Charles “Chuck” Wendell Colson is a Christian leader, cultural commentator, and author of lots of book books, several of which have been recognized with ECPA Christian Book Awards. Colson was a former Special Counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973 and the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges (he was named as one of the Watergate Seven). He was never charged with or convicted of anything related to that, but did plead guilty to obstruction of justice in another case and served seven months of a one-to-three year sentence in Alabama's Maxwell Prison. He is also a Templeton foundation recipient and winner of a number of awards, among them honorary doctorates from you-know-what-kind-of institutions, and the Others Award from the Salvation Army (you might want to look up the list of previous winners here. He's also a member of the Family (more here).He also maintains several media channels which discuss contemporary issues from an evangelical Christian worldview, his own views usually being conservative interpretation of evangelical Christianity. He zealously opposes same-sex marriage, argues that Darwinism is used to attack Christianity, and that the Enron accounting scandals were a consequence of secularism. He is, in short, a hard-core creationist repeating Discovery Institute lies - claiming Darwinism helped cause forced sterilizations by eugenicists – and a steadfast anti-abortionist, claiming that abortion is the real cause of illegal immigration by creating a labor shortage due to "40 million sacrificed since 1973". He is also a steadfast proponent of the Bible Literacy Project's curriculum “The Bible and Its Influence” for public high school literature courses – a poorly disguised wedge trick.
There is much to choose from in Colson’s career. There is, for instance, his argument that the real causes of terrorism are pornography and abortion, and if only the US restricted the freedom of its citizens some more, terrorism would go away (I mean, the Taliban hates us for our freedom, don’t they? Take it away, and they wouldn’t hate us anymore).
A short biography here.
Diagnosis: Deranged wingnut and blind zealot with no aptitude for truth or reason. Still pretty powerful and influential.
He's still lying through his teeth, apparently. That, or he is unable to distinguish "there is plenty of scientific support for X" from "my gut feelings and knee-jerk bigotry makes me feel that X is true".
ReplyDeleteHere's Colson sharing some more wisdom.
ReplyDeleteAnd you can see Colson inadvertently accusing James Dobson for conspiring to remove freedom of religion here.
ReplyDeleteIt is, however, appropriate to point out that Colson passed away on April 21. A eulogy can be found here.
ReplyDeleteI remember him from his heyday. It was said of him he'd run over his own grandmother to get Richard Nixon elected President. On one occasion , when someone referenced "getting the hearts and minds" of certain people , he replied "If you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."
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