From Prison To The Pulpit Charles Colson A Former Nixon Aide Who Went To Jail, Now Uses His Faith In God To Help Prisoners

Hester Prynne can tell you about the price of penance.

So, too, can Charles Colson.

But while Colson was never forced to wear a scarlet letter, he might have fared better had he put one on. His detractors might even have accepted the notion that Richard Nixon’s hatchetman has changed.

The fact is, all indications are that Colson is precisely what he has claimed to be for more than two decades now: a confirmed Christian dedicated to bringing aid and comfort to prison inmates interested in changing their criminal ways.

Those indicators come in the form of the organization, Prison Fellowship, that Colson will represent during a benefit luncheon speech Thursday at the Spokane County Fairgrounds.

Colson founded Prison Fellowship some 22 years ago, says Dick Cinkovich, area director of the organization’s Woodinville, Wash., office. And during that time, Colson has labored to fulfill Prison Fellowship’s mission statement: “To assist the church in its ministry to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families.”

Or, as Cinkovich puts it, “to act as a consultant to the church to fulfill its call to minister to prisoners and their families.”

Working for prisoners, instead of being one, may have been the last thing on Colson’s mind when in 1974 he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice involving the persecution of Daniel Ellsburg, the man who leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers. Colson, one of many lawyers working for the Nixon White House, served seven months in federal lockup and later was disbarred.

Before his fall, he’d been a feared member of Nixon’s cabinet, known for making such loyalist statement as “I would walk over my grandmother if necessary” to ensure’s Nixon’s re-election.

Colson was such a hard guy, in fact, that few of those who knew him then could believe his conversion to Christianity and, subsequently, his founding of Prison Fellowship.

In 1979, after serving 19 months of his own eight-year sentence for obstruction of justice and lying under oath, former Attorney General John Mitchell scoffed at Colson’s embrace of religion.

“A born-again Christian?” Mitchell was quoted as saying. “Ha! I’d take my chances with the lions.”

Cinkovich, who has worked with Prison Fellowship for 10 years and has been area director since 1991, occasionally meets people who remember the White House Colson.

“His change has evidently been that radical,” Cinkovich says, “because he was somebody that they never wanted to talk to again.”

Radical perhaps, but enduring certainly.

Colson, whose office said he was too busy to do an interview for this story, has written 13 books (his memoir “Born Again” was made into a movie starring Dean Jones). He is host of a syndicated radio telecast, which runs twice daily on Spokane station KMBI (FM 107.9, AM 1330).

And while his duties as chairman of the board of Prison Fellowship don’t involve him in the organization’s day-to-day operations, Colson is never out of reach.

“There have been several situations where we’ve had people facing incarceration who have written Chuck,” says Cinkovich, “and much to their shock have received overnight packages back.”

Under Colson’s direction, Prison Fellowship has established 55 area offices throughout the United States (and 15 more worldwide) involving more than 50,000 volunteers.

In Washington, Prison Fellowship is active in more than 20 jails and prisons, conducting Bible classes and providing other ministries, and has provided Christmas gifts to some 6,400 children of inmates.

The Christmas gift-giving, under Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program, is particularly important, says Cinkovich.

“Most prison families won’t survive incarceration,” Cinkovich says. “Angel Tree helps keep those ties.”

Even more recently, Colson has been part of a movement to bring the disparate camps of Christian belief into a single fold.

“Chuck is concerned that Christians will be pushed aside as a fringe group if we can’t stand united on the basics of the Christian faith,” Cinkovich says.

Despite all this, though, the Colson disbelievers still exist. Cinkovich met one recently while shopping in a Seattle-area bookstore.

Having just met Dennis Rice, a one-time Manson Family member who himself claims to be a born-again Christian, Cinkovich was interested in his story. So he went looking for a copy of “Helter Skelter,” the new edition of which includes an update on all of Charles Manson’s followers.

The woman at the counter was dubious when Cinkovich said he was interested in Rice.

“‘Oh, him,’ she said. ‘You know, I never really believed his Christian conversion.’ And then she said, ‘Another guy I have my doubts about is that Chuck Colson.”’

Cinkovich says that he “just kind of smiled and said, ‘Can I ask you a question? At what point do you give somebody credit that maybe something is the way they say it is?”

And after explaining a little of the work that Prison Fellowship does, he said, “You think that something might have happened in Chuck’s life 22 years ago that would allow something like that to grow out of it?”

Then he asked the women if she would like a free ticket to hear Colson speak.

“She said, ‘If you sent me two, I would bring my daughter,”’ Cinkovich says.

That’s the way penance is earned, one person at a time.

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