A Colson Anniversary

https://www.breakpoint.org/50-years-ago-chuck-colson-was-granted-eternal-life/

The memory of Charles 'Chuck' Colson (1931-2012) is already starting to fade away. He was of another generation and one that seems increasingly distant. From time to time BreakPoint will replay one of his old commentaries and they did so recently as 2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of his conversion – except I continue to argue the man was a fraud.

I have long argued this point on the basis of his own words and deeds. It seems clear enough the man was unrepentant of his past and crimes and I tend to agree with the cynics who viewed his conversion as a convenient tactical move.

He continued to lie about his plea deal and its nature. It was a lawyer's trick that he falsely presented as some kind of noble gesture made from the moral high ground. He knew how the legal game worked and that the prosecutors wanted a 'win'. He gave them the feather for their cap and allowed them to throw him in jail for a much lighter crime and sentence. That way they got their 'win' and yet didn't have to pursue the hard work involved in securing a jury-trial conviction.  But few convicted in such a way attempt to put the moralizing (if nauseating) spin on it that Colson did.

His hubris knew no bounds as he would willingly assent to being compared with the likes of the apostle Paul. Over the years he presented his tenure in the Nixon administration as some kind of honourable and ethical service and he expressed bitterness in 2005 when Mark Felt was revealed as Deep Throat – the high-level contact utilised by Woodward and Bernstein. Felt played a significant role in helping to bring Nixon down by exposing the cover-up and machinations emanating from the White House, of which Colson was a part. Colson obviously did not disown his time in connection with the White House and the Nixon administration. He was a violent thug and guilty of some pretty evil scheming and so for him to sit in front of James Dobson and others and beam with moral hubris over his 'service' during the Nixon administration just demonstrates the fraudulent nature of his conversion. If he hadn't gone down in Watergate he would have no regrets and I don't think really was ever ashamed of any of it – maybe just embarrassed and humiliated because he lost his position, his law license, and was forever after a convicted felon.

In my opinion he pined for a return to the corridors of power and found his workaround through Evangelical political activism and the embrace of Dominionist ideology which provided a theological fig-leaf for his self-aggrandizing power-seeking efforts.

I guess we're supposed to be impressed by his friendship with the president of Raytheon – one of the most evil companies in the world.  If anything it just provides further testimony to Evangelicalism's gospel of cheap grace.

For him to evoke CS Lewis and the question of pride is absurd – Colson's pride was clearly never broken and his 'gospel' testimony regarding Jesus 'coming into his life' rings rather hollow. That kind of lingo is common enough in Evangelical circles but there's just one thing that needs to be remembered – that's not the gospel. Jesus coming into your life or asking Him into your heart is sentimental language that doesn't say anything regarding the nature of faith, let alone the necessity of repentance. And let's be clear on this point, many Evangelicals don't believe repentance is necessary for salvation. It's a good thing they'll admit, but like sanctification it's essentially optional and not everyone will experience it – at least not in any tangible way.

That's another gospel, not the message of Christ and the apostles.

Regardless of what he says, I don't believe Colson was a broken man – but one quick and eager to rattle off all his achievements and tell everyone how great he was.

It does not surprise me that he was quickly drawn toward Dominionism as it fed his worldly impulses and affirmed them. Note that he says – we can live lives of obedience in any field. He then hides this nebulous and false statement under the cover of Providence. The idea that obedience might mean that we suffer or in fact must give up things – walk away from ungodly professions rooted in sin and the systems of this present evil age was not only foreign to Colson, he would reject the very concept. Christianity was (for him) a means to power. Godliness is gain according to the gospel of Chuck Colson. The religion of the apostles, that of the New Testament was foreign to him.

I listened to his commentaries for years and I can say the man excelled at getting almost everything wrong. It often amazed me how he could somehow take an issue and pervert it. He would twist history, and frequently distorted the very basic definitions of Christianity. He frequently championed and supported evil – all in the name of Christ of course. He was the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing.

And his disciples are no better. One (Metaxas) has gone completely off the rails and has fallen into fascism even while he has set himself up as an oppositional expert on the topic and historical examples of resistance to it. The truth is once again stranger than fiction. Metaxas wants to warn everyone about the growing danger of fascism's return – even while he has sold himself out to Trump and Trumpism, the closest thing to actual fascism yet seen in American political history.

The other disciple (Stonestreet) continues to promote the consequentialist compromised ethics of the Evangelical movement. Winning is all that matters and along the way if the gospel is compromised and confused by a conflation of ethics and ecumenical theology – then so be it. Of course when someone like Stonestreet thinks he's winning, a quick look at the Evangelical landscape reveals that in order to win – they've lost everything. Truly, they are blind leaders of the blind.

Colson tried to set himself up as a continuator of the Francis Schaeffer legacy and in some respects he fulfilled this task – taking Schaeffer's co-belligerence to its logical ecumenically compromised end. For Colson, the gospel, theology – none of that really mattered. He stayed in the SBC but as a culture warrior and political activist he was obviously strongly drawn toward Roman Catholicism and its historical and civilisational standing. I used to wonder (only half-jokingly) if he was an undercover Jesuit or member of Opus Dei.

The results of 1994's Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) continues to be felt. Though now dead more than ten years his evil legacy continues to plague the Church. Would that his memory would be truly forgotten, or better yet that he would be remembered and yet understood as the sort Paul spoke of in 2 Timothy 3 – one who deceived and was deceived.