Watergate Criminal Made Good – Chuck Colson dead at 80

Skeptics abounded when it was announced that Mr. Colson had converted and become Christian.

Their skepticism was misplaced, for Mr. Colson’s conversion was genuine.

If anything, Mr. Colson’s life is a story of the redemptive and transformative power of the living Christ.

His life story is a familiar one. A man with significant talent and power goes terribly awry. When confronted with the error of his ways, he is genuinely repentant, and changes his ways. He become another man altogether… a man no one would recognize, were it not for his name to identify him.

“I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

- the words of Jesus Christ, Matthew 25:36-40

May he rest in peace, and may his memory be blessed.

1 Corinthians 13 >> New International Version 1984

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1If I speak in the tongues^a of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^b but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

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Former Nixon aide Chuck Colson dies at 80

April 21, 2012 4:29 PM

By Leigh Ann Caldwell

(CBS News) Chuck Colson, a former aide to Richard Nixon, evangelical leader, author and nonprofit founder, died Saturday at the age of 80.

He passed away at a hospital in Northern Virginia, three weeks after surgery to ease intercerebral hemorrhage — a large pool of clotted blood in his brain.

Jan. 16, 2011
Through his prison ministry, Colson established a rehabilitation program that aimed to cut the recidivism rate. He publicly opposed the death penalty and called for alternatives to incarceration, particularly for non-violent offenders, who make up a significant portion of the prison population. (photo by Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post)

Colson was Nixon’s special counsel and was part of the Watergate scandal which led to Nixon’s resignation. He was known as the president’s “hatchet man,” and also served on Nixon’s re-election committee, which plotted and attempted to steal information from the Democratic Party headquarters.

Colson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and served seven months of a one-to-three year prison sentence.

Prior to the start of his prison sentence, Colson became a born-again Christian. After his release from an Alabama prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship, a nonprofit organization that conducts outreach to prisoners to “seek the transformation of prisoners… through the power and truth of Jesus Christ.”

According to his bio for Prison Fellowship, Colson formed the idea of Prison Fellowship when a fellow inmate told him “there ain’t nobody cares about us. Nobody!” Colson started the organization and ran it for 33 years.

Jim Liske, CEO of Prison Fellowship, told CBS News that

Secret Service Investigating ex-Rocker Ted Nugent for Terrorist Remarks against the President

Ex-rocker Ted Nugent made some violent, extremely vitriolic and blatantly ignorant remarks at at the National Rifle Association‘s 2012  Annual Meetings in St. Louis on April 14, 2012. He was speaking to Cam Edwards and took questions from NRA members.

Specifically, the most virulent remark he made concerning the security of the leader of the free world was that ”If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” 

His extremist remarks have now apparently garnered the attention of the United States Secret Service, which is charged with protection of the president.

The Secret Service takes all such threats against the president‘s life seriously, and investigates them all, because at their heart, they are terrorist threats.

It is a violation of federal law to threaten the president.

Specifically, 18 USC § 871 – “Threats against President and successors to the Presidency” – addresses that crime.

The New Yorker Magazine reported Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 10:17AM EDT that “a spokesman for the Secret Service tells us, “We are aware of it, and we’ll conduct an appropriate follow up.”"

Popularly known as “The Motor City Madman,” it is also well documented that Mr. Nugent

Pat Robertson: Legalize Marijuana, because “this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”

What a shocker!

Reckon he’s been toking?

Read on!

Pat Robertson Says Marijuana Use Should be Legal

By JESSE McKINLEY

Published: March 7, 2012

Of the many roles Pat Robertson has assumed over his five-decade-long career as an evangelical leader — including presidential candidate and provocative voice of the right wing — his newest guise may perhaps surprise his followers the most: marijuana legalization advocate.

Photo by: Clem Britt/Associated Press

Pat Robertson, center, has taken a surprising stance after his long career as an evangelical leader.

Related

• Times Topics: Marijuana and Medical Marijuana | Pat Robertson

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“I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” Mr. Robertson said in an interview on Wednesday. “I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”

Mr. Robertson’s remarks echoed statements he made last week on “The 700 Club,” the signature program of his Christian Broadcasting Network, and other comments he made in 2010. While those earlier remarks were

Wallace was a Trailblazer

Or so wrote David Broder in 1978.

The late former Alabama governor is perhaps most widely regarded – or should I write “most infamous” – for his “stand in the schoolhouse door,” and his openly racist attitudes.

However, there was a man whom no one knew, about whom little has been written… until now.

It is a man whose heart was broken and rendered, whose attitudes changed, who literally became a Christian, repented of his evil ways, apologized for his wrong-doings, and sought the forgiveness of the people he most deeply offended, and formerly hated.

Who was that man?

In praise of John Shelby Spong

“John Shelby Spong… I recognized his face right off the bat.

“God bless him. He needs it – as we all do.”

That was how I started my response.

It wasn’t as if I went looking for something, and rather, had briefly

This is where I’m supposed to cobble together some title that clues you in to what you’re about to read. Just so happens, you’re SOL. ;-)

As a kid, I recollect lying in bed one evening and thinking that nothing was something… that there was absolutely no such thing as “no thing” because “thing” was something, and that a void, or chasm were things which also existed because there was something before and after, and which may have surrounded the same void or chasm. I reasoned further, that the existence of a void, or chasm could only be identified first by the presence of another thing which was opposite. Those thoughts I had long before I’d heard of the names of the world’s great philosophers, or even read any of their thoughts. My questioning led me to suppose that, when I met the Almighty – I still aspire to that Beatific Vision – I would ask Him, “Where did you come from?“

For quite some time, I have also shared that we understand the things we do not now understand by comparing them to the things we do understand. We analogize. It was fascinating – indeed exciting – to recently hear a scientific researcher – an astrophysicist – say almost verbatim the exact same thing.

In much the same way, we use our brains to understand.

Bad Theology

Bad Theology

Originally uploaded by SouthernBreeze

In a previous entry, I had shared that I didn’t write much – if at all – about religion, theology and the like in this blog. And, that’s correct.

However, in my photostream – photoblog/phlog/phoblog, etc., whatever you want to call it (I think I’ll call it “phlog”) – I do write about such things.

Go figure.

Here’s one such example.

Bon apétit!

Some folks (certain Protestant denominations) make open mock and deride

Not a “real” Catholic blog

Whatever does “that” mean?

Oh… nothing.

Yeah, I’m Catholic.

Yes, I blog.

But I don’t write about religion, particularly. Nor do I write about the Church, the Pope, theology or stuff like that. It’s not that I have any opposition to so doing – writing about such topics – but that

Thoughts upon awakening

Well, I reckon I “got my nap out.”

I’m awake.

And now, I’m thinking.

“If you’re awake, you should be thinking.”

That’s not my original line, but I’ll make it my own.

But this one is my original

Time for a humor break

A long-time friend of mine regularly gives me humor breaks.

Here’s what I mean by that.