Charles W. Colson (1931–2012)

I was surprised by several things concerning this book. 1) The well-written story flowed smoothly, never bogging down through its almost 400 pages. 2) I was fascinated by a time in history I knew little about. 3) For some reason I expected a self-righteous presentation of Colson's life, a what-is-wrong-with-the-system story. I found it to be nothing of the sort. A humble telling of a tragic time in his own life and the life of the nation as well as many other men, Colson tells a moving story show more of the ability of God to redeem the most callous and hardened men, intervene in the most bizarre ways, and change a system that is broken. I would recommend this book to anyone. show less

I wish I hadn't waited so long to read this book. Charles "Chuck" Colson paints a scary scenario of when a president is mad at the pro-life movement. There is just too much to write about, but I could hardly put the book down.

Though I share neither Colson's faith nor his politics, this is a really great example of a personal redemptive memoir. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the genre.

The last chapter, The Great Proposal sums up a lot and challenges the current tendency of Christians to keep their beliefs to themselves. Christianity has contributed to democracy and law, and capitalism. Also art, science and education. Christianity started the first universities and pushed for public education. The author offers this as argument to Christopher Hitchens claim that Christianity has only contributed negatively to history. Christians nursed the plague victims in Ancient Rome show more and Catholic charities has led in caring for AID victims. The book concludes with the killing of Theo Van Gogh by Mohammed Bouyeri. Because we cover up our Christian foundations the east sees the west as purely secular and intolerable. They see the west eliminating moral behavior, denying truth and comic pornographers like Van Gogh as representative of the best we have to offer. Reason without faith leads to chaos; in Islam faith alone leads to tyranny. The tragedy is that the two sides can never find common ground. Pope Benedict said, "a reason which is deaf to the Devine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures," Christianity does not seek to impose, it proposes.

I find reviewing works of nonfiction to be extremely difficult because every chapter is a piece of the whole. I enjoyed this book. I liked that Colson worked so hard on unity among Christians. I think those that choose to not believe in God, like Dawkins, would not be swayed by this book. Those that might like to find ways to explain their belief might find this book of value. The book really is a challenge to the Christian to be more intentional. show less