Owen Strachan: The Colson Way, reviewed by Kelly Monroe Kullberg

Owen Strachan, The Colson Way: Loving Your Neighbor and Living with Faith in a Hostile World (Thomas Nelson, 2015).

The Colson Way, by Owen Strachan, models, urges and inspires a new generation of courageous Christians to engage and to lead. Wanted: Torch-bearers in the lineage of Augustine, Luther, Wilberforce, Bonhoeffer, Schaeffer, Henry and Colson. (Where does one stop naming names of heroes? Earl Palmer, Bill Edgar, Os Guinness, Nancy Pearcey, Dallas Willard, Stan Mattson and countless more).

Give this book to young people wise enough to be mentored. What was Chuck Colson’s “way”? It was the way of courageous, creative and articulate love in a hurting world. It is the singular hope of the gospel for those in the darkest jail cells and in the most corrupted seats of power.

Chuck was foremost about the Kingdom of God, and it follows that he also loved America. We might think of him as a Christian patriot, a loving gardener, who rightly stewarded the culture and time in which God placed him.

Chuck was a thoroughly converted man who contended for biblical truth as the highest love for human beings. As every gardener knows, where we leave a void, something less than the gospel fills it. Chuck stood God’s ground in public debate with Christian wisdom, grace and truth — because of love.

Sometimes silence is golden. More often, silence is yellow. Cowards too often give up the ground of culture to more aggressive challengers, and to the destruction of human lives. This tendency must be reversed, and this book can help do it.

Because of love, Chuck was found in the darkest prisons, where Jesus would be shining light, touching the forgotten with warmth and hope.

Because of love, and again like Jesus, Chuck also entered the institutions of power so that people would learn to think and act in ways that do not lead them and others to prison. Love leads. It is proactive. He went to universities where ideas form the minds and thus the lives of students. He went to Capitol Hill to discuss policies that shape lives and society. He created the Centurions program to teach Christian worldview and truth for human flourishing.

I had the honor of meeting Chuck when he spoke at Harvard Business School in the 1990s. He warned students of the danger of relativism and urged them towards the anchor of moral law and biblical truth. He later endorsed our book, Finding God at Harvard. He encouraged our unified and symphonic witness, The Veritas Forum, at Harvard and far beyond.

In 2008, I began to study the forces at work behind the “fundamental transformation” of America, and my mind exited the ivory tower for the real world. As I traveled, I would sincerely say to Christian leaders, “The Muslim Brotherhood has a strategic plan for America. The so-called Progressive movement is one hundred years into their plans for America. So, what is the Church’s strategic plan for America? How can I volunteer?” What normally followed was a blank stare.

Chuck, however, was animated. He was aware of competing forces and said that Jesus calls us to unity and to function wisely and effectively as the Body of Christ in a confused and hurting world. I was invited to the Colson Center, where new and old friends discussed challenges and opportunities. Chuck encouraged my work to unite teams to build in ten pillars of culture — now called, The America Conservancy.

The Colson Way is unique in that Strachan unpacks Colson’s last few years and moves his vision forward to help light our way. Chuck understood our times. He faced a Hydra of aggressors. He navigated similar waters of government corruption, threats to the sanctity of life, and repression of free speech including sharing the gospel and its implications. He saw what was coming and he spoke with prophetic urgency.

He was trying to wake us up. For this reason, approaching his 80^th birthday, Chuck risked a long journey to Lansdowne, Virginia, not long after a surgery, to forge unity for strength in the time that is ours to lead.

To awaken and unify younger Christians — to help us become actual leaders — Chuck died with his boots on. The least we can do is pick up the torch.

My husband and I were among those with Chuck the day of his stroke. We had spent the afternoon with a few dozen leaders of Christian organizations. Chuck wanted us to default to collaboration. He saw the need for a united witness and projects for the Church’s survival and renewal against mounting odds. His vision was one of human flourishing in every sphere of culture. All agreed to this default to collaboration. To close the meeting he asked, “Does everyone agree to a united witness, and that we stand and work together?” Yes, we agreed. For clarity he asked again, “Does anyone not agree to a new kind of unity?” Silence. All agreed.

We broke for dinner. That evening Chuck welcomed a few hundred to the Colson Center’s annual Wilberforce Weekend. A few minutes into his keynote, at the podium, Chuck’s speech began to slow and to slur. He propped himself up by his elbows. He struggled to offer each word. These would be his last public words to anyone. Like seeds, his words fell into the minds and hearts of a new generation of public witnessing Christians.

He wanted us to “break the spiral of silence” by speaking biblical truth and Christian worldview into an increasingly hostile and secular marketplace of ideas. He spoke of our need to find and to develop a more winsome and prophetic voice. He foresaw the power of encroaching totalitarianism that will not tolerate Christians and truth-seekers. When we understand that the Lord is on the throne, the rule and domain of kings and dictators is diminished. Autonomous man wants the throne for himself and will kill, steal and destroy to have it. Though he did not use these words, Chuck knew that a new cycle of the Tower of Babel is rising.

Chuck knew that people would suffer the consequences of an authoritarian secular state that values people by their utility rather than their intrinsic worth in the eyes of our loving God. Who will suffer? The unborn. The elderly. The poor. The forgotten. The free thinkers. Chuck wanted Christians to unite and stand strong, together. He wanted unity in Christ for the good of all.

Before his stroke, we assumed that Chuck would lead or be the figurehead for this new movement of unity and strength. When he died three weeks later, we were stunned and bewildered. We went about our work and didn’t know what to make of the Lansdowne meetings. I had agreed to be on his steering committee for this “Christian Worldview Coalition,” and so some of us moved forwardly step by step.

Chuck Colson lived the faith and then cast a vision of courageous engagement. When we are silent and passive, when we fail to serve and to lead, people needlessly suffer. Lives do not flourish. We miss the joy of advancing the Kingdom.

He wants us to speak for those who cannot find the words to speak for themselves of the beauty of marriage. Of children. Of the sanctity of life. Of the glory of God. Of the value of biblical faith expressed freely in countless ways in the arts, healthcare, work and economics, journalism and media, education, the family, law and government, national security — all pillars by which a nation either falls or rises.

He wanted us to know the freedom to create and to live as believers, contending for every inch of culture that belongs to Christ.

“The faith,” Colson said, “which once built the greatest civilization in human history, must now engage in the titanic struggle of our times.”

In summary, The Colson Way is important because it guides us in the way of Jesus in our century in such need of personal and cultural revival. The good news is that more of us are now catching the vision and owning it for ourselves. Coming generations are finding true north, and their voices, as they enter both prisons and the halls of power. They are walking in the authority and love of Jesus Christ for human beings and the world God so loves. We welcome all in this Colson way.

Reviewed by Kelly Monroe Kullberg

Further Reading:
Preview The Colson Way: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Colson_Way.html?id=reNhCAAAQBAJ

Companion site: The Colson Way

Eric Metaxas interviews Owen Strachan about The Colson Way (begins at 10:27):
https://soundcloud.com/the-eric-metaxas-show/kimberly-guilfoyle-owen-strachan