Charles Colson

Nixon aide, prison minister, and Christian leader Charles Colson has passed on.  In this post, I’d like to link to things that I’ve written about Charles Colson, as well as other articles about him that I have enjoyed.

From my blog:

Nixon’s Civil Rights 12: Charles Colson

10 Significant Mike Wallace Moments

Uncomfortable Psalms

Other articles:

1.  One Lord, One Faith, One Voice: A Forum on the Limits of Politics and a Search for Common Ground

This was an article in the October 7, 1996 Christianity Today in which Colson, Ralph Reed, and Tony Campolo had a discussion about faith in public life.  I especially liked what Reed had to say about Colson:

“The first book other than the Bible that I read after I became a Christian was Born Again, by Chuck Colson. I think God wanted me to read that book, because it was the story of someone who wanted to change the world and tried to do it through politics and came to a point where he saw that politics wasn’t the answer. That book changed my life, because up until I got saved I thought the same thing. If we could just elect the Gipper, if we could just cut the marginal tax rate, if we could just get rid of the Soviet empire, it would be a great world.  I want to instill in the hearts and minds of activists that you should not make your political involvement the sole repository of your hopes and aspirations as a Christian for the reformation of society.”

2.  David Plotz, Charles Colson: How a Watergate Crook Became America’s Greatest Christian Conservative

This article appeared in the March 10, 2000 edition of Slate.  I like the first quote because it illustrates what I loved about Colson, and the second one highlights concerns that I had about him:

“On prison issues, he is a darling of the left. He insists that nonviolent criminals should not be jailed, that more convicts should be paroled, and that drug offenders should be treated rather than incarcerated. He works desperately to convince conservative lawmakers to reconsider their lock-’em-up views. Colson lobbies for better prison conditions. He champions ‘restorative justice,’ a promising notion now being tested all over the country. Restorative justice holds that crime is committed not against the state but against a victim and against God. In restorative justice, nonviolent criminals stay out of jail, remain in the community where they committed their crime, and work to support their families and pay restitution to the victim. Ideally, the criminal seeks reconciliation with the victim, too.”

“There are hints that Colson is changing as his popularity increases. During the first two decades after he left prison, he invariably criticized Christian political activism for its self-righteousness. But that criticism is subsiding. In his radio shows and columns, which reach millions of Christians, Colson sounds increasingly like other religious-right preachers. He doesn’t yet have the bile of a Robertson, but he seems angrier and angrier, and he is more and more willing to wade into politics. He harshly criticizes evolution. He has lobbied to permit the display of the Ten Commandments in government buildings. He has been increasingly vocal about his loathing for gay rights. (The villains of Colson’s apocalyptic novel are AIDS activists.) He pushed hard for the impeachment of President Clinton.”

3.  Jessica Gresko, Watergate Figure Charles Colson Has Died at 80

This entire article is worth reading, for it talks about Daniel Ellsberg and Colson’s view on Mark Felt after Felt was identified as Deep Throat.  But I’ll highlight here my favorite part of the article, which is a quotation of Mark Earley, a former Virginia Attorney General who worked with Colson’s Prison Fellowship:

“Yet, it wasn’t until he lost that power, what most people would call real ‘power,’ that Chuck began to make a real difference and exercise the only kind of influence that really matters…Prison Fellowship is possible only because its founder, Chuck Colson, was forced to personally identify with those people who hold a special place in God’s heart: prisoners and their families.”

R.I.P. Charles Colson.  To honor his memory, I’ll watch the movie Born Again, a 1978 movie about Colson’s conversion.  Dean Jones plays Colson, and, as a Disney fan, I love Dean Jones.

 

10 Significant Mike Wallace Moments

Mike Wallace has passed on.  In this post, I’ll list what I consider to be ten significant Mike Wallace moments.

1. 60 Minutes would be on in my household every Sunday night.  And Mike Wallace would be the first anchor to introduce himself in the lineup.  He’d say “I’m Mike Wallace” as his head went up and down.  My Dad once said that he saw 60 Minutes preach the Gospel more than the self-appointed Armstrongite preachers who thought that they had a divine mandate.  What my Dad meant by that was that 60 Minutes did us a service by exposing corruption.

