Chuck Colson came to Madison once, that I remember, but probably several more times than that. Hearing the news of his death on Saturday, I recalled that the only time I ever talked with him was at a Prison Fellowship event in Milwaukee, where he was speaking.
He always made it a point to visit a prison somewhere on Easter morning. I think Colson was pretty familiar with Wisconsin prisons. In fact the federal prison at Oxford, 60 miles north of Madison, figured prominently in the early history of his Prison Fellowship ministry.
I wrote about it in an article a couple of years ago.
The story is told in Charles Colson: A Life Redeemed by Jonathan Aitken. Prison Fellowship began working with prisoners by arranging furloughs from prison for discipleship seminars in Washington, DC. Some 30 classes were held and seemed to be going well until the warden at the Oxford federal prison refused to let any prisoners go.
“If you guys are so good, why don’t you bring your teaching team into our prison and run your course here?” warden George Ralston challenged. Colson thought Ralston was bluffing, so he accepted the invitation. The seminar went so well that Ralston was one of its biggest supporters by the end of the week. He recommended Prison Fellowship to other wardens and the seminars spread across the Midwest.
Several hundred of the more than one thousand prisoners who went through the program in the following year committed their lives to Jesus Christ, as well as at least one warden, George Ralston.
The Prison Fellowship ministry went from training hundreds of inmates in Washington DC every year to thousands of inmates inside prison walls every year, because of what happened at the Oxford prison.
I was in college when the Watergate scandal broke. Colson at first was just another name amongst the various White House staffers. Then after his conversion and prison sentence, and the beginning of the Prison Fellowship ministry, he became quite well known in evangelical circles.
When I started my job as a news director at a Christian radio station in 1982, one of my sources for news programming was submitting occasional commentaries by Colson. The technical quality was not good but the spiritual insights were powerful, the product of Colson’s legal training, high level political experience, and humilty from his time in prison. I tried to encourage improvements in that particular feature but they stopped coming.
Then later Colson started his own daily radio commentary called Breakpoint, which had been on the air several decades at the time of his death. He also wrote books and mentored Christian leaders, all in an attempt to influence American culture towards its Christian roots.
Newspaper articles about Colson’s career were twice reviewed by one of my favorite blogs, GetReligion.com, on Saturday and then on Sunday, and included some criticisms of the coverage for obsessing on Watergate and short-changing the work Colson did in prison ministry. Christianity Today has much better coverage, including an article by Russell Moore explaining all the snarky newspaper obituaries. It concludes with these well-crafted words:
I have to believe that when Chuck Colson opened his eyes in the moments after death that he didn’t hear anything about break-ins or dirty tricks or guilty consciences. I have to believe Mr. Colson heard a Galilean voice saying, “I was in prison and you visited me” (Matt. 25:36). I have to believe that he stood before his Creator with a new record, a new life transcript, one that belonged not to himself but to a Judean day-laborer who is now the ruler of the cosmos. And in that Lamb’s Book of Life there are no eighteen minute gaps. That’s good news for guilty consciences, good news for recovering hatchet men and women like us.
Before Colson started Prison Fellowship, there were prison ministries. But Prison Fellowship was responsible for bringing additional thousands of volunteers behind bars to share their faith. Much work remains to be done, from working with prisoners to badly needed reforms in the justice system, to social changes that will strengthen families so that fewer men and women end up in prison. Colson was involved in all three areas.
Much like the Apostle Paul, Colson’s dramatic conversion led to a lifelong dedication to making as much of an impact for his Savior as he possibly could. He kept at it right up to the end. His was a life that could be emulated, but he would say, “Don’t follow me, follow Jesus.”
UPDATE: Colson to be buried at Quantico
John Dean’s Farewell – Washington Post
Why Chuck Colson Spent Easter in Prisons by Terry Mattingly
From Watergate to redemption by Stephanos Bibas