Born Again , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - W. Colson Charles

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173 pages

English

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In 1974 Charles W. Colson pleaded guilty to Watergate-related offenses and, after a tumultuous investigation, served seven months in prison. In his search for meaning and purpose in the face of the Watergate scandal, Colson penned Born Again. This unforgettable memoir shows a man who, seeking fulfillment in success and power, found it, paradoxically, in national disgrace and prison.In more than three decades since its initial publication, Born Again has brought hope and encouragement to millions. This remarkable story of new life continues to influence lives around the world. This expanded edition includes a brand-new introduction and a new epilogue by Colson, recounting the writing of his bestselling book and detailing some of the ways his background and ministry have brought hope and encouragement to so many.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 septembre 2008
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781585589418
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0576€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 1976, 1977, 1995, 2008 by Charles W. Colson
Published by Chosen Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.chosenbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2010
Ebook corrections 03.10.2016, 05.30.2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-58558-941-8
Scripture marked PHILLIPS is taken from The New Testament in Modern English, revised edition—J. B. Phillips, translator. © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
Scripture marked RSV is taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copy-right 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked TLB is taken from The Living Bible , copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale house Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture marked KJV is taken from the king James Version of the Bible.
Excerpt from the column “Getting Right with Granny” is used by permission of Art Buchwald.
Excerpts from Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, Copyright 1943, 1945, 1952 by Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., are used by permission.
To my dad—whose ideals for my life I have tried, not always successfully, to fulfill—and whose strength and support is with me today.
To Patty—the gentle spirit who comforts me when I fail, keeps me humble in success, giving of herself always—in love.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Introduction to the 2008 Edition
Introduction
Before We Begin
1. Something Wrong
2. “Good Enough”
3. “Break All the China”
4. The President’s Night Out
5. Hatchet Man
6. “Exhausted Volcano”
7. The Long Hot Summer
8. An Unforgettable Night
9. Cottage by the Sea
10. Washington Revisited
11. Brothers
12. Christ in the Headlines
13. The Lonely House
14. Underground Movement
15. Accused
16. Decision
17. Guilty, Your Honor
18. Awaiting Judgment
19. Fall of the Gavel
20. The Slammer
21. “Don’t Get Involved”
22. No Favors, Please
23. When Two or More Gather
24. A Helping Hand
25. Unexpected Gift
26. Spiritual Warfare
27. A Time to Be Free
Epilogue
With Gratitude
Back Cover
The butterfly is nature’s most visible illustration of rebirth. Once drab and earthbound as a caterpillar, the butterfly emerges from its cocoon in beautifully radiant colors, soaring upward into the sky. Free—born again—just as each of us can be when we are, through Christ, born again in the Spirit.
Introduction to the 2008 Edition
When Born Again was first published in February 1976, I was invited by Barbara Walters for a fourteen-minute interview on The Today Show . We met in the green room before the program went on the air, and Barbara suggested that we not haggle over whether we would talk politics or religion, but that we talk both. I agreed. So we devoted exactly seven minutes to my experience as one of President Nixon’s senior aides who went to prison, and seven minutes to my encounter with Jesus Christ.
The interview turned out to be electrifying—I believe God used it mightily—and the bookstores across America were sold out that very night. Almost half a million copies were published and sold in 1976 amid the reemergence of what was known as the “born-again Christian movement.” The cover of a Newsweek that fall read “The Year of the Evangelical,” and Jimmy Carter, a born-again Georgia farmer, was headed for the White House.
God used this book not only to challenge his believers in a renewal movement, but also to launch my ministry both in the prisons—Prison Fellowship is now in 113 countries around the world—and in writing. Since Born Again I have written more than twenty books, which God has used to challenge believers and nonbelievers alike.
But none of these books has been as personal to me as Born Again . After years in politics, I knew how to spin a story, whether doing “damage control” by taking something questionable we had done and giving it a positive twist, or mustering up some “dirt” on a person we considered a political rival. I was not as sure about writing the raw, unvarnished truth about myself and how I had fallen into disgrace.
