Whosoever Shall Lose His Life for My Sake…

A co-worker at The Alabama Baptist saw a news release about the death of Charles Colson and responded in shock. “You mean he was a prisoner,” she said.  Colson was known to her only as the founder of Prison Fellowship and a respected leader in the evangelical Christian community. 

Charles Colson certainly was that. But, for me, to forget what Colson was before he became a Christian is to miss his greatest contribution to the cause of Christ. Colson was Exhibit A that “whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 16:25). 

By secular standards, Colson’s former life was to be envied. He founded a successful law practice and in 1969 was appointed Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon. Of himself, Colson wrote that he was valuable to Nixon because “I was willing to be ruthless in getting things done.” One writer described Colson as the “evil genius of an evil administration.” Others called him Nixon’s “hatchet man.”

The traits that took Colson to the pinnacle of power proved his undoing. Colson was tied to such historic episodes as Watergate, the Pentagon Papers and the White House Special Operations Unit better known as “the Plumbers.” 

He was indicted for conspiring to cover up the Watergate burglary and ended up pleading guilty to obstruction of justice charges. He was sentenced to federal prison, fined and disbarred. 

It was during the turbulent months following the downfall of the Nixon administration that Colson began his journey toward faith in Jesus Christ. 

A friend gave him a copy of C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” and that book proved pivotal. Shortly afterward, reports began to surface that Colson had “got religion.” Many thought it a ploy to save himself from judicial wrath and several newspapers printed ridiculing cartoons. 

Many religious leaders shared the skepticism. Before his sentence, Colson joined a Congressional prayer group of evangelical Christians but only after some participants overcame some severe reservations about him and his newfound faith. 

In 1975, shortly after getting out of prison, Colson was a featured speaker at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Pastors Conference in Miami. He brought with him Edmon Blow, an Alabama Baptist preacher from Montgomery. Blow led a Bible study at Maxwell Federal Prison Camp where Colson was imprisoned. In his book “Born Again,” Colson describes Blow as “a tall, rawboned man.” I remember him as thin and red headed, a man whose southern accent testified to his origin. Colson introduced Blow at the Pastors Conference as a “brother” and described how the Bible studies and Blow’s unquestioning faith in Jesus Christ had influenced his life. 

‘It was only the beginning’

That night Colson shared how he had come to faith in Christ with the 13,000 people present. He said, “It was, as you all so well know, not the end of anything except my old life. It was only the beginning — starting out on a long, hard journey.” 

He also hinted at what would be the focus of the rest of his life — prison ministry. He told the crowd, “If I have anything that I can leave with you, it is the appeal, the crying I heard of hundreds of thousands of men and women who sit tonight frightened, forgotten and alone in the dark concrete holes of American prisons.

“I can only speak to you of the suffering of men’s souls, of our less fortunate brothers who need us, who need God’s work and Christ’s love.” 

That night, the straightforward, transparent, unpretentious style in which Colson spoke, in which he responded to reporters’ questions during a news conference, in which he communicated in personal conversations, convinced many this once self-driven man really had been “born again.” 

One of life’s hard truths is that one cannot prove one has changed by mere words. It takes years and years of faithful living to demonstrate that “old things are passed away … that all things have become new.” That is exactly what Colson did. 

In 1976 he founded Prison Fellowship which became the nation’s largest evangelical outreach to prisoners and their families. 

In 1983 he founded Justice Fellowship to work for reforms in the nation’s criminal justice system. 

Colson became a noted Christian philosopher, ethicist and author. He wrote advocating church-state separation in his book “Kingdoms in Conflict.” More recently he was a catalyst championing religious freedom as expressed in the Manhattan Declaration. He worked to bridge the gap between Roman Catholics and evangelical Christians. He frequently wrote about current social issues from a conservative biblical standpoint. 

And the honors poured in. He won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion and gave the $1 million award to Prison Fellowship. President George W. Bush presented him the Presidential Citizens Medal. The Salvation Army gave him the organization’s highest award. More than a dozen Christian colleges presented him honorary degrees. 

And all of this for a man who for the first 40-plus years of his life scoffed at Christians and their faith.   

No one can detract from Colson’s contributions to society and to the kingdom of God. He has been an unequaled gift from God for more than three decades. So identified was he with evangelical Christianity that my co-worker had no idea of his previous life. 

Still Colson’s story is Exhibit A of the power of God to change the life of anyone who will turn to God through faith in Jesus Christ. To use Colson’s words from the 1975 Pastors Conference, it was only after he was willing to lose his old life of ambition, power and greed that he found the true meaning of life in Jesus Christ. 

What God did for Charles “Chuck” Colson, God can do for others so don’t give up on that friend or family member for whom you have been praying. There is no telling what God can do with someone once they give their lives to Him as Lord and Savior.