Additional comments from Chuck Colson

Here's one more collection of Chuck Colson's comments from Who Speaks For God? Again, even though it's an old book, it has challenging things to say to us today.

1. The issue is not whether society is to punish, but how it is to punish. The hard truth is that prisons aren't working. In most cases they are not redemptive for the individual, nor are they effective for society.

2. TV is the single most powerful medium of communication; current studies showed that the TV set is turned on in US homes an average of seven hours per day. Though some of it is quality programming, much of it simply promotes moral decay. By the end of high school, young people have seen an average of 350,000 commercials. That is the equivalent of 1 1/2 years of eight-hour workdays – an immense amount of sales hype that saturates young minds in materialistic values.

3. So what does the Lordship of Christ mean in the TV age? First, we need to examine ourselves; values inevitably change as God works in one's life. If we aren't being offended by much of TV (not just the sex and violence, but the intelligence-insulting banality), we need to question whether we are really being "transformed by the renewing of our minds." Our discernment as Christians should cause us to turn off offensive programming. It should also make us question whether we are being good stewards of our time. After all, there are some good alternatives to TV. We can read the Bible, explore good Christian writing, spend time with our children, parents, friends.

4. A recent story appeared about a Nazi, Adolf Eichmann, who was principal architect of the Holocaust. In the show a concentration camp survivor was interviewed. This man testified against Eichmann at the Nuremberg trials. He realized Eichmann was not the godlike army officer who had sent so many to their deaths. The survivor said, "I was afraid about myself… I saw that I am capable to do this. I am exactly like he." This captures the central truth about man's nature. For as a result of the Fall, sin is in each of us – not just the susceptibility to sin, but sin itself. The 3500 years of recorded history confirm this truth. Science, evolution, and education – which Socrates argued would eliminate sin – have done nothing to alter man's moral nature. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can change our hearts. But we can't see that truth unless we first see our hearts as they really are. That being so, why is sin so seldom written or preached about? To truly confront evil – the sin within us – is a devastating experience… The result is that the message is often watered down to a palatable gospel of positive thinking to hold the audience. But it's the very heart of a Christian conversion to confront one's own sin and thus to desperately desire deliverance from it. And once we've seen our sin, we can only live in gratitude for God's amazing grace.