2.  As someone with an Armstongite background, I absolutely have to mention Mike Wallace taking down Stanley Rader, who was a key figure in Herbert Armstrong’s movement.  See here and here for information on that.  Not only did I watch the 60 Minutes story, but I also listened via cassette to Wallace’s unedited interview of Rader.  (A relative of mine somehow had a copy of that.)  Rader was a sharp lawyer and accountant who gave Wallace some good back-and-forth, but, ultimately, the interview made neither Rader nor the Worldwide Church of God look that good.

3.  My Grandma told me that she once saw Mike Wallace at the airport.

4.  In his book Born Again, Charles Colson talked about Mike Wallace’s interview of him during the Nixon years.  Colson said that Mike Wallace was quite affable, but then the interview started and it was like “ding, ding, ding”, as Mike jumped on Colson and reminded him of the bad things Colson did or was accused of doing.

5.  At the Hebrew Union College library, I looked at a book that Mike Wallace wrote about his interviews.  Wallace talked about his interview with Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Wallace asked Reagan tough questions, such as how many African-Americans Reagan appointed as Governor, as well as confronted Reagan with an extreme statement that Reagan made about the Vietnam War (I think it was Reagan’s statement that “we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas”).  Wallace acknowledged in retrospect that he was a little unfair to do that, since a lot of people made dumb remarks during the Vietnam War!  When Wallace took a break from the interview, Nancy asked him why he was being so tough on Ronnie when she thought he was their friend, and Ronald Reagan stood near her looking disapprovingly at Mike.  Mike told them that he was just doing his job, and that he wasn’t trying to be mean!

6.  In a Mike Wallace book that I was looking through, Wallace said that he knew he had someone on the ropes when the interviewee kept saying Mike’s name.  “Mike.”  “Mike.”

7.  Mike Wallace in 1979 was interviewing the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, which probably took a lot of courage, considering how intimidating the Ayatollah looked.  Wallace challenged Khomeini with a statement by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, whom Wallace called a devout Muslim.  Essentially, Sadat said that the Ayatollah Khomeini was a lunatic.  A few years later, Sadat was assassinated.

8. I remember Wallace interviewing an author who was claiming that Abraham Lincoln was gay.  I recall Mike having an odd expression on his face when the author was saying that, as if Wallace were skeptical.  But maybe I was reading too much into Wallace’s facial expression!  (This article goes into Mike Wallace’s views on homosexuality.  If you read it, be sure to read the whole thing.)

9.  I recall seeing Mike Wallace in the 1957 movie, A Face in the Crowd, in which Andy Griffith plays a power-hungry guy who gets a TV show and works with the right-wing.

10.  I’d like to watch sometime Mike Wallace’s 1959 interview with Ayn Rand (see here).  Both were tough cookies!

R.I.P. Mike Wallace.

More on Davy Jones

Yesterday, I posted some links to the episodes of My Two Dads on which Davy Jones appeared.  I watched those episodes yesterday and really enjoyed them.  I particularly liked the second episode, “Fallen Hero”.  Davy Jones plays Malcolm, a successful musician who is having writer’s block, if you will.  Essentially, he’s not inspired to write another song.  Whereas the successful song that he wrote previously was based on a lifetime of experiences, he does not feel that he can write another song, probably because he’s afraid that he already said everything he can and has nothing more to say.  He also feels pressured by his fans to be a success.  Whereas, earlier, he loved going to his studio to record, now he avoids the studio like the plague.

But Malcolm finds inspiration among his friends.  And when he sings a song for Nicole and she looks at him with that “You’re a celebrity and can do no wrong” look, he reminds her that he can do wrong, and that he needs her as a friend when he does do wrong.

Good episode!  I also liked the song that Davy Jones sang on The Brady Bunch, which is about how his girlfriend brightens his life.

Davy Jones on My Two Dads

Many people know that Davy Jones was on The Brady Bunch.  He was on one episode of the series, and he was also in The Brady Bunch Movie.  But did you know that he also was in two episodes of My Two Dads?  I remember watching them in the late 80′s.  Right now, you can find them on YouTube.  There’s the episode called “The Wedge”, and the one called “Fallen Idol”.

