Beeson Podcast, Episode #1 Chuck Colson Oct. 25, 2010 https://www.beesondivinity.com/podcast/audio/beeson-podcast-episode-001-colson.mp3 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George. >>Timothy George: It’s a pleasure to welcome to the Beeson Podcast today one of my dear friends, Chuck Colson. Chuck Colson was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brown University. He served his country in the United States Marines. Later became Special Counsel to President Richard M. Nixon. Was involved in the scandal of Watergate. Spent time in prison. The Lord, in a marvelous way, transformed his life. Out of that has come a ministry that has touched literally millions of people around the world. He is the Founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, a worldwide ministry for prisoners and their families. It’s chartered now in 120 countries around the world. Chuck, it’s a delight to have you with us here on the Beeson Podcast. >>Chuck Colson: Well, Timothy, I am so grateful because you’ve been such a colleague and mentor to me. I love what you’re doing at Beeson Divinity School and I think it is just a joy that you and I have this opportunity to work together. >>Timothy George: Absolutely. Now, 1976 was called “The Year of the Evangelical,” and one of the reasons is that was the year your book, “Born Again,” became such a bestseller. Tell us, just briefly, how you came to Christ and why you wrote that book. >>Chuck Colson: Well, I came to Christ meeting with a friend whom I’d known for years, a business associate. This was in the days, beginning days, beginning dark days of Watergate, and I wasn’t a target of the investigation. I’d been assured by the prosecutors, but I’d come out of the White House feeling a real sense of deadness and emptiness. And which I thought was just exhaustion from having been in such a high pressure job, the office next to the President of the United States for four years and every crisis I was in the middle of it. But it persisted for months. Then I visited with my, Tom Philips who was the Chairman of the Board of one of the largest corporations in America, Raytheon Company, he’d been a client of mine before I went into the White House. I was going back to once again be his client. I walked into his office and he was different. He seemed changed and relaxed, not the way I’d remembered him four years earlier. I said, “Tom, what’s happened to you? You’ve changed.” He said, “Yes, I’ve accepted Jesus Christ and committed my life to him.” Now, this is in the vast Unitarian wasteland of the northeast. I’d never heard anybody talk this way. I changed the subject nervously. But something about it stuck with me. Four months later, as Watergate deepened and I found myself growing more and more into it, I went to his house one evening, a hot August night. And we sat out on his porch and I said, “Tom, tell me what’s happened to you. I want to know what this is.” He read me one chapter from CS Lewis’ wonderful book, “Mere Christianity,” a book that probably is number one on my list of reading for anyone. Because it really hit me. Particularly the chapter he read which was on pride. Pride is the one vice you see in everybody else, but never see in yourself. A proud man is always walking through life looking down on other people and other things, never can see something above himself unmeasureably superior, God. As Tom was reading this in a monotone, I was feeling a surge of emotions, like a knife in the stomach, because it was ... CS Lewis was writing about me. I was deeply convicted. I wouldn’t show it, because I was too proud and too important in my big job as a lawyer and former politician. But when I got out to the automobile that night, he wanted to pray with me and he did, he prayed, but I never prayed except in a church, I didn’t know what he was doing. I got outside and I was to drive the car away and I got into the automobile, put the keys in the ignition, looked around, wanted to go back and talk to him but saw the lights going out in the house. And I tried to drive out of the driveway. I couldn’t. I was driving, crying too hard. So, I just drove to a little spot in the road and pulled over and stayed there maybe for an hour. I have no idea how long. Crying out to God saying, “Take me the way I am.” I didn’t know the words. I didn’t know the hymns. I never heard what evangelical meant. I just knew I wanted Jesus Christ in my life. And I wanted God. I wanted God to save me. He did that night. It was an extraordinary experience because the next morning, tough Marine Captain, I never cried. White House tough guy. I cried like a baby. I woke up thinking I’d be embarrassed and I wasn’t. I felt free. Patty and I went off to a vacation on the Maine coast and I took that book, “Mere Christianity,” and went to a local book store and bought a Bible. I had no idea how to read it. I started in the beginning. And I went through, “Mere Christianity,” underlining it with a lawyer’s mind and a lawyer’s pad, yellow pad which said, “There is a God, there isn’t a God, Jesus Christ is God, He isn’t God, pros and cons.” Got through it all and realized that it was overwhelming, it was true, and I knew it was true. I knew Christ had come into my life. So, I’ve never been the same since. That was 37 years ago. I’ll never be the same again. Life is so totally different today. I don’t recognize the old Chuck Colson. >>Timothy George: You know, the Bible says in Psalm 130, “Out of the depths have I cried unto you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice.” It was in the depths of that experience that God rescued you, transformed you. >>Chuck Colson: Yes it was. >>Timothy George: And gave you a hope for the future. Talk about that in terms of your prison experience as well. >>Chuck Colson: Right. Well, the interesting thing was, Timothy, when I cried out to God and he came into my life I wasn’t a target of the investigation. I subsequently became one. I subsequently was prosecuted. I subsequently pled guilty and I went to prison. So, people think if you have a conversion all of a sudden your problems go away. That’s really not true. >>Timothy George: It got worse for you. (laughs) Right at first. >>Chuck Colson: Well, it did. Right. (laughs) But God stays with you through those things. And in prison I realized that God had a bigger purpose in my life. I started out being very dejected in prison because I was an idealistic guy. I wanted to be ... I wanted to go into politics, and did, and left behind a very, very successful law firm, because I wanted to do something good for my country. I wanted to help people. In prison, the hardest thing ... I wasn’t worried about making a living. I knew I could do that when I got back out. In fact, I kept my law license in one state. I could practice law. I had clients waiting. But I was discouraged, because I thought I’ll never make a difference again. I’ll never be able to do idealistically anything that will affect the world. Little did I realize that the broken experience in prison God would use for bigger and more important things than I’d ever achieved on my own. >>Timothy George: Yeah. >>Chuck Colson: That’s the paradox of the faith. And so out of that has come a ministry that has spread all around the world. >>Timothy George: Amazing. >>Chuck Colson: I look back and I thank God for prison. I told that to Mike Wallace on 2020 a few years ago, and he looked startled. I said, “I thank God I went to prison. Look what He did. Look how God used that to change my life.” >>Timothy George: Indeed. Well, Prison Fellowship Ministry is just one of the great shining examples, I think, of what it means when Christians take their faith seriously. And from the very beginning of that ministry you have had a vision, not only for ministry to prisoners and their families – that’s the core of what Prison Fellowship is about – but also you’ve seen how the culture in which we live leads to the conditions in our prisons. You’ve emphasized the importance of cultivating, developing a Christian worldview. Talk a little bit about that. >>Chuck Colson: Yeah, I went into the prisons because I felt a great burden for it. I still do, and for the people who are forgotten and left out of society. We have got to be able to reach them with the Church. So, I am passionate about that. But I realized as I started to go into the prisons they were building them faster than I could get to them. Prison population went up ... by the time I got out of prison there were 239,000 people in prison. Today there are 2.3 million. That’s 30 years later. So, I started to study all of the causes of crime. I read all the sociologists of the 18th century and the 19th century and the prevailing view at the time was a very environmental model where it was poverty and deprivation and living in slums. And I didn’t believe that. It struck me wrong. Then I started studying the words of a couple of Jewish psychologists who said, “No, after a 17 year long longitudinal study crime was caused by wrong moral choices. The answer to crime was a conversion to a more responsible lifestyle.” Then I read the works of Wilson Herrnstein at Harvard. He said that crime was caused by the lack of moral training during the morally formative years. And it struck me. I happened to have just read a book by Abraham Kuyper and been very impacted by his views on the sovereignty of God, how Christians have to care about all of culture. Then it struck me that I can go into prisons the rest of my life and we’re not going to solve this problem because with the breakdown of the family and the moral decay in American society we’re going to be turning people out into prisons just as fast as we can. These kids grow up without a male role model. They look for the male role model in the gang, and they end up in prison. So, that’s what got me thinking about biblical worldview. That’s what got me thinking about Kuyper’s great statement that there’s not one square inch in the whole domain of human existence as to which Christ, who is sovereign of all, does not cry out, “Mine.” I began to think, well, I’ve got to start educating the Church. So, the ministry took parallel courses, but very complimentary, and very much related. We were dealing with the pastoral needs of the prisoners and trying to reform the criminal justice system and doing what a good prison ministry should do. But we were also speaking about the conditions