ book, I read and studied it the way I used to study law books. On a yellow pad I made notes under two columns, one headed “there is a God,” the other headed “there is not a God.” On another sheet I had two more columns: “Jesus Christ is God” and “Jesus Christ isn’t God.”
As I went through Mere Christianity I was confronted with a mind so powerful, with arguments so compelling, that I was left with no recourse but to accept the reality of the God who is and who has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, Lewis’ logic is magnificently presented in this wonderful little book. It is number one on my list.
If I were to put the other books in order, the second most influential for me would be Augustine’s Confessions. I see so many parallels between Augustine’s life and my own – living in the world, then suddenly confronting the Scripture and the truth of Christ and being dramatically converted and giving his life to serving Christ. In Confessions one finds the most eloquent explanation of the nature of the human will, of the besetting sin which is within us, and then of the redeeming work of God. Though written almost 1600 years ago, it is as timely as today’s newspaper. I don’t know any other book which has given me as much insight into the nature of man and the nature of God.
Under number three I would have to list all of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s writings, but most particularly the chapter in Gulag Archipelago entitled “The Ascent.” In it Solzhenitsyn describes his own conversion. He also gives a magnificent insight into the nature of man and the sin which is in each of us. I was profoundly affected by Solzhenitsyn’s work and consider him to be the most significant prophetic voice of God in the world today.
The Cost of Discipleship by Deitrich Bonhoeffer, along with his Letters and Papers from Prison, made a significant impact on me in the early days of my Christian life. Though I would have some theological differences with Bonhoeffer, his emphasis on obedience and the necessity of the Christian to die to self in order to serve Christ has shaped much of my thinking as a Christian. His attack upon cheap grace is very pertinent today.
I also had a particular identification with his Letters and Papers from Prison, because so many of the things that Bonhoeffer wrote about I experienced while in prison. In prison he wrote the poem “Who Am I,” which is found in the preface of The Cost of Discipleship and is my favorite poem. I think Bonhoeffer wrote it for himself and for all mankind at the same time.
A man in a bookstore gave me a copy of John Pollock’s book, George Whitefield and the Great Awakening. It stirred an interest within me for history, particularly the history of the Church, and led me to read many other volumes, particularly the works about the great Wesley awakening.
Other books that have greatly influenced me include:
The writings of Francis Schaeffer. They are a powerful exposition of Christian truth and a call to Biblical fidelity for 20th-century Christians.
The Political Illusion and The Presence of the Kingdom by Jacques Ellul. These are two magnificent and prophetic books that talk about the Christian’s role in the world and warns us of the danger of putting our trust in institutions. Ellul brilliantly deals with the relationship between the church and the state, a particularly timely issue these days.
The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges. This book opened my eyes more fully to the question of what it means to live a holy life. Bridge’s work is a magnificent contemporary discussion of what I believe to be the central covenant of the Christian life – that is, holiness.
Real Christianity by William Wilberforce. Wilberforce is one of my great heroes, a model for my life. He is best known, of course, as a campaigner against the slave trade, But he was also a great Biblical expositor, and this book, recently edited and re-published by Multnomah Press, is a classic statement on Christian living.
The works of Malcolm Muggeridge. Muggeridge is one of the best social critics of the 20th century. His books have enormously influenced my view of contemporary culture.
John Wesley, Anglican by Garth Lean. This is a marvelous, short, pithy biography of Wesley, a man who, along with Wilberforce, is a great model for my life. The book has recently been re-published under a new title.
Charles Colson, former “hatchet man” for Richard Nixon, was converted to Christ while imprisoned for his involvement in Watergate. Now the director of Prison Fellowship, he is also the author of Born Again, Life Sentence, and Loving God.
by Steve | Jan 19, 1978 | Archive - 1978
Chatting with Chuck Colson
January/February 1978
Good News
Charles “Chuck” Colson, one of America’s leading evangelicals, spoke at the 1977 Good News Convocation. In an exclusive interview before the event, Good News editor Charles W. Keysor and associate editor Eddie Robb spoke with Colson.
Eddie Robb: At one time you were a nationally known and controversial political figure.
Chuck Colson: Infamous
ER: But you’re also America’s best-know Christian convert. Is it difficult to maintain your equilibrium as a Christian in your private life while you are so much in the limelight of publicity continuously?
CC: Yes. You asked the question on a very good day because I’m hoping that the Lord will give me enough strength to survive through 24more hours, when we will end up on the coast of Oregon in a quiet house looking out over the water with a lot of books to be read and some time to sleep and be quiet.
ER: Do you grow weary at times of being looked upon as a “professional” Christian?
CC: You grow very tired of constantly being on display. We were in Europe this summer on a really busy tour. We had two days off in London. It’s hard to describe what a nice feeling it was to think we were going to be walking out on the streets and nobody was going to be looking at us. No heads were going to turn. Nobody was going to come walking up to us. Then we walked into a restaurant and somebody yelled, “Chuck Colson!”
