Charles W. Colson - Born Again

1976, 1977, 1995, 2008 by Charles W. Colson

Published by Chosen Books

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.chosenbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2010

Ebook corrections 03.10.2016, 05.30.2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-58558-941-8

Scripture marked PHILLIPS is taken from The New Testament in Modern English, revised editionJ. B. Phillips, translator. J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.

Scripture marked RSV is taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copy-right 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked TLB is taken from The Living Bible, copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale house Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked KJV is taken from the king James Version of the Bible.

Excerpt from the column Getting Right with Granny is used by permission of Art Buchwald.

Excerpts from Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, Copyright 1943, 1945, 1952 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., are used by permission.

To my dadwhose ideals for my life I have tried, not always successfully, to fulfilland whose strength and support is with me today.

To Pattythe gentle spirit who comforts me when I fail, keeps me humble in success, giving of herself alwaysin love.

The butterfly is natures most visible illustration of rebirth. Once drab and earthbound as a caterpillar, the butterfly emerges from its cocoon in beautifully radiant colors, soaring upward into the sky. Freeborn againjust as each of us can be when we are, through Christ, born again in the Spirit.

Contents

When Born Again was first published in February 1976, I was invited by Barbara Walters for a fourteen-minute interview on The Today Show. We met in the green room before the program went on the air, and Barbara suggested that we not haggle over whether we would talk politics or religion, but that we talk both. I agreed. So we devoted exactly seven minutes to my experience as one of President Nixons senior aides who went to prison, and seven minutes to my encounter with Jesus Christ.

The interview turned out to be electrifyingI believe God used it mightilyand the bookstores across America were sold out that very night. Almost half a million copies were published and sold in 1976 amid the reemergence of what was known as the born-again Christian movement. The cover of a Newsweek that fall read The Year of the Evangelical, and Jimmy Carter, a born-again Georgia farmer, was headed for the White House.

God used this book not only to challenge his believers in a renewal movement, but also to launch my ministry both in the prisonsPrison Fellowship is now in 113 countries around the worldand in writing. Since Born Again I have written more than twenty books, which God has used to challenge believers and nonbelievers alike.

But none of these books has been as personal to me as Born Again. After years in politics, I knew how to spin a story, whether doing damage control by taking something questionable we had done and giving it a positive twist, or mustering up some dirt on a person we considered a political rival. I was not as sure about writing the raw, unvarnished truth about myself and how I had fallen into disgrace.

What motivated me was that my disgrace was not the end of the storyor even the main part of the story. The real story was that Christ had reached down to me, even in my disgrace and shame, and revealed himself as the One who forgives and makes new. Born Again is the story of a broken man transformed by the love and power of Jesus Christwho continues to transform me every passing day.

It is the kind of story Christ has created in countless peoples hearts for two thousand years: the story of hope and renewal, the story of Romans 8:28 in actionof God using all things for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

I know it was Watergate that cast me unceremoniously into the public eye and prompted many people to pick up my book when it was first published. Some sought an insiders perspective on the Nixon Administration and the scandal that finally brought it crashing down. Some came to the book with skepticism, expecting, I imagine, another spin on political shenanigans. And some who had heard of my conversion wanted to determine for themselves if it was real.

Whatever their reason, I am humbled to know that through the years, God has continued to use this book to give hope and encouragement to many. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of Godwhether they stand at the heights of political power or the depths of prison confinement. I have been in both spots. And no matter where a person is, God will meet him or her there with an invitation to forgiveness and new life.

This is my story. My prayer is that God will graciously use it in his work to create new life stories in people everywhere.

Charles Colson

In one sense I had lost everythingpower, prestige, freedom, even my identity. In the summer of 1974, as prisoner number 23226 at Maxwell Federal Prison Camp, I stared at the screen of a small black-and-white television set. Along with the rest of the country, I watched as President Richard Nixon, whom I had served faithfully for three and a half years, resigned his office. It was one of the most desolate experiences of my life.

But in another sense I had found everything, all that really matters: a personal relationship with the living God. My life had been dramatically transformed by Jesus Christ.

In the dreary confines of that prison, I began to scribble notes, trying to describe the dramatic change in my life and what it meant to go from the White House to prison. I had received lucrative offers to write political memoirs, but I felt compelled to tell people the simple story of what God had done in my life.

So I began to scratch out on a yellow pad the story that later became Born Again. I had no idea there even was a Christian publishing industry. All I knew was that I had a story I must tell, a story that might bring hope and encouragement to others.

Little did I dream that the book Born Again would become an international bestseller; that millions of copies would be printed; that tens of thousands of people around the world, from prisoners in dark cells to prime ministers and princes in palaces, would read it; that the Holy Spirit would use its wordsGods work in my lifeto spark new life in hearts everywhere.

In one sense this book tells an old storyof politics in one of Americas most convulsive times, the Watergate era, which led to the only presidential resignation in history. But it is a much older story than thatone that has echoed through the centuries. It is a story of truth, of hope, of the wonderful Good News of Jesus Christs power to change a human life.

It is this Good News that I hope you will encounter in the pages that follow.

Charles W.Colson

The origins of this book go back to a sultry late-summer day in 1974. President Nixon had only recently resigned; the government was in disarray and the country, exhausted by the convulsions of Watergate, was in numbed shock. I was languishing in an Alabama prison, a casualty of the greatest political upheaval in American history.