Remembering Whitney Houston

I’m watching the 20/20 special on Whitney Houston, which I taped last night.  Over the past week, I’ve enjoyed listening to her music, and also hearing the accounts about her faith, her kindness to people, her down-to-earth quality, and the things that made her human (i.e., her shyness).  The 20/20 documentary talks about how she was the first African-American model for certain high-profile magazines, and how she blazed the trail for other African-American musicians.  In terms of why I have long liked her music, a lot of the reason is that it is powerful, and sometimes even defiant.

Here’s a good article about Whitney Houston’s friendship with actor Kevin Costner.

2/13/2012 Links

Here are some links for today:

1.  Whitney Houston talks with Diane Sawyer about her struggle with drug addiction (see here).  I don’t know if this is the same video that I watched yesterday, but, in the one that I watched yesterday, Whitney was telling Diane about her faith that Jesus loves her.  She was also saying that her greatest problem is herself.  Recovery, living out a positive and an affirming faith, and battling one’s inner demons can be for many a struggle that needs to be affirmed and re-affirmed each day.

2.  According to this article, Osama Bin Laden did not want for his children to follow his path of jihad, but rather to get a good education and live in peace with the West.  That makes me wonder why he was even conducting jihad, if he did not believe that it was a suitable path for his children.  Was it because he was angry that the U.S. set up a base in Saudi Arabia, which he considered to be holy soil, and so he felt that he was fighting things like that rather than the West in general?  Did he believe that it was too late for him to follow a righteous path, even as he was seeing that the path of jihad that he was on was futile?  Did he feel that Westernization was inevitable and so his children had best make peace with it, while maintaining some devotion to Islam?

3.  A theme that comes up on my blog, and which will come up again this coming April (which is National Autism Month), is social skills.  In books that try to teach social skills, we are told that we should be interested in other people’s lives and ask them questions about themselves.  But there are right and wrong ways to do this.  In this post and this post, the topic is whether or not it’s appropriate to ask parents with children adopted from other countries about their children.

4.  Something that turned me off to evangelicalism was how people around me appeared to be hearing from God, whereas God didn’t seem to know my address.  Not only did this influence me to beat up on myself, but I also tended to look down on others who did not hear from God.  I’ve been wanting to get away from beating myself up and spiritual elitism.  Carson T. Clark has a post on this issue.  Both the post and the comments are good.

Whitney Houston

I was saddened when I heard about Whitney Houston’s death last night.  I used to listen to her music on the school-bus and at home.  On the school-bus, the bus driver played the local pop station on some days, and the local country music station on other days.  I mostly enjoyed the pop songs, which included Whitney Houston’s music.  I also listened to the pop station at home.  As I look at wikipedia to see the songs that Whitney Houston sang, I’m reminded of the ones that I especially liked: “Saving All My Love for You”, “How Will I Know”, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)”, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All”, “Where Do Broken Hearts Go”, “The Greatest Love of All”, and “I Will Always Love You”.  On my Prince of Egypt CD, she sings “When You Believe”.

As far as her movies go, I saw The Bodyguard and The Preacher’s Wife.  Waiting to Exhale looks like a good movie, but I have not seen it yet.

R.I.P. Whitney Houston.

More About Hitchens (and Death, and Hell)

I’d like to share a couple of quotes about Christopher Hitchens and hell:

1.  Bruce Gerenscer on his blog discusses the smug comments of Al Mohler and others implying that Christopher Hitchens now knows the truth about Christianity and is in hell.  Infidel 753 comments under Bruce’s post:

“It’s very odd that a change of heart at any point right up to the moment of death ‘counts’, but after death, when (according to the doctrine) you would have better information on which to base a decision, you can’t change your mind. It seems more like the rules of a game show than ‘divine’ justice.”

