Updated 11:59 pm.EST, Fri November 20, 2009

Society|Thu, Sep. 24 2009 06:00 PM EDT

Chuck Colson Denounces Therapeutic Church Model

By Nathan Black|Christian Post Reporter

The church has fallen into a therapeutic model, says one prominent evangelical.

In an interview with Time magazine, Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson denounced the "feel-good kind of Christianity" he sees being promoted in churches.

"It believes its job is to make people happy and take care of their problems," said Colson, also author of The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and Why It Matters.

But the church's job, he noted, is to make people holy.

The well-known evangelical and former aide to President Richard Nixon launched the Chuck Colson Center this month to provide resources that would help train people in biblical worldview. His aim to help Christians live in obedience to and for the honor of Jesus Christ in every area of their lives and to help them transform their communities through biblical truth.

After more than 30 years of working with inmates through Prison Fellowship, Colson told Time that many of the prisoners were "products of a failed worldview – that modernity would make everything better."

The purpose of the Colson Center, he explained, is to penetrate culture and expose "the Lie."

"The frontal assault over the last several years has proven inadequate," Colson said. "What we must do now is be salt and light, rubbed into the culture so to speak, in such a way that the people and institutions around us slowly begin to understand that they have embraced the Lie. Our job is to expose the Lie and replace it with the Truth of a biblical understanding of all of reality."

His articles addressing cultural questions and tackling current news and trends from a Christian perspective have been made available on his new Colson Center website.

He hopes the center will be the capstone of his career and maybe his greatest legacy.

Colson became a born-again Christian before pleading guilty to Watergate-related charges. After serving seven months in Alabama's Maxwell Prison in 1974, he founded Prison Fellowship Ministries and wrote 20 books which have collectively sold more than 5 million copies.

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  • Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:39 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

    Why was this flagged?

    "The church doesn't make people holy. The church IS the "called-out" (holy) People of God. The purpose is to proclaim the gospel and God's teaching. The "feel good kind of Christianity" has existed long before Colson was born. It began with the atmosphere of humanism and in that atmosphere we find that God is used as a means to a goal instead of God being the goal."

  • Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:28 am Agree: 5   Disagree: 0

    "the dead songs and the vain repetition of the same prayers and words over and over again as found in the mass are any different?"


    Isn't that something like what Jesus said about the Scribes and Pharisees?

  • Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:25 am Agree: 1   Disagree: 1

    "It believes its job is to make people happy and take care of their problems,"

    This is also called co-dependency in it's raw form!!!

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:11 pm Agree: 7   Disagree: 2

    "Live Holy or die trying is my motto"

    Living Holy is the work of the Holy Spirit not us "trying" . . . The above statement suggests to me that you do not understand the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit; it is the Spirit that changes the heart by faith:

    And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

    In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

    Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead (Colossians 2:10-12).

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 3:00 pm Agree: 8   Disagree: 0

    Flagged as inappropriate. show ihs, plus, growing up roman catholic and being an altar boy when most of the mass was in latin, very few people could even understand a word that was being said and in fact I personally knew many altar boys who mumbled the parts of the mass and really didn't memorize the latin let alone understand what they were really saying. hide

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 2:15 pm Agree: 8   Disagree: 0

    Flagged as inappropriate. show ihs, and the dead songs and the vain repetition of the same prayers and words over and over again as found in the mass are any different? hide

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 2:12 pm Agree: 11   Disagree: 0

    Flagged as inappropriate. show ihs, your typical roman catholic propaganda, beginning with the Apostles there are a number of people who were not roman catholics who have indeed led holy lives. hide

  • IHS »
    Fri Sep 25, 2009 1:12 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 11

    Flagged as inappropriate. show The Holiness movements died out faster than they started, much like a sugar high. I have noticed, as an evangelical pastor in seminary, that if you research people who live Holy and ascetic lives in a google search you won't find any Protestants that will come up in the search. It will always be about St. Francis, St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa, St. Faustina, St. Dominic, St. Ignatius Loyolla, St. Xavier, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Clair, St. Nicholas, St. Cyril and Methodius, St. Benedict, etc. It seems to me that these people lived truly holy lives for Christ and yet all of them were Catholic. No wonder so many evangelical pastors like myself are moving towards Catholicism. These people led powerful lives, with a powerful testimony of self sacrifice in the image of Christ and brought millions to the Lord. It must be the Sacraments they get, that infuse this supernatural grace, which strengthens them like a super hero to live beatific lives. hide

  • IHS »
    Fri Sep 25, 2009 1:05 pm Agree: 2   Disagree: 8

    Chuck Coleson is right on!

    Feel good churches do nothing to get you holy, but make you feel good about yourself for a fleeting moment between the Praise and Worship songs and the loud charismatic preacher.

    Live Holy or die trying is my motto!

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 1:04 pm Agree: 5   Disagree: 0

    Flagged as inappropriate. show While I agree wholeheartedly the Church does not make us holy, it should be teaching us how to live holy lives that will indeed impact our culture and be used of God in drawing the lost to the saving knowledge of Christ. Plus, I am not opposed to support groups that are helping those struggling with specific issues in their life that our hindering their ability to live holy lives, but I am opposed to having support groups simply for the sake of having support groups. And while I am totally in agreement with the preaching of evangelistic messages and intentional evangelistic outreach, the local church also needs to focus on the discipling of their members as well. hide

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:31 am Agree: 5   Disagree: 0

    Flagged as inappropriate. show Well said, Xizwyck! We have already been "set apart," made holy by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ thanks to His work FOR us. The church doesn't "make us holy." hide

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:04 am Agree: 5   Disagree: 0

    Flagged as inappropriate. show The church's most relevant job in terms of this article is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. hide

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:57 am Agree: 2   Disagree: 0

    Flagged as inappropriate. show Part of the Church's mission is to lead people to holiness through Christ. The Church may not be able to MAKE you holy, but it can put you on the path by showing you the way to God. But, Colson is right about these feel good churches and their little self help groups. They are so inward looking that they resemble therapy groups with singing. That's not the way to get out int he world and help your neighbor and spread the Word of God. All it seems to do is let the attendees go home convinced about what good Christians they are. It doesn't seem to translate into a life led by what Christ taught, but a self centered, introverted kind of religiosity centered around "knowing Jesus." There's an awful lot more to being a Christian than that. Right on, Colson. hide

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 6:21 am Agree: 10   Disagree: 2

    Flagged as inappropriate. show The church doesn't make people holy. The church IS the "called-out" (holy) People of God. The purpose is to proclaim the gospel and God's teaching. The "feel good kind of Christianity" has existed long before Colson was born. It began with the atmosphere of humanism and in that atmosphere we find that God is used as a means to a goal instead of God being the goal. hide

  • Fri Sep 25, 2009 3:45 am Agree: 3   Disagree: 3

    Flagged as inappropriate. show If the church's job is to make people holy, then there is some way to go. I had some contact with holiness churches in my younger years. The focused a lot on not going to movies, how people dressed and how they spent their leisure time. Jesus said some pretty direct things about his priorities and they don't seem to have much to do with the political/social agenda of the conservative churches today. Check Matthew 25 or the parable of the Good Samaritan. The idea that how we treat the least of these (which some radicals see as the poor and oppressed) is the measure of our commitment to the teaching of Jesus is lost in the right wing political religion that stresses dogma over deeds. hide

  • Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:53 pm Agree: 5   Disagree: 2

    Flagged as inappropriate. show Great. hide

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