that caused crime and how that those could be alleviated, or those could be reversed in our culture. And the need for a great spiritual awakening in America, which I felt deeply convicted about and continue to today. >>Timothy George: Yeah. And that worldview ministry has become now, Break Point, which is a radio ministry you have on 1,300 stations around the country. That’s remarkable. A Christian voice that speaks into the culture Christian truth, gospel truth in this world today. And I want to talk for a few minutes about another enterprise you and I have been involved of late called the Manhattan Declaration. The Manhattan Declaration really began from our thinking together about what the Christian church should say on some of the pressing moral issues of the day in which we are living. And how we can best make an impact for the gospel. And it’s become a phenomenal thing. We have, now, over 456,000 Christians across America who’ve signed, and increasingly we’re getting thousands of new signatories every single week. A document written by you, by Dr. Robert George, and myself. The response has been, so far, exceeding anything we dreamed of. Tell us how that movement came about and how you think about where it’s going. >>Chuck Colson: Well, it’s just about a little over a year ago that I began to be concerned that the Church needs to speak to the culture. Particularly to the great moral issues of the day. The great moral issues. And I was reading history and I read the Barmen Declaration in Germany in 1934, the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazification of the Church. They said we’re going to stand apart. We’re going to confess Christ in the face of this onslaught by the Nazis. And I thought that while the conditions, here of course, are nothing like that there still is a time in every society when you have to face the threat to the gospel and the threat to the critical issues that the gospel reflects in society. So, I came to one of the meetings and having had the great benefit of my relationship with you and your teaching and influence on me, I thought I’ll ask Timothy. This is wonderful. I said, I’ve just been reading about the Barmen Declaration and wondering if it isn’t time for something like that. And you looked at me with a smile. Reached into your briefcase and pulled out 20 copies of the Barmen Declaration. You said you brought them to give to every member of the board. Which made me believe God was telling us to do something like that. That led to discussions you and I had, Timothy, and prayers we had together. And a realization that maybe we needed to be joined by one of the leading Catholic scholars in the world. Professor of jurisprudence at Princeton, Robbie George, and so the three of us got together and I basically held the [inaudible 00:12:53] for you guys while you did the extraordinary task. That 4700 word document is the finest, most well-reasoned argument for life, marriage, and liberty, and when you look at the burning issues of the day they all fall under one of those. >>Timothy George: I want to ask you to speak about those three issues. Those are the three major topics that are considered in the Manhattan Declaration. >>Chuck Colson: Right. >>Timothy George: Well, one of the questions, or one of the criticisms I’ve received, perhaps you, too, is why do you just keep concentrating on those three issues? Why don’t you care about the environment? Why don’t you care about all the other issues? Well, we’ve just been talking about prison ministry. We know there are other issues other than these three. But I’ve referred to these three issues as threshold issues. We go through these issues into a wider array of concern. But if we can’t agree on the sanctity of life and the dignity of marriage and religious freedom for all people then we really have no common ground on which to address these other issues. >>Chuck Colson: Well, that’s as precisely put as I could ever imagine. That’s exactly right. They’re foundational to everything else we believe. Everything we care about in human rights, everything we care about in care for the poor, everything we care about in meeting the needs of marginalized people and people who are forgotten and people with physical disabilities, and how we handle end of life decisions – which is a big issue today – all flow out of our view of life. If life is nothing but a cosmic accident then why would we care about human dignity? I’ve just been teaching ethics and it struck me, all of our ethics flow out of one single truth, the radical truth, which the Jews and Christians brought to the ancient culture, and that was that man was created in the image of God and has innate dignity. That was at a time in the Greco Roman empire when they had slaves, and when the wise men ruled and everybody else were workers. Can you imagine the scandal of these Jews and Christians saying, “No, man is created in the image of God. He has dignity.” It shocked and shook Greece and Rome, the ancient world was shaken by this. This was the greatest single contribution that Christianity has made to the welfare of human beings. >>Timothy George: And you have this image of the early Christians going through the trash