What motivated me was that my disgrace was not the end of the story—or even the main part of the story. The real story was that Christ had reached down to me, even in my disgrace and shame, and revealed himself as the One who forgives and makes new. Born Again is the story of a broken man transformed by the love and power of Jesus Christ—who continues to transform me every passing day.
It is the kind of story Christ has created in countless people’s hearts for two thousand years: the story of hope and renewal, the story of Romans 8:28 in action—of God using all things for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
I know it was Watergate that cast me unceremoniously into the public eye and prompted many people to pick up my book when it was first published. Some sought an “insider’s perspective” on the Nixon Administration and the scandal that finally brought it crashing down. Some came to the book with skepticism, expecting, I imagine, another “spin” on political shenanigans. And some who had heard of my conversion wanted to determine for themselves if it was real.
Whatever their reason, I am humbled to know that through the years, God has continued to use this book to give hope and encouragement to many. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God—whether they stand at the heights of political power or the depths of prison confinement. I have been in both spots. And no matter where a person is, God will meet him or her there with an invitation to forgiveness and new life.
This is my story. My prayer is that God will graciously use it in his work to create new life stories in people everywhere.
Charles Colson
Introduction
In one sense I had lost everything—power, prestige, freedom, even my identity. In the summer of 1974, as prisoner number 23226 at Maxwell Federal Prison Camp, I stared at the screen of a small black-and-white television set. Along with the rest of the country, I watched as President Richard Nixon, whom I had served faithfully for three and a half years, resigned his office. It was one of the most desolate experiences of my life.
But in another sense I had found everything, all that really matters: a personal relationship with the living God. My life had been dramatically transformed by Jesus Christ.
In the dreary confines of that prison, I began to scribble notes, trying to describe the dramatic change in my life and what it meant to go from the White House to prison. I had received lucrative offers to write political memoirs, but I felt compelled to tell people the simple story of what God had done in my life.
So I began to scratch out on a yellow pad the story that later became Born Again . I had no idea there even was a Christian publishing industry. All I knew was that I had a story I must tell, a story that might bring hope and encouragement to others.
Little did I dream that the book Born Again would become an international bestseller; that millions of copies would be printed; that tens of thousands of people around the world, from prisoners in dark cells to prime ministers and princes in palaces, would read it; that the Holy Spirit would use its words—God’s work in my life—to spark new life in hearts everywhere.
In one sense this book tells an old story—of politics in one of America’s most convulsive times, the Watergate era, which led to the only presidential resignation in history. But it is a much older story than that—one that has echoed through the centuries. It is a story of truth, of hope, of the wonderful Good News of Jesus Christ’s power to change a human life.
It is this Good News that I hope you will encounter in the pages that follow.
Charles W.Colson
Before We Begin
The origins of this book go back to a sultry late-summer day in 1974. President Nixon had only recently resigned; the government was in disarray and the country, exhausted by the convulsions of Watergate, was in numbed shock. I was languishing in an Alabama prison, a casualty of the greatest political upheaval in American history.
My own spirit was crying out in agony. How could all this have happened? My mind wandered back over two decades from the days when I was a crew-cut Marine lieutenant to the years when I sat in the Oval Office at the side of the President of the United States. I had served all the time with a burning idealism about my country.
How could we who had the trust of the nation have strayed so far a field? There must be lessons for my life—for others—for an anguished nation. What was the redemptive answer?
Around me in the dreary confines of that prison were hundreds of men trapped as much by the circumstances of their own lives as by their captor’s chains. On their sorrowful, forlorn faces were written countless tales of human tragedy. I reflected back on the men with whom I served—Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Nixon. They had been trapped as well—by their own pretensions of power, victims of their own human frailties.
As I kept probing for the deeper meaning of what had happened to me and to so any others, I began writing—pages of copy evaluating the men and events, forming conclusions, groping for corrective ideas. My focus was on institutions, and the words as I reread them day after day seemed heavy, ponderous and wide of t