ER: There are many critics (perhaps even some of your friends) who construed your conversion as nothing more than a religious cop out amidst the pressures of Watergate. Now that some time has passed since your conversion experience, has that type of criticism pretty well run its course?
CC: Yes. I used to find that a lot of people came to hear me speak purely out of curiosity. They were plain skeptical. They would come up after the speech and say, “We didn’t believe you, but now that we’ve heard you, we do.”
All I ever say to people is, “You know, I’m like the blind man who, when asked whether Christ was the Messiah replied, ‘I don’t know who He was but now I can see.’”
I just tell my story, and if it provokes other people to think about their own lives, then I challenge them to try Christ for themselves.”
ER: Do you think that most of the press now accepts your conversion experience as genuine?
CC: I do, if they believe any conversion is genuine.
Charles Keysor: Considering the Christian scene in America, what place do you see the large mainline denominations having? ls the Holy Spirit moving in them?
CC: I don’t think there can be a real awakening of God’s Spirit except by the reviving of Christ’s Body, the Church. And it’s happening. You see great evidences of it in the charismatic movement in the Roman Catholic Church. There’s a flicker of hope in the Episcopal Church (which happens to be my denomination) where you see an evangelical seminary started. That’s the beginning of something. Certainly the growth in the Southern Baptist Church is an indication that people are going where the Gospel is preached.
Several sociologists have predicted that the churches of America will become evangelical in the period of the late 70s and early 80s because of the demands of the laity. Believers are going to force churches to become evangelical. Evangelical churches are thriving. Church attendance went up last year two percent- the first time in 17 years in America it has not decreased! And this growth was all in evangelical churches. As a matter of fact, the more traditional mainline churches did not grow, but the evangelical churches did. So I think renewal is happening. God is raising up people with a renewed commitment, and they are going to revive the church.
CK: What place do you see the charismatic movement having in the present church scene?
CC: I like what Oswald Chambers wrote: “… never make your experience a principle. Let God be as original dealing with others as He was with you.” I see problems occasionally in charismatic teaching. I don’t happen to be a charismatic in the way that term is traditionally defined. I often feel filled with the Holy Spirit and have had experiences with Him, but I don’t pray in tongues.
I think there’s room in the Body of Christ for all of us who love Christ and want to follow Him. I’m sorry to see that issue divide the believers. I think it’s too bad that it does.
CK: Do you see any signs of awakening social consciousness among Christians?
CC: Well, there’s a group called Evangelicals for Social Concern that began with the Chicago Declaration in ‘73, and has been growing rapidly. That’s been kind of the core of people who are concerned, Mostly they have been academics who have not been widely heard in the Body. I don’t believe that we can say that there is awakening going on, even though millions are coming to Christ, until we begin to see the impact of Christian values in a secular world. To me this is the number-one challenge.
CK: Fruits, in other words?
CC: Yea. God’s transforming power working through believers.
CK: How can ordinary Christian people get involved in prison reform?
CC: The only prison reform that Is ever going to mean anything is when the prisons become places of real revival. And only God is going to change these people. You can’t. I can’t.
We’ve had some success making little changes in a prison, but it is all – 100 percent – a matter of building relationships between people and Jesus Christ. I was in one prison where the men told me they had no pillowcases. I went out that night, talked to some Christian men in town. They bought pillowcases and shipped them into the prison. That went through the federal prison system like electricity! These are little things that happened because of what we are trying to do to open up the prisons to the Gospel.
There are 300,000 men and women in prisons and penitentiaries serving sentences, not counting jails where they are awaiting trials. If 300,000 committed Christian families on the outside would take an interest in helping these people, one-on-one, I think we could cut the crime rate by 50 percent.
The statistics show that four out of five crimes are committed by ex-convicts, so in some future year a statistician will tell you that 80 percent of all the crimes committed in the United States will be committed by the 300,000 people in prison today. Now, you change those people and it does you a whale of a lot more good than hiring policemen to fill the streets. That’s not where the answer is.
CK: What kind of possibility you see for this one-on-one prison ministry? Are Christians excited by it?
CC: Right now one of the biggest problems we have is that there are about 15 people in our office in Washington, and mail comes to us in sacks. And we love it. But we’re having trouble keeping up with it. We’ve been matching up prisoners and families manually, which is a terrific job. We’re exploring some ways to get them on computer.
ER: I don’t expect that in November, 1972, when you were at the height of power in Washington DC, that you would ever guess that four years later you would be working in prison reform.
CC: I didn’t see myself in 1972 as ever visiting a prison, let alone spending seven months there.
ER: So what do you see yourself doing 15 years from now? Do you see prison reform as your lifelong work?
CC: Scriptures tell us to look at one day at a time. And I made the mistake my first 40 years trying to plan it all out. I want to be open to whatever God’s leading is. One thing I don’t ever want to get back into, be it in the name of ministry of Christ or any other name, is building up a great big operation, then having to justify it, and then going out and saying – now we’ve got all these people working for us, we’ve got to keep them all going and find something for them to do. We’re staying as lean as possible in what we are doing.