heaps of Rome, collecting the babies that had been abandoned and adopting them, and nurturing them. And the earliest document we have outside of the New Testament, the [Didicae 00:15:29] of the twelve apostles says, “Christians are those who will not practice abortion and infanticide.” So, this is a part of the DNA of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, isn’t it? >>Chuck Colson: It’s the very essence, [inaudible 00:15:41] what it means to be a follower of Christ. Exactly right. Which is why the life question is simply non negotiable. It’s simply too foundational to the whole nature of the gospel. That we are created in the image of the creator God. I laugh at people who say, “Why are you Christians all up in arms over abortion? You have a love affair with the fetus. You’ve just gotten into this red hot social issue.” I remind them that Bishop Athen Agoras in the first century sent the first letter to Emperor Claudius [inaudible 00:16:14] objecting to the Roman practice of infanticide and abortion. That was the first political letter the Church ever wrote. >>Timothy George: Yes. >>Chuck Colson: We’ve been on that same position all the way through. It’s what led to our campaign to give rights to women. It’s what led to our campaign to abolish slavery. Every human rights campaign is rooted in that one central conviction. So, the paper, the Manhattan Declaration, is a call to conscious, as we call it, and a call to arms on the part of Christians to stand fast on the basic truths revealed in the creation account. Man made in the image of God. Man, therefore, has a free will. Therefore he has liberty. And the second thing that happens after God makes man and women is he joins them as one flesh. Right there in the first chapters of Genesis is the whole account. Those issues are at the root of everything else we do. >>Timothy George: There’s a wonderful story about that second article of the Manhattan Declaration, which deals with the dignity of marriage. It happened in Santa Fe, New Mexico last January. There were two weddings. One in a Roman Catholic Church. The other in a large evangelical church. They had separate weddings. But when the wedding ceremonies were completed they came together, joined forces, and marched together into the center, the square of Santa Fe to celebrate the goodness of God in giving marriage as an institution and the goodness of family. Now, I think that’s a wonderful example of what we want to do. We want to rebuild the marriage culture. And we want to call young people and everybody in our society today to understand the importance of marriage. This is not about gay bashing. It’s not about being against any particular group of people. It is about lifting up the biblical and historic Christian understanding of what it means to live faithfully unto God in a marriage, one man and one woman, joined together in a covenant relationship for life. >>Chuck Colson: Exactly. In the document that we have presented that argument is made very, very compellingly. It expresses great sympathy to those who are morally disordered in any way who may have attractions which are not natural. We feel sorry. We feel empathy with them and understanding with them. And we want to help them be restored and welcome them in our ranks. And we blame ourselves with divorce much more for the cause of the breakdown of marriage than the gay rights movement. So, it’s taking a very even-handed and very sensitive approach to this difficult question, but it standing fast and as you put it recently, this is the first time that leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, bishops, archbishops, cardinals in the Vatican, across America, are signing a document with Eastern Orthodox priests and bishops and with evangelical leaders across the board. Actually, the first time in history the three great confessions of the Church have come together to speak to the most profound moral issues of the day and to speak with one voice. It’s extraordinary. >>Timothy George: It is. >>Chuck Colson: It’s God’s doing. >>Timothy George: Now, the third issue we talk about is religious freedom, religious liberty, as you were just referring to that, grounded in the creation of God. But also in the example of Jesus Christ. And in the character of God himself. Why is this such a pressing issue today? Why should Christians today in America in the year 2010 be concerned about religious freedom? I thought that issue was settled years and years ago. >>Chuck Colson: Well, so did the founders and so did the early decisions of the Supreme Court. But there’s been a profound cultural shift in America in the last 50 to 60 years. The case law, largely because of the sexual revolution, has had an interesting point. Almost every one of the cases that has limited religious liberty has been over the right of choice or the right to engage in sexual behavior in your own private way in your own private relationships. Every one of those cases. But what those cases have done is to narrow, narrow, narrow, gradually narrow the right to religious liberty. So much so that Hillary Clinton in the speech at Georgetown University, just a few months ago, said, “We will steadfastly defend the right