[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 61 (Thursday, April 26, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E662-E663]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF CHUCK COLSON

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MIKE PENCE

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 26, 2012

  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, in the passing of Chuck Colson, the earthly 
life of a consequential American has come to an end, and I marked that 
day with a sense of personal loss. Chuck Colson rose to the heights of 
political power and fell to the depths of disgrace, but in his fall, he 
found redemption in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Having been given a 
second chance, Chuck Colson devoted his life to carrying the Christian 
message of second chances to those in prison, and countless lives were 
changed by his compassion and example.
  His voice of moral clarity was an inspiration to millions of 
Americans and made him an invaluable counselor to leaders in government 
and business. I will always count it a privilege to have been able to 
call him my dear friend and mentor. His dedication to moral integrity, 
serving his fellow man and his steadfast faith have always and will 
always be an inspiration to me and my family. Karen and I offer our 
deepest condolences to Patty, the whole Colson family and to all who 
mourn the loss of Chuck Colson. The below article written by Michael 
Gerson and published in the Washington Post on April 22, 2012, is a 
true testimony to the legacy left by his transformed life.

               [From the Washington Post, April 22, 2012]

                 Charles Colson Found Freedom in Prison

                          (By Michael Gerson)

       Charles W. Colson--who spent seven months in prison for 
     Watergate-era offenses and became one of the most influential 
     social reformers of the 20th century--was the most thoroughly 
     converted person I've ever known.
       Following Chuck's recent death, the news media--with short 
     attention spans but long memories--have focused on the 
     Watergate portion of his career. They preserve the image of a 
     public figure at the moment when the public glare was 
     harshest--a picture taken when the flash bulbs popped in 
     1974.
       But I first met Chuck more than a decade after he left the 
     gates of Alabama's Maxwell prison. I was a job-seeking 
     college senior, in whom Chuck detected some well-hidden 
     potential as a research assistant. In him, I found my 
     greatest example of the transforming power of grace. I had 
     read many of the Watergate books, in which Chuck appears as a 
     character with few virtues apart from loyalty. I knew a 
     different man. The surface was recognizable--the Marine's 
     intensity, the lawyer's restless intellect. The essence, 
     however, had changed. He was a patient and generous mentor. 
     And he was consumed--utterly consumed--by his calling to 
     serve prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families.
       Many wondered at Chuck's sudden conversion to Christianity. 
     He seemed to wonder at it himself. He spent each day that 
     followed, for nearly 40 years, dazzled by his own implausible 
     redemption. It is the reason he never hedged or hesitated in 
     describing his relationship with Jesus Christ. Chuck was 
     possessed, not by some cause, but by someone.
       He stood in a long line of celebrated converts, beginning 
     with the Apostle Paul on the Damascus road, and including 
     figures such as John Newton, G.K. Chesterton and Malcolm 
     Muggeridge. They were often received with skepticism, even 
     contempt. Conversion is a form of confession--a public 
     admission of sin, failure and weakness. It brings out the 
     scoffers. This means little to the converted, who have 
     experienced something more powerful than derision. In his 
     poem, ``The Convert,'' Chesterton concludes: ``And all these 
     things are less than dust to me/ Because my name is Lazarus 
     and I live.''
       Prison often figures large in conversion stories. Pride is 
     the enemy of grace, and prison is the enemy of pride. ``How 
     else but through a broken heart,'' wrote Oscar Wilde after 
     leaving Reading Gaol, ``may Lord Christ enter in?'' It is the 
     central paradox of Christianity that fulfillment starts in 
     emptiness, that streams emerge in the desert, that freedom 
     can be found in a prison cell. Chuck's swift journey from the 
     White House to a penitentiary ended a life of 
     accomplishment--only to begin a life of significance. The two 
     are not always the same. The destruction of Chuck's career 
     freed up his skills for a calling he would not have chosen, 
     providing fulfillment beyond his ambitions. I often heard him 
     quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and mean it: ``Bless you, 
     prison, for having been in my life.''
       Chuck was a powerful preacher, an influential cultural 
     critic and a pioneer of the dialogue between evangelicals and 
     Catholics. But he was always drawn back to the scene of his 
     disgrace and his deliverance. The ministry he founded, Prison 
     Fellowship, is the largest compassionate outreach to 
     prisoners and their families in the world, with activities in 
     more than 100 countries. It also plays a morally clarifying 
     role. It is easier to serve the sympathetic. Prisoners call 
     the bluff of our belief in human dignity. If everyone matters 
     and counts, then criminals do as well. Chuck led a movement 
     of volunteers attempting to love some of their least lovable 
     neighbors. This inversion of social priorities--putting the 
     last first--is the best evidence of a faith that is more than 
     crutch,

[[Page E663]]

     opiate or self-help program. It is the hallmark of authentic 
     religion--and it is the vast, humane contribution of Chuck 
     Colson.
       It is a strange feeling to lose a mentor--a sensation of 
     being old and small and exposed outside his shade. Chuck's 
     irrational confidence in my 21-year-old self felt a little 
     like grace itself. The scale of his life--a broad arc from 
     politics to prison to humanitarian achievement--is also the 
     scale of his absence. But no one was better prepared for 
     death. No one more confident in the resurrection--having 
     experienced it once already. So my grief at Chuck's passing 
     comes tempered--because he was Lazarus, and he lives.

                          ____________________