Roy Blunt: “I wish to talk for a few minutes about Chuck Colson, who was a friend of mine and the founder of Prison Fellowship…”

“I wish to talk for a few minutes about Chuck Colson, who was a friend of mine and the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries. He died on Saturday at 80. Before Chuck Colson was 40, he was counselor to the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. At about that same time, about the time he was 40, he pled guilty to offenses related to the Daniel Ellsberg break-in. When he did that, I am told, even though his lawyers advised him not to plead guilty at that moment, he said pleading guilty was ``the price I had to pay to complete the shedding of my old life to be free to live the new life.'' In June of 1974, he began to serve his prison sentence. What was the new life? In August of 1973, Chuck Colson's good friend Tom Phillips had counseled with him, and that was the moment Chuck Colson said he decided his life would be led as a Christian, that he would surrender his life to the Christian view and the Christian belief. He personally told me at one time that it was T.S. Eliot's writing ``Mere Christianity'' that then later became the intellectual basis for his faith. But initially his faith was needed more than he clearly understood he had, and he found that in his faith. It was an active faith. I am constantly amazed that an active God can take the bad decisions people make and, while God would not have wanted those to be the decisions people make, can turn them into incredible opportunities.…”