2010 National Conference on Christian Apologetics
Colson challenges Christians
to be courageous
By Edward Terry, The Layman, October 19, 2010
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Chuck Colson doesn’t blame Hollywood, the media, greedy businesspeople or even liberal politics for the decline of the United States over the last 30 years. Instead, he blames the Church.
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“If American culture goes down, the Church that has probably been the richest and most blessed in human history, and has done the least with it. … The blood will be on our hands,” he said. “It’s very clear Scripturally, is it not? Isn’t it clear in Scripture that it starts with us?”
Colson, best known as founder of the Prison Fellowship and Breakpoint ministries, was among the featured speakers at the 2010 National Conference on Christian Apologetics Oct. 15-16 in Charlotte, N.C. The annual event is hosted by Southern Evangelical Seminary and drew approximately 2,000 participants from across the country.
In praise of the conference, Colson said he usually speaks at a conference or to a group only once, but has participated in the last four years of the Christian Apologetics event. More Information
Video and audio from the National Conference on Christian Apologetics, including this presentation, are available. Visit the Conference on Christian Apologetics Web site for pricing and availability.
“I come back year after year because it’s one of the best conferences,” he said. “I have found year after year at this conference that people are really serious about their faith, and it’s one of the places where those of us who have a deep passion about what’s happening in the world and can share our hearts with you and know that you are going to do something with it.”
While promoting a soon-to-be-released film “Doing the Right Thing: A Six Part Exploration of Ethics,” Colson lamented the breakdown of American society in his lecture “Wanted: A Few Christians of Courage.” He identified political engagement as a duty for Christians and key strategy for overcoming today’s societal decay.
“Neither the Republicans nor Democrats have the courage to do what is necessary to begin to pare back and cut away the kudzu grass and vine that has taken over our government. It is strangling us,” he said. “Politics is nothing but an expression of culture. Politics doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s a reflection of the fundamental beliefs and habits of a people.
“If things are going astray, who do we blame? Us,” Colson said.
He compared moral decline in the United States to the Babylonian captivity of Israel, when God was punishing His people because they weren’t listening. Colson said his first prayer each morning is that God will wake up the Church. He also lifted up prophetic advice from Daniel and Ezekiel, while offering examples of how the Church has been of the world rather than in the world.
“Repentance is the first thing that we do as Christians … We say to God, for your sake not ours, turn us around,” Colson said, adding that the Church has not been promoting God’s values. “Maybe there is still time. If we really got on our knees and repented of our failure to live with all the great blessings we have – maybe, just maybe God would hear those prayers, just as He did with the Israelites when they were in Babylonian captivity.”
He described an assistant pastor from one of the country’s largest churches speaking to a group of secular businesspeople. Colson said he was infuriated that the pastor said there wasn’t not much he could teach them about work or business.
“If the Bible talks about anything, it talks about work,” he said. “He’s going to say the Church has nothing to say about work? … Biblical worldview connects it. … We have to teach the world what it means to live Christianly.”
Colson also related today’s situation to 1930s Germany, when historic Christian ethics had been abandoned. He reminded the audience of Germany’s Confessing Church movement at that time, and lifted up a similar “line-in-the-sand” effort that began a year ago.
He urged conference participants to sign The Manhattan Declaration, which he described as a Christian worldview that defends the sanctity of life, marriage and religious liberty. Colson’s goal is to get a million signatures on the document. It currently has more than 476,000 signatures of support.
“The job isn’t just to sign it,” he said. “The job is to go out and learn it.”
In his summation, Colson warned that the effort to “get along,” has resulted in a lack of courage among Christians and a culture of intimidation for those who speak out.
“Folks our convictions, no matter how deeply we hold them, are worthless unless we have the courage to speak them and live them in the face of whatever hostility we may encounter in this world,” he said. “May God give us that kind of courage.”