Charles Colson - The Sky Is Not Falling: Living Feaerlessly in These Turbulent Times

LIVING FEARLESSLY IN
THESE TURBULENT TIMES

CHARLES
COLSON

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR

Copyright 2011 by Charles Colson

Published by Worthy Publishing, a division of Worthy Media, Inc., 134 Franklin
Road, Suite 200, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027.

HELPING PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THE HEART OF GOD

eBook available at www.worthypublishing.com

Audio distributed through Oasis Audio; visit www.oasisaudio.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011931410

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version.

For foreign rights, contact Christianity Today International,
www.christianitytoday.com

ISBN 978-1-936034-54-3 (hardcover with dustjacket)

Cover Design: Christopher Tobias, Tobias Design
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Printed in the United States of America
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Charles Colson is widely respected as a keen observer of matters of faith and culture, and a leading voice on the issues that have shaped our society. Over the years, he has imparted his wisdom and poignant insights in the pages of Christianity Today. Many of those ideas are woven together here, offering enduring hope and fresh perspective for our times.

When some future historian 100 years from now writes the history of American evangelicalism, the life and work of Chuck Colson will have a large role in the story. His own life story is compelling.

Born in Boston when Herbert Hoover was president of the United States, Colson graduated from Brown University, served his country in the United States Marines, became an accomplished lawyer, and eventually served as Special Counsel to President Richard M. Nixon. Caught up in the scandal of Watergate, Colson fell from the pinnacle of power and soon found himself serving time in an Alabama jail. Out of this shattering experience, he was converted to Jesus Christ, an experience he wrote about in his best-selling book, Born Again (1976). While still in prison, God gave Chuck Colson a vision for a ministry to prisoners and their families. Out of his vision came Prison Fellowship, the worlds largest prison outreach program, which is now chartered in 120 countries around the world.

In the early days of Prison Fellowship, many people thought that Colson was just another flash in the pan. Sadly, the evangelical world has far too many Elmer Gantry-type celebrities who use their fame to promote and enrich themselves at the expense of others. Would Colson be another one of these? Many people wondered. Would he have staying power?

Now, more than three and a half decades later, even Colsons sternest critics have to admit that he is the real thing.

Eugene Peterson once described the life of faith as a long obedience in the same direction. This is the story of Colsons career as a prison reformer, columnist, author, and respected statesman in the world Christian movement. Here is a man of God who shows his faith by his works. Since the late seventies, Colson has visited more than 600 prisons in forty countries. With the help of tens of thousands of volunteers, he has developed effective programs in restorative justice, community care, inner-city renewal, rehabilitation, and a network of loving support for the children of prisoners, appropriately named Angel Tree. Colson knows by experience the life-transforming power of Jesus Christ and he expends himself sharing this with othersthe least, the last, the lost. In recognition of his work, Colson received the prestigious million-dollar Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1993, which he donated to Prison Fellowship, as he does all his speaking fees and book royalties.

In recent years, Colson has come to see more clearly the connection between genuine prison reform and the wider social and ethical issues that influence our culture today. At a time when some voices are suggesting that the church should just stick with its knitting and avoid taking a stand on any issue at stake in the public square, Colson has emerged as a major voice calling on Christian believers everywhere to recognize the lordship of Jesus Christ upon our whole life. This is not a call for Christians to be more political in the sense of embracing the agenda of any partisan movement or ideology. Colsons approach is, rather, a summons to first principlesa recognition that there are moral absolutes we can violate only at our peril, that utopian solutions to social problems are vacuous and counterproductive, that the rule of law has a respected place in the ordering of a just society but that Christians have a non-negotiable commitment to render unto Caesar that which is Caesars, but under no circumstances to render unto Caesar that which is Gods.

That last sentence is from the closing lines of the Manhattan Declaration, a statement of Christian conscience drafted by Chuck Colson, Robert George, and me, and signed by more than 500,000 Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical believers. It affirms the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, the dignity of marriage as a lifelong covenantal union between one man and one woman, and religious freedom for all persons everywhere. The Manhattan Declaration is closely related to another initiative Colson has developed, a six-part video series titled Doing the Right Thing. This is an effort to move beyond a program of ethics based on keeping rules and complying with government regulations. Doing the Right Thing asks fundamental questions about the underlying assumptions that undergird our public acts. It calls for a renewal of duty, integrity, fidelity, humility, and the kind of spirituality that recognizes life itself as a gift from God.