Charles W. Colson (1931–2012)

This is a comprehensive, albeit a bit dated, treatment of how to interpret culture through the lens of the Christian world view. It covers all the major topics that need consideration, with helpful analysis and suggestions within each on how to live for God in this cultural moment.

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

This book is a beautiful addition to any Christmas collection. It has nice pictures and looks great on your shelf.

Also, if you need a festive bookmark, some of the pages have bookmark-shaped designs just waiting to be laminated.

That said, I can't really recommend anything else about this book. I'm not sure if this is the authors' fault so much as the editor's, since it looks like the book is comprised of several different excerpts from a few different writers, all lifted out of context. show more Consequently, each page of the book feels like a dust-jacket summary, and with this level of preachiness, you might just as well pick up a box of Bible tracts and sift through them.

Now about the content . . .

There are a few spiritual questions raised, and there are a few deep points that are probably worth pondering. And then there's the rest of it. I was afraid to put it on my Christian shelf because so much it is, well, unlike any Christian theology I've ever heard. For example, do you know the worst possible sin you can commit? Apparently, it's happiness. That's right, according to this book, the best that any Christian should hope for to reach a kind of peace, but any actual happiness is a sign that he or she has betrayed God and the faith. So if you're happy, you really need to reevaluate your spiritual priorities.

It was about at this point that I reevaluated my interest in this book, and I put it back on the shelf where it's been sitting ever since. Doesn't it look pretty!

Now to be fair, the author might have been trying to articulate a complicated, nuanced philosophical/spiritual/theological concept, but there's very little room for explaining anything (let alone citing sources) in a three-paragraphed Bible-track-sized page. But at least that page had a cute picture. show less

I thought it might be good to open this with a little statement regarding good old Chuck Colson. He worked for the Nixon administration during the Watergate Scandal, and when it broke, he was one who did gaol time because of it. The story is, though, that while he was in gaol he became a Christian, and since his release he has been working in the prison system sharing the gospel with the inmates. However, there is a but: when Deep Throat finally revealed himself, Colson was one of those who show more then began to criticise Deep Throat for what he did. I question then whether Colson has truly understood what he actually spent time in gaol for, or whether it was one of those 'God ordained' things to set him on a road of fruitful ministries.
That is not to say that Colson's prison fellowship is without criticism, but the criticism usually comes from the rabidly anti-Christian corner and they accuse his organisation of creating a favoured class of inmates who are involved in the fellowship. This I think is somewhat over the top, and while I was very disappointed to hear Colson's attack against Deep Throat, it does not mean that his work with inmates is unhelpful. I actually believe that it is very beneficial for society.
However, on to his book. This book is pretty much a diatribe on how immoral and bad society has become, and if we don't turn back to God, then it is only going to get worse. Now, don't get me wrong, I do believe society has lost its way, but the fact of the matter is that it had never found it in the first place. The counter-cultural revolution in the 60s was not so much people suddenly deciding not to be Christians and to embrace a life of sin, no, much of the things that happened during the 60s (such as free sex, drugs, homosexuality just to name a few) were happening already and had been happening for quite a while beforehand. However, what the 60s did was that it brought it out into the open and forced society to accept that these things were going on. Some people have suggested that homosexuality did not exist before 1975 (the year it became legal in Australia) and all I can say to that statement is that it is rubbish. All I need to do is point the reader to C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy where he writes about homosexuality in a boy's school in England around 1905, and that is just to name one of many sources that evidence its practice prior to 1975 (though there are only a handful that tend to take that belief anyway).
However, what we also need remember is that this is a product of the Reformation. We wanted freedom to worship how we liked, and we wanted freedom from a dictatorial church. In fact one of the reasons that the Americans rebelled against British Colonial rule was on this very point. The constitution guarantees freedom of religion. However, the catch is that while we have freedom to worship god, others have freedom not to. We can't have it both ways, demanding our right to worship God while denying others the right not to. If you travel to many of the very liberal states in Europe (such as Germany and Holland) you will discover that these places was where the reformation was born. France is different, namely because they killed all of the protestants in the 16th century, and then pretty much broke up the church during the French Revolution. Once again it was a demand for freedom, freedom to worship how we chose to.
While I will not condemn a book pointing out to us society's permissiveness (and it is true that a permissive society is a society on the road to self destruction, as is clear in the book of Judges), we need to remember that things have been this way for centuries, it is just that it has now come out of the closet. What we as Christians need to do is to not rant and rave against society for its sins, but to demonstrate to society that there is a better way to live, and to be there to pick up the shattered lives of those who have been destroyed by such a permissive culture. show less