Chuck Colson’s real legacy

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
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This is pretty shameful. Chuck Colson is reportedly on his death bed, and the Washington Post’s headline is “Charles Colson, Watergate figure who proposed firebombing Brookings, said near death.”

This is both simplistic and sad. It would be tantamount to writing, “Report: Slave-owner Jefferson gravely ill” — or “Inventor of Dynamite, Alfred Nobel, near death.”

Colson, of course, experienced a religious conversion which even skeptics and cynics found sincere.

He then went on to dedicate the next (nearly) four decades of his life to being force for good. This included founding prison fellowship, a non-profit that ministers to inmates.

It would be unfortunate and unfair to eulogize him solely — or even primarily — for things he did before I was even born. My hope is that media outlets don’t make that mistake — whenever his time comes.

Matt K. Lewis