to worship.” Took away the right to religious freedom. A big difference. You and I can worship quietly in our homes. Nobody is going to take away your right to worship. You can do that in Saudi Arabia. What you can’t do is religious freedom, which is the exercise of religious rights in which you put them into practice in the public square. And this is being ... one sentence later, Secretary of State Clinton said, “And we fully embrace the right of people to love in any way they want, whomever they wish to love.” So, what you’re saying is that becomes as transcendent natural liberty. Whereas the religious liberty is reduced to the right to worship. This is dangerous. And this is exactly what’s happening on a broad front. So, the defense of religious liberty ... listen, I hope people, nonbelievers, if they’re listening to this, or if those who are listening to this get a chance to talk to nonbelievers, please explain we are not simply trying to protect our own parochial rights. We are saying it is the right of every human being to practice their faith and to have freedom of conscious. I’ll defend the right of a Muslim to do that. I’ll defend the right of a Buddhist to do that. Just as much as [inaudible 00:21:55]. Why? Because it’s foundational to the nature of God and the nature of the human being. >>Timothy George: Wonderful. Now, the Manhattan Declaration closes with what is perhaps its most controversial statement. Certainly one that has been quoted most where many people have said we call for civil disobedience. We really don’t do that. We hope and we pray that in this country the rights that are enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution and in our laws will continue to be respected. But we do say that we will render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar that which belongs to God. And we say that if necessary we will be willing to go against unjust laws just as Dr. Martin Luther King did in the Civil Rights period. Say a little bit about why we were led to that kind of rather jarring conclusion for many people. >>Chuck Colson: Well, there have been times ... it goes back to Augustine and Aquinas, who argued that an unjust law is no law at all. If you believe that the law of God is transcendent, if you believe that our primary citizenship is in the Kingdom of God, or the City of God, as opposed to the city of man. The Bible is quite clear on this. Then you cannot obey the law of man if it violates the law of God. We may have to suffer for it, because all through church history martyrs have had to suffer for defending their religious freedom and liberty, defending not just theirs, but everybody else’s. And so if you have an ultimate clash between an unjust law of the state, and that would be one, the denied ability to proclaim the gospel. Then you have to defy it. And look at the martyrs who have done so in this century. Look at Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Look at all of the leaders of the church in eastern Europe during the Communist oppression and the Soviet Union itself. Look at those in China today who are disobeying by practicing their faith without registering with the state. This is something that Christians have got to get used to, because we do live as sojourners and travelers through this world. We live to be good citizens, as Augustine said, because that’s part of our duty out of our love of God. But at the same time never to render to Caesar what belongs to God. >>Timothy George: We can’t do that without violating our conscious and God help us not to do that. Chuck, you speak to young people all around the country and indeed all around the world. And you think a lot about the future of the church. I wonder as you look into the future, are you filled with hope or despair? >>Chuck Colson: Great question, Timothy. I’m always filled with hope because I know God is sovereign. I also know that despair is a sin. If you succumb to that, if you succumb to fear, fear is the absence of faith. Except the fear of God, obviously. If you come to despair you’re really denying the sovereignty of God. You’re really saying, “I haven’t got a chance.” Well, no, you haven’t got a chance, but God does. So, I look with great hope. I also follow the fashions and the trends in the Church. And I guess it’s going to happen with every generation. Everybody comes along and says, “Ah, we’ve just discovered the ultimate way to worship.” And then you get a fad, like certain fads that have been recent in the emergent community and what have you. But that will pass. Because people are faced with the reality, which indisputable, that we are contending for the faith entrusted to the saints once for all. And we are defending truths which don’t change because truth can’t change. The truths revealed to us by God. I think when you see what’s happening in America we are dissipating. We are just living off of our inheritance, our Christian inheritance. And we are taken up with the materialistic culture. But that’s not true in China. And that’s not true in Africa. That’s not true around the world. That’s not true in South America. So, the Church is always going to survive. It is always going to thrive under God’s providence and