CTindex - Christian Today Australia Interactive Catalogue
Ministries

Chuck Colson Broadcast Adds to Intelligence Debate

Friday, 2 September 2005, 21:57 (EST)
Font Scale:A A A
Share |
Though Christians ought to know apologetics enough to understand and share faith, Christians must guard against becoming too intellectual, the president of the nation's largest prison ministry said yesterday.

The reason, according to Chuck Colson, is that "Jesus wants only our childlike faith.”

"We need to understand everything we can about the world and about theology,” Colson said during a message broadcast yesterday, “but at some point, we have to realize that Jesus wants only our childlike faith."

Colson, who founded Prison Fellowship Ministries (PF) in 1976, became a born-again Christian before going to jail for seven months for his role in the Watergate cover-up. In 1973, when Colson realized he was in trouble for helping to organize the illegal wiretapping of the Democrat headquarters, he turned to God and was changed forever.

Following his conversion, Colson researched theology, history, and philosophy to understand the Christian faith. To his dismay, he found that though he could prove God's existence, he could not say he was going to heaven.

During yesterday’s commentary on PF’s BreakPoint program, which aired to an estimated 1 million people, Colson said, "I’ve worked hard for years to develop a biblical worldview, and I have come to the conclusion that it is the only rational explanation of the universe. One day I realized I could prove God exists. But then in my quiet time it occurred to me that I couldn’t prove that when this life is over, I’ll see Him."

The problem, according to Colson, was not a lack of faith, but of pride.

"It wasn’t so much a crisis of faith as one of understanding. I had gained so much knowledge about the strength of the biblical worldview that I figured I could rationally answer every question. But of course, I couldn’t — no one can."

"Pride, which was my original obstacle to becoming a Christian, was in the way again. I knew so much, but faith, you see, is beyond the intellect," he said.

Interest in apologetics – the study of defending the Christian faith – has been on the rise recently with the Time Magazine cover article on the topic of intelligent design versus evolution. The theory that there is an intelligent being who created the universe challenges the scientifically accepted Darwinian theory of "survival of the fittest." And the fact that this theory was formulated by non-religious scientists gave it enough credibility to propel itself to the national spotlight.

Famed atheist-turned-Christian, Lee Strobel, recently spoke about his book, Case for a Creator, wherein he makes the conclusion that not only is there a creator of the universe, but that creator is the God of the Bible.

"My book states that from the scientific evidence – cosmology, physics, biochemistry, genetics, and consciousness – we can see that the evidence points toward a creator. We can also see some of the characteristics of that creator from the logical implementation of the evidence. When we do that, we see a portrait that matches the God of the Bible," he said in a recent interview with The Christian Post.

Colson's radio broadcast, yesterday, added to the on-going discussion of whether one can fully know the existence of God by encouraging his listeners to both "think Christianly" and "watch out for pride."

He said, "Think Christianly. God wants us to use our reason and our knowledge to defend Christian truth in the world. But watch out for pride."

Simple faith in addition to an intellectual understanding is also necessary.

"And remember that our greatest weapon against sophisticated pride is not more intellectual arguments. Instead it’s the practice of gratitude and simple faith that comes from it."

The BreakPoint Commentary – a program of The Wilberforce Forum, which is a division of Prison Fellowship Ministries – airs each weekday on over 1,000 outlets with an estimated listening audience of 1 million people. The BreakPoint Web site and BreakPoint WorldView Magazine feature Colson’s commentaries to equip readers with a biblical perspective on a variety of issues and topics.





Rhoda Tse
Christian Today Correspondant


More articles