The President’s Hatchet Man

The President’s Hatchet Man

God’s dealings with us may be a painful process.

AFTER SERVING in the marines and completing law school, Charles Colson became a senior partner in a prestigious Washington, D.C., law firm. Then in 1969 he received a phone call that changed the course of his life: President Richard Nixon needed him. A Wall Street Journal headline summed up his role as special counsel to the president: “Nixon Hatchet Man. Call It What You Will, Chuck Colson Handles President’s Dirty Work.” Then came the Watergate scandal, and Colson resigned his position to form his own law firm.

In March of 1973 he went to visit Tom Phillips, president of the Raytheon Company and his client before Colson had served in the White House. Warned by the executive vice president that Phillips had changed because of a religious experience, Colson mentioned that he had heard that Phillips had become involved in some religious activities. Phillips replied, “Yes, that’s true, Chuck, I have accepted Jesus Christ. I have committed my life to him, and it has been the most marvelous experience of my whole life.”

Colson was stunned and turned the conversation back to more comfortable subjects. As Phillips later walked him to the door, he added, “I’d like to tell you the whole story someday, Chuck. I had gotten to the point where I didn’t think my life was worth living. Now everything has changed.” The reference to an empty life struck a raw nerve with Chuck.

That summer while on vacation with his wife in the Boston area to get away from the Watergate hearings, Chuck found himself calling Tom Phillips, who invited him to his home the evening of August 12, 1973. Phillips straightforwardly told Chuck about Jesus and read to him from C. S. Lewis’s book Mere Christianity. Lewis’s description of pride as a cancer that prevents a person from knowing God hit Chuck like a torpedo. Phillips gave Chuck a copy of the book and invited him back.

Back in his car, Chuck began crying uncontrollably and prayed to God over and over through tears, “Take me! Take me!”

Chuck’s heart had been pierced, but his mind still needed to be persuaded. He studied Mere Christianity until a short time later words that he initially hadn’t understood fell easily from his lips: “Lord Jesus, I believe you. I accept you. Please come into my life. I commit it to you.”

Colson soon became part of a small prayer group of five, including Democratic senator Harold Hughes of Iowa and Republican congressman Al Quie of Minnesota. Supported by these new brothers in Christ, Colson decided to plead guilty to a Watergate crime of which he had not been charged—passing derogatory information to the press about Daniel Ellsberg, an antiwar activist. He was sentenced to a prison term of one to three years. The former special counsel to the president was put in charge of the washing machine at Maxwell Federal Prison in Alabama. After Chuck had been in prison for nearly seven months, his family began falling apart. His wife was near the breaking point, and his son was in jail for narcotics possession.

At this point Al Quie called and said, “There’s an old statute someone told me about. I’m going to ask the president if I can serve the rest of your term for you.” That night, overwhelmed, Chuck Colson completely surrendered himself to God. Two days later the judge at his trial released him from prison because of his family problems. As he left prison a Christian federal marshal told him that he had felt God would set him free that day. Colson replied, “Thank you, brother, but he did it two nights ago.”

In 1976 Chuck Colson founded Prison Fellowship, which ministers in six hundred prisons in eighty-eight countries with fifty thousand volunteers. Colson was prepared for this role in God’s kingdom through a painful process.

Reflection

What do you believe your role is in God’s kingdom? Have you experienced painful periods of preparation? Can you see God’s hand through it all?

I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News. . . . And because of my imprisonment, many of the Christians here have gained confidence and became more bold in telling others about Christ.

Philippians 1:12-14