sovereignty. And so I’m just thrilled to be able to take my position in the battlefield wherever he has put me. He’s put me, today, and you and I and especially you and I working so closely together, in a place where we’re seeing the Christian worldview, which has actually built the most humane civilization in human history, being threatened daily. And so our job is to be winsome, loving defenders of the truth. And that’s what we propose to do in the Colson Center and you and I working together is one of my great joys in that, Timothy. >>Timothy George: Thank you, Chuck. We’re almost out of time, but I want to ask you to say a little bit more about the Colson Center. Why it is and how our listeners can be connected to it and involved with it? >>Chuck Colson: I’ve been writing on biblical worldview issues since the mid ‘80s. I wrote, “Kingdoms and Conflict,” which was full of a lot of worldview teaching. I went on to a book that was really, really concentrated on it, “How Now Should We Live,” in 1999. And then I started this Break Point radio program I do every day, which is on 1300 stations. I did that in 1992 to look at current events and evaluate in the light of what the Bible teaches us. I also have been involved in teaching young adults something in the Centurion’s program or adults of all ages who come together once a year, a hundred of them, through residencies in Washington and teaching online. But I feel in this season in my life that God has called me ... I’m not as young as I was and it’s harder to travel and go through the prisons ... but God has called me at this time to raise up a school of prophets, as Samuel did late in his own life, and that is to have the Colson Center, which will be a repository for all of my teaching, and will be a link up for people with all ... which will enable them to reach all good resources. We want all of your stuff on there. The people that we know are good in the Christian world. We want it to be the go-to website where people can find resources on biblical worldview. My own library, which has been accumulating, and my writings, has now about 10,000 items on the website. It’ll start including a lot of items of other people. We’ve invited everybody that we know and trust, who we believe to be orthodox, to be faithful believers, and to be concerned with a biblical worldview to come and join us. Make it a movement. We’re really not looking for an organization. That’s the beauty of the Manhattan Declaration. It isn’t an organization, it’s a movement. It’s people. >>Timothy George: Yes, right. >>Chuck Colson: Getting out and making a difference in their lives and joining together across the lines and not worrying about competing with each other. So, the Colson Center will be the hub for that movement and other movements that it spawns. >>Timothy George: How can readers, or how can our listeners find out about the Colson Center? >>Chuck Colson: www.ColsonCenter.org and they can get linked to it by www.BreakPoint.org as well. They’ll find links on there to Beeson. We’re linking up with a lot of very like-minded groups. So, come and make good use of it. I do a two minute warning on there every week, which is on a new subject, and I also do, of course, the daily break points, which people can subscribe to. >>Timothy George: I wanted to ask you to say something ... it’s a little different kind of writing that you’re doing now with your wonderful daughter, Emily, about your unique and fantastic grandson, Max. I think this book, it’s just coming out, is going to make a real impact in the Christian community. Tell us a little bit about that book, and about Emily and Max. >>Chuck Colson: Well, two years ago, my wife, Patty, suggested that it was time I wrote a book with Emily about Max, her 19 year old autistic son. Most people shudder when they hear that because autism has become an epidemic, 1 out of 100 births now, males, are autistic in some degree. Max is pretty severely autistic. And it was a tough deal for my daughter because her husband left after the child was born, which happens in about 50% of the cases. The guy can’t just handle it. It’s a real tough job raising a child. So, she’s been a single mom. She’s been doing it. She’s been growing in her faith in leaps and bounds. She’s as mature and serious a bible student as I know anywhere. Obviously it has drawn us extremely close together. Emily and I. So, we’ve had fun. We decided to sit down and write. I got with the publishers and I said, “My daughter wants to write on Max and I want to write with her.” They came and they sort of had that look of, “Okay, this is Chuck Colson, celebrity, he’s written a lot of books, has a big audience, he’s going to get his daughter in the act.” Well, then we started both writing together and they, about halfway through the process, they said, “This shouldn’t be a joint book. This should be a book by Emily. You do the prologue and the epilogue, Chuck.” Because her writing is so different than mine. It’s lively. It’s witty and funny. So, she’s a gifted writer, and the book will be out this fall. We have a couple of expectations for this book. It’s a story of overcoming as tough obstacles as life can throw at you. But a faith that