I’d love to be able to tell you that this ministry would be out of business in five years because it would have done its job.
ER: Go back in time to 1972. If I were to have said then, “Chuck, you’re going to be a good friend of so-and-so in 1977,” whose name would have shocked you most?
CC: Eldridge Cleaver. Harold Hughes, a former US Senator from Iowa, would also be very high up on the list. I spent one day in the Congress last week. I’d been putting it off for a long time. A lot of fellows had asked me to come up. And I was with people whose politics I … I mean, I wouldn’t have worked in the same room with them before.
ER: Do you find you are spending more time with ordinary people, or mostly with celebrities?
CC: I spend a lot of time with convicts. I guess I call them ordinary people. Most people don’t. Most people think they have horns, don’t eat with a knife and fork, and chase their kids around.
Saturday night I had one of the most beautiful experiences that I have ever had. Eleven prisoners had graduated from two weeks of our discipleship training in Washington. I never had such a great night! I was never so excited. It was 10 times more gratifying than any White House dinner I ever attended.
CK: Here I am witnessing to someone and think, Oh, he’ll never become a Christian. What counsel would you have to help us in witnessing to “hard cases” like you were before you met Christ?
CC: The first counsel is, let the Lord do it. Don’t think you’re doing it!
The second counsel is harder. I’ve sometimes found that a man who is fighting is really under conviction. There’s a very prominent man whose name I will not use. I think he was turned off by a lot of evangelicals who have tried to exploit him because he’s rich and famous. A year-and-a-half ago he tried to hire me. He said, “You’ve got something I want.”
I said, “Well, I can tell you what it is and you can have it.”
He said, “What’s that?”
And I said, “Jesus Christ.”
He slammed his hand down on the table and said, “Don’t ever talk to me about Christ.” He grew up in the Bible Belt and was really turned off and angry about it, furious. That was the end of it. But he came back wanting to hire me again. This went on over and over.
Once in a while when I would visit the city he lives in I would stay at his home, in a nice, big, comfortable guest house. I never pressured that man, but I noticed every time I was with him he would stare at me, trying to see if I was “for real.” One morning he woke me up at 5 a.m., and he had a Bible in his hand. He started asking questions and then accepted Christ. If I had to gauge the people who have reacted negatively to me, he was the most hostile.
Conversion – it’s God’s business, not ours.
ER: Has there been much of a change in your lifestyle as a Christian?
CC: I didn’t travel and speak before. I liked to be in the background, and to shove other people up front. I liked to be the guy behind the scenes, manipulating the lovers of power.
So this is a very unaccustomed life, getting out and being in front.
We’ve had a lot of changes. All of our friends are different now. But in personal lifestyle Patty and I haven’t changed much. I used to get stacks of invitations to embassy parties when I was in the White House, but I only went to two. I went to the Iranian Embassy because they used to get fresh caviar. I went to the Nationalist Chinese because I felt badly that we were sort of brushing them off after Mr. Nixon went to China. I ended up on the front pages of the paper for going, so I never went to another one. That was it. We seldom went out and did that kind of stuff anyway. We don’t now.
ER: I was thinking this afternoon, if I were Charles Colson, I would occasionally have periods of depression. Do you?
CC: Sometimes I get those feelings when I’m trying to get away from the world and just have a little time of quiet. I mean, people get to you! You love them, you really do, but at times it’s just overpowering. You need time away. You need rest. It’s very hard to break away.
Occasionally I’ll take a day off and there will be sightseers or tourists coming down the driveway. It’s just hard for us to find a little bit of the peacefulness that we used to have.
CK: Would you comment on some of the spiritual climate in Washington D.C.? Is the Spirit moving there?
CC: It has to be one of the number one spiritual battle grounds in the world, because in Washington there’s everything that could drive a man away from a relationship with God, Everyplace you go it’s Senator this, Senator that. Congressman this, Congressman that. The President of the United States walks around, and there’s this man behind him with a little black bag that could set off World War III. And there are 535 members in Congress calling him on the phone, having to see him. A hundred governors and heads of state. Press a button and a helicopter lands on the South Lawn. You begin to think you are God.
I would say there are four, maybe six, really committed brothers in the Senate. We have prayer groups in every government agency.
I think the climate in the government today is generally a little better. There has been a pretty good feeling for the first six months of Carter’s presidency. He is part of that, and I give him a lot of credit for it. And I think the feeling on the Hill and in Congress is better than it was – although they are all heading for the bomb shelters now. It was ironic to be up there last week. I was with one congressman. He was pounding his desk saying, “Can you imagine the Washington Post! Four days in a row they have brought up this Korean stuff and put it on the front page [Congressional bribery investigation]. Four days!”
I felt like saying, “Hey, do you know who you’re talking to? I had one year of seeing these bizarre Watergate headlines daily.’’
It sounded just like the White House in 1972.