Known by His Works

Chuck Colson remains hospitalized following surgery for a brain hemorrhage that almost took his life more than two weeks ago.

When news reports of Colson’s critical condition hit the wires invariably they led with a phrase such as “convicted Watergate figure.” Faith-based media, on the other hand, usually started the story by calling the 80-yer-old Colson an influential Christian leader.

Indeed, what Colson accomplished after his four years as special counsel to President Nixon has made him an elder statesman in evangelical Christianity circles. He founded the most influential prison ministry in the country, Prison Fellowship; he has authored numerous bestsellers about integrating Christian faith into daily living; he has contributed mightily to important doctrinal debates.

Yet much of the mainstream media is stuck in 1973 when it comes to reporting on Colson. Despite his decades of ministry efforts, they still see him as the ruthless “hatchet man” for the paranoid Nixon, a loyal follower who “would walk over his own grandmother if necessary” to serve the president.

Colson converted to Christianity in 1974 and it transformed his life as much as it did for Saul of Tarsus, the onetime persecutor of Christians who became Paul, the most important apostle of the Early Church. Colson, having subsequently served seven months in federal prison after his conversion, became an advocate of prison rehabilitation.

I remember covering Colson when he visited the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1981 in Jefferson City when I was a religion reporter at the Columbia Missourian. Five years after the founding of Prison Fellowship, editors still thought Colson to be a phony. The fact that he was conversing with inmates rather than sitting back in a cushy law office at a corporate firm didn’t seem to register with the editors.

I was involved in the photo selection process for the newspaper. Editors wanted to use a picture of Colson in an unflattering pose, his face twisted in an almost grotesque way. Somehow I prevailed in changing their minds. The primary image shows a compassionate Colson reaching through prison bars to clasp an inmate’s hand.

More than 30 years later, it’s time to view Colson in a favorable light, not primarily for his lawbreaking from a long-ago presidential administration. The proof is in the legacy he is living and leaving with his Christian life.