I’ve been frustrated reading obituaries about Chuck Colson that seem to be stuck in the 70’s—as if Chuck Colson’s whole life was lived between the years 1968-1974. It has been a colossal fail on the part of mainstream reporters. And then Michael Gerson comes in for the save. Thanks be to God for Michael Gerson’s tender, poignant reflections that really do get the measure of the man. Gerson writes:
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Prison Fellowship Video on the Life of Chuck Colson
Prison Fellowship put together a short video on the life of Chuck Colson. This is well worth your time to watch.
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Nixon’s “Dirty Tricks Man” No More
The Washington Post has a headline remembering Chuck Colson as “Nixon’s dirty tricks man,” but that is not how Colson died. Nor is it how he will be remembered. Nor is it how he is now in the presence of Christ. Nor is it worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed in brother Colson in the resurrection. We never got over your testimony, Mr. Colson. Rest in peace, brother. Revelation 12:11 “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death.”
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Sovereign Grace Ministries Relocates to Louisville
Sovereign Grace Ministries announced today that they are relocating to Louisville, Kentucky and that C. J. Mahaney will be planting a church here in our fair city near Southern Seminary. Read the announcement here. On the relocation of the ministry: At our recent retreat, the Sovereign Grace Ministries Board decided to relocate the Pastors College and our Gaithersburg office to Louisville, Kentucky. The move will take place in 2012. Given the significance of the decision, we wanted to communicate with you directly about how we reached this decision and share some of its implications. On the church plant led by C. J. Mahaney: The Leadership Team has wanted to plant…
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Pray for Chuck Colson who “will soon be home with the Lord.”
Jim Liske, CEO of Prison Fellowship Ministries, released an update on Chuck Colson this morning. Colson and family need our prayers: Dear Friends: It is with a heavy, but hopeful heart that I share with you that it appears our friend, brother, and founder will soon be home with the Lord. Chuck’s condition took a decided turn yesterday, and the doctors advised Patty and the family to gather by his bedside. As you know, Chuck underwent surgery more than two weeks ago to remove a pool of clotted blood on the surface of his brain. And while we had seen some hopeful signs for Chuck’s recovery—including his ability to talk…
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Speak for the Unborn
Tim Challies has a post today about his encounter with the Louisville abortion clinic when he was in town for T4G last week. Tim says that he observed some Christians standing outside the clinic encouraging young women not to abort their unborn babies. You can read the narrative of Tim’s experience here, but I want to tell you a little bit about the people who are outside of that abortion clinic every week. A few years ago, Dave and Stacy Hare of Immanuel Baptist Church were inspired by a sermon from their pastor to begin a ministry called “Speak for the Unborn.” The ministry was to be a kind of…
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Mark Coppenger on “Blue Like Jazz”
I read Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz several years ago after finding that so many of my students were enamored with this hip new book that was taking the evangelical world by storm. At the time, the “emergent church” was all the rage among a certain sector of evangelicals, and folks were trying to sort out how the author Donald Miller fit within that whole discussion. In any case, my students loved the book and were talking about it, and I felt almost obligated to read it. So I did. I didn’t much care for the book. I thought it was irreverent in all the wrong ways. At the time,…
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“Blue Like Jazz” barely says anything at all.
Eleanor Barkhorn at The Atlantic waylays the movie adaption of Blue Like Jazz. Her critique centers not so much on the production value as it does the message of this story. One paragraph in particular is devastating, and it reflects to some extent weaknesses inherent in the book that the movie was based on. She writes: Unfortunately, in its attempt to be a more honest voice of evangelical Christianity, Blue Like Jazz the movie ends up saying barely anything at all. It tries to navigate a middle course between mainstream Hollywood and mainstream evangelical movie-making, and in the process loses everyone. The film doesn’t show skeptics anything distinctive about Christianity.…
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Celebrity Pastors and the Conferences that Feature Them
You may have noticed the numerous warnings that Carl Trueman gave last year about celebrity pastors and the conferences that feature them (see here, here, here, here). The one that really got me was the anecdote he shared about a pastor who was kicked out of the VIP section at a recent mega-conference. Trueman’s remarks led to a spirited and generally helpful exchange with Thabiti Anyabwile. It was a real coup that Trueman agreed to appear at T4G last week to discuss the issue again. This time he did so with a panel of celebrity pastors before a gathering of 8,000 people. The panel featured Trueman and Anyabwile along with…
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Main Take-away from T4G 2012
My main take-away from T4G 2012 is nothing new or earth-shattering. It’s not even something that I didn’t already know. It’s something I’ve known and believed my whole life but which needed to be reinvigorated. The pursuit of holiness won’t happen by accident. I’m not going to be conformed to the image of Christ by osmosis. If I am to be sanctified, it will be a fight to the death. And that means much work, labor, and effort. Fie on passivity and quietism. The effect of God’s grace in me will be effort on my part. Where that effort is absent, so also is grace. You would benefit from all…