deepens in the process. And then the emergence of a 19 year old lad with severe disabilities who has blessed and changed so many lives. It’s a very personal story about Emily’s and my relationship from the beginning, kind of a rocky start when she was a kid. I was responsible for that. Then how we’ve grown together. But it’s also a book that puts the life issue in focus, because what happens when you’ve got an autistic child? Do you give up? Do you find ways to find out in utero if that person is going to have a genetic defect and eliminate them? Or do you let God give us people like Max who turn out to be not a burden, but a huge blessing? So, I hope it’s a story that will give a lot of people encouragement, particularly those with disabilities or people in their families with disabilities. Those who have a tough time in life and are looking for hope. >>Timothy George: It’s from Zondervan. And what’s the title of the book? >>Chuck Colson: “Dancing With Max.” >>Timothy George: Oh, I love it. >>Chuck Colson: And she, you’ll see ... my daughter has such an engaging wit. The book is just fun reading. We’ve been sending out reader’s copies and everybody comes back and says, “I want the next book. I didn’t want it to stop. The writing is such fun.” She’s a gifted communicator, just like your family. You have so many gifted communicators in your family. But she’s really, really talented. So, I’m thrilled and it’s a great thing for her. >>Timothy George: Well, I wanted you to tell a little bit about that. I’ve met Emily. She’s a lovely young woman. And I hope to meet Max some day. >>Chuck Colson: You will. >>Timothy George: Tell us, we’ve just got a second, but I just have to ask you to tell about his baptism, because that’s one of the most moving stories I think I’ve ever heard you tell. >>Chuck Colson: Yes. I’m a member of the Southern Baptist Church. I love it. It’s a wonderful church. The gospel is preached. Max can’t get into crowds, but he wants to go to church with me always. And Emily has been taking him to church. He can’t get into the crowds. He can sit in the back or he can go in afterwards and arrange the chairs. Anyway, he was there one Sunday, Patty and I were worshiping, and there was a baptism and he was sitting in the entryway of the church where there was a television camera. He watched it. He turned to his mother. He was 13 at the time. He turned to his mother and he said, “I want to be baptized. Grandpa can baptize me in his pool.” So, Emily told me afterwards. Of course we were really moved. But I said I can’t do that until he really knows what he’s doing. We’ve got to be sure it’s a sincere baptism. And I wasn’t sure I should do it because I believe in clergy doing ordinations. That’s not Baptist practice, but I still like to see it done that way and become a member of the Church. So, I solved that problem by getting my pastor to ordain me for a day. Because we knew the pastor couldn’t get in the pool with Max. And then Emily is a great artist and she drew ... the way she’s been teaching Max is she draws pictures. She drew a picture of Max. It says, “Max loves Jesus.” And another picture of Max and the baptismal. And then what you do. And in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Drew it all out and said, “You can only do this.” And I questioned him. I said, “Max, you can only do this if you love Jesus and want to give your life to him.” He said, “Yes.” We went in the pool, and it’s an experience I will never forget in my life because I took him up to the end of the pool, the shallow end, and I gave him the confessional, “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I now baptize you my brother,” and he went down and came up with the biggest smile. And now every time he goes in that pool he repeats it, including exactly the words I spoke, before he gets in the pool. It just is always on his mind. And he has led other autistic kids to be baptized. He’s led other autistic kids to Christ. Which is the story we tell in the book. But that’s ... I have a lot of things on my ego wall at home – pictures of presidents and the Pope and all the famous people, and Billy Graham – the biggest picture is the picture of my baptizing my grandson, Max. >>Timothy George: Wonderful. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. I’m glad Max is a part of that. >>Chuck Colson: Yeah. >>Timothy George: Well, my guest today on the Beeson Podcast has been Chuck Colson, the Founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, Break Point, and the Colson Center for Worldview. And also one of the drafters of the Manhattan Declaration. Thank you, Chuck, for this wonderful conversation. >>Chuck Colson: It’s a blessing to be with you always, Timothy. Thank you. >>Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast, with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson podcast at our website: www.BeesonDivinity.com. We welcome your feedback, suggestions, and support. Beeson Divinity School is an evangelical interdenominational divinity school training men and women for service in the Church of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work. And we hope you will listen to each upcoming addition of the Beeson podcast.