2.  I was talking with a Catholic friend of mine, and his observation was that a lot of Christian conservatives are actually not gloating about Christopher Hitchens being in hell, and he wonders if that could be due to Hitchens’ strong and vocal support for George W. Bush’s foreign policy, particularly the Iraq War.  That’s an intriguing question.  But I especially liked what my Catholic friend said about how many Catholics address death, heaven, and hell:

” Most Catholic bloggers, etc., have been very kind—-even affectionate—-and not only the right-wingers. Probably its because the CC teaches that no one on earth can ever know the state of another’s soul for certain. It’s not just the idea that there are tares among the wheat, mind you, but that most of what really happens between a soul and its God happens very deeply inside and may not even be truly annuciated by a very vocal person like Mr. Hitchens. There’s also a very old Catholic tradition that God may save a great many souls—-even all souls—-at the very instant of death (but not after). The idea is that death itself is such a cleansing ordeal that each person may be granted an immediate vision of the truth at the last moment—-and could possibly cry out for mercy and be saved, no matter what their past opinions. Not dogma, of course…but a germ of hope. Which is what I would allow on the subject of Mr. Hitchen’s current state.”

That gives me comfort.  I myself rant quite a bit against religion, and there are plenty of times when I don’t know what I believe.  But I do feel a need for God’s love and mercy.

My friend sent me some links.  I have not read all of them yet, but they’re here for me and for you.  The first one actually says that Hitchens challenged the Bush Administration on the Iraq War, so I’m not sure how to characterize him.  “Contrarian” is probably the best I can do!  (UPDATE: See John Hobbins’ post here about the reasons for some of Hitchens’ beliefs about Iraq.)

http://www.newcriterion.com/posts.cfm/Christopher-Hitchens–R-I-P–6694
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2011/05/10/hitchens-singular-voice/
http://witness2christ.blogspot.com/2011/12/final-days-of-christopher-hitchens.html
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2011/12/christopher-hitchens-rip.html

Christopher Hitchens

I listened to a couple of Christopher Hitchens debates today.  One was Hitchens’ debate with William Lane Craig (see here), and the other was Hitchens’ debate with Dinesh D’Souza (see here).  I enjoyed Hitchens’ thoughtful meanderings about science and religion as well as his soothing British accent.  It would have been awesome had Hitchens debated N.T. Wright before his death!  Christopher Hitchens will definitely be missed.

Here are some good thoughts on the late Christopher Hitchens:

Douglas Wilson’s obituary for Hitchens in Christianity Today

Christian Peter Hitchens’ memorial to his brother

Blogger Carson Clark’s musings

The New York Times’ Obituary

James McGrath’s reflections and links

Reflections on a Departed Friend

I learned today that a friend of mine—who went to Harvard Divinity School when I was a student there—recently passed away due to Evans Syndrome, which is a disease in which antibodies attack the red blood cells and a person becomes anemic and bleeds internally.  I have not talked with this friend for about a decade.  Frankly, I had a difficult time interacting with him, partially on account of my own insecurities and jealousies.  But, as I thought back this evening, I concluded that I was really blessed to have known him.

This friend of mine was an African-American Christian conservative Republican, and it was from him that I learned that there was a race problem in the United States.  I suppose that I knew that before I met him, on some level.  I was aware that there were inner cities, and I heard Jonathan Kozol speak at my undergraduate school, DePauw University, about the inadequate school systems in the United States.  And yet, for some reason, when I got to Harvard, I asked my friend if there really was a race problem in the United States.  He was incredulous at my question, and he told me about the discrimination he faced, and how African-Americans still had to overcome obstacles.  I suppose that I had heard about this issue before, but the existence of the problem became internalized within me after I had listened to my friend.  When I asked him what I could do, he told me that I needed to go to my community and tell them about the problem.  I am not a very good missionary, and so I did not do that.  But I am at least aware of the problem on account of my friend, and I have blogged about it.  I doubt that is enough, but being aware of a problem is a significant step towards doing something about it.

My friend talked big and he dreamed big.  I admire his faith in God and his intellect.  I really don’t know how, or even if, God is at work in this situation.  The person who wrote me to inform me of my friend’s passing said that the friend was in the very same hospital where he was interning, but he did not know about it, even though the friend was asking for him.  He is sad that he did not get a chance to comfort our friend during the last sixth months of his life.  I find it saddening that a coincidence could not lead to something redemptive, or at least purposeful, and I am also saddened that there is such a disease as Evans Syndrome.  I do believe, however, that there is a world beyond this one, and that this life is not all that there is.