As Joe noted last week, over at Think Christian, H. David Schuringa highlights the primacy of the church’s ministry to prisoners and their families. He points to efforts both great and small:

Read more on Chuck Colson, Compassion, and Criminals…

America has a lot big problems—and we American’s like them to have one big cause. We also prefer that they have one big solution (preferably fixable by our big government). Take, for example, violent crime. Since 1992, the population increased from 255 million to 310 million but the violent crime rate fell from 757.7 per to 386.3 per 100,000 people. While in 1994 more than half of Americans considered crime to be the nation’s most important problem, only 2 percent believed that in 2012.

No one knows exactly why the crime rate dropped so precipitously, though numerous experts have their pet theories. Penologists credit increases in incarceration while police say it’s community policing. Others say it’s due to increases in abortion or reductions in lead in gasoline. All of these factors may have played a role, but one consideration that is often overlooked is the role of religion.

For instance, as H. David Schuringa points out,

Read more on Is the Church Responsible for the Reduction in Crime?…

I’m just back from the republic of Texas and Acton’s Toward a Free and Virtuous Society conference. One of my fellow lecturers was Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Ben Phillips. In between sessions, he showed me a recent Houston television news piece on SWBTS’s Darrington prison extension, where Phillips and other Southwestern profs are bringing prisoners to Christ, with a plan to send graduates of the program to other Texas prisons. Many of these men may grow old and die in prison, but they won’t die without hope, and they won’t die without becoming a blessing to their fellow prisoners at Darrington and other Texas prisons.

The cover story of a recent Religion & Liberty tells about a similar program on a larger scale, at Angola Prison in Louisiana, where many men on death row, with no hope of parole, have been transformed by the power of the Gospel.

It’s hard to imagine an example more dramatic than Angola prison, but if there is one, it’s the work of Rwandan Bishop John Rucyahana, Prison Fellowship, and others to bring the grace of Christ to the imprisoned genocidiers of Rwanda. Through this work, many of the men involved in the 1994 genocide that took almost a million Rwandan lives have repented of their participation in the genocide, sought and obtained forgiveness from the families of their victims (itself a miracle), and been reintegrated into society after serving their prison sentences. Read more on The Gospel and the Church: Turning Criminals into Co-Creators…

“Walter Hooper once said of C.S. Lewis that he was the most truly converted person he had ever met,” says Baptist theologian Timothy George. “The same thing can be justly said of Charles W. Colson, who came to faith in Christ through reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity.”

In an article for the National Catholic Register, George examines the legacy of his friend, a man who helped forge Evangelicals and Catholics Together and the ‘Manhattan Declaration.’:

Read more on Charles Colson’s ‘Ecumenism of the Trenches’…

The passing of Chuck Colson has generated a host of online commentary from both mainstream and alternative outlets. Here’s our compilation of recent Chuck Colson material:

Michael Gerson of The Washington Post on “the most thoroughly converted person” he’s ever known:

Read more on Round-Up: Remembering Chuck Colson…

Chuck Colson’s long association with the Acton Institute began in 1993 in part because, as he said, he “couldn’t believe that a Catholic priest had set up shop in the Vatican of the Dutch Reformed Church,” and he had to come to Grand Rapids to see for himself the work that Rev. Robert A. Sirico had begun. He came, saw, and was impressed, and thus began a nearly 20-year friendship with the President of the Acton Institute, who joined host Al Kresta on Ave Maria Radio’s Kresta in the Afternoon to reflect on Colson’s life, his conversion, and his many contributions to both evangelical Christianity and the broader ecumenical movement.

Read more on Audio: Sirico on the Life and Legacy of Chuck Colson…

As we move deeper into the 2012 election cycle here in the United States, many people are beginning to pay closer attention to the issues and candidates, and for many Christians this naturally raises questions about how Christian principles should be applied to the economic issues that are of such concern in the electorate this year. Pastor Christopher Brooks, host of Christ and the City on FaithTalk 1500 in Detroit, Michigan, was kind enough to invite Acton’s President Rev. Robert A. Sirico on his show on Monday to shed some light on how Christians should approach economic issues. They also took some time to remember the life and work of Charles Colson.

Read more on Audio: Sirico on Colson & Economics for Christians…

On the Observer, the blog of the American Orthodox Institute, Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse looks back on the life and the legacy of Chuck Colson:

I heard him explain his experience in prison during one of his talks. It was the lowest point in his life where he had lost everything and began to question purpose, decisions, and direction. He was visited by a friend (former Minnesota Governor Al Quie) who shared with him how Jesus Christ came into the world to redeem man. Colson listened, cried out to God for help and, as his life would later prove, God heard him. His repentance was deep and lasting.

Read more on Orthodox Priest: Chuck Colson’s repentance ‘deep and lasting’…

Speaking of the time he spent in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, Chuck Colson said: “I couldn’t have made it without Christ in my life, I know that. But I couldn’t have made it if there wasn’t in the back of my mind a belief that God had a purpose for this.”

Read more on New Video: Chuck Colson in ‘Like I Am’…

One common thought many people have about conversion is that a  person who has undergone the experience is wholly different before and after. Surely this is true in the order of grace, in that a man goes from darkness into light, from sin into being made cleansed. Yet, the personality remains the same even if it becomes reordered and redirected, sometimes astonishingly so.  Such was the case with Peter, and with Paul, with Augustine and more contemporaneously, with my good friend Chuck Colson who slipped into eternity Saturday, April 21, at 3:12 p.m.

Read more on Chuck Colson: A Life Redeemed…