Posted on 04/18/2012 10:24:57 AM PDT by jettester
LANSDOWNE, Va., April 18, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Jim Liske, CEO of Prison Fellowship Ministries, gave the following update this morning to the staff and supporters of Prison Fellowship, Justice Fellowship, and the Colson Center for Christian Worldview:
“Dear Friends:
It is with a heavy, but hopeful heart that I share with you that it appears our friend, brother, and founder will soon be home with the Lord. Chuck’s condition took a decided turn yesterday, and the doctors advised Patty and the family to gather by his bedside.
(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...
I wonder why he is supposedly dying when it sounded like he was doing so well. I pray he lives, to the glory of God, In Jesus Holy Name.
Amen. Prayers up for him and his family.
BTTT
Prayers for a good man.
Prayers sent. Soon may be promoted.
Prayers
Others have commented and said most of what I would have said, but I do think a bit more needs to be said.
The sincerity of repentance is often indicated by whether people remain steadfast in their professed repentance. I have some problems with Colson’s theology but it seems crystal clear, after four decades, that Colson has replaced his “GOP” with “GOD” as the object of his worship.
Based on Colson’s long record of persevering in his profession of faith, I don't see a reason to hold his past against him, but on the other hand, we are not instructed by Scripture to forget the past history of Paul as a persecutor of the church. Paul himself made repeated references to his sinful past; David wrote an entire psalm repenting of his wickedness with Bathsheba.
To acknowledge the repentance of a notorious public sinner — which Colson would surely describe himself as having been — does not mean we ignore his past. On the contrary, let's remember that God can convert even the most awful sinners among us, and let's be grateful to God that he didn't abandon us all to hell, which we would richly deserve due to our own sinful wickedness which, while it may be less public than Colson’s, is just as deserving of God's wrath.
Can you send us a link to the tapestry photos with the names of the saints represented on the tapestries, like the one in this second post? I’m interested.
Prayers for Charles and his family. I too have read many of his books. “Against the Night: Living in the New Dark Ages” is my favorite. In many ways, his life after Watergate reminds me of the Apostle Paul.
The Archdiocese has finally realized what a treasure it has there, and has put up a page on its website and is actually selling copies.
There are links to the "north tapestry gallery" and the "south tapestry gallery" where you can view all the panels.
Most of the "art" in the building is appalling - the usual 'modern', 'meaningful' stuff which means that it's (1) nonrepresentational (which is stupid in the context of religious art) and (2) deliberately ugly, as so much modern art is. So many artists have been trained in this style, and it is very difficult to get them to look at things in any different way. I think the two worst items in the whole place are the Tabernacle (which looks like three lengths of crushed, corroded leftover copper pipe from the salvage yard) and the ugly, androgynous, distorted image of the Blessed Virgin.
Where Nava, the tapestry artist, went right was by using photography as a base. Then at least his saints look like human beings.
I'm a Protestant so obviously I cannot share the full appreciation you will have for the stories behind the martyrs on these tapestries. I noticed, however, that the tapestries include one of the Korean martyrs from the days of intense persecution against Christians, Andrew Kim Taegon. Since these tapestries are from a cathedral in Los Angeles, it certainly makes sense that a Korean martyr would be included on that tapestry.
Andrew Kim Taegon was the first Korean to be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. He died as a martyr in one of the early persecutions which tried but failed to stamp out the Korean church. The cathedral of the Archbishop of Seoul is today built on the hill where a group of highly educated Christians from the Korean nobility met in secret as a house church, were arrested, and were eventually persecuted and (in most cases) killed for refusal to reject Christ.
You may be interested in this book about the martyrdom of early Korean Christians, who in the earliest days were all Roman Catholics:
http://books.google.com/books?id=QMUCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA34#v=onepage&q&f=false
Korean Christianity today is largely Protestant. That was not the case initially; the first converts learned about Christianity either from the Chinese or the Japanese, and the Korean church was initially led by laymen of noble ancestry with no ordained clergy. When missionaries arrived, they were shocked to find literally thousands of Koreans worshiping as Christians without priests, without sacraments, using lay catechists as leaders, and generally receiving baptism only at the time of death from the hands of laymen since no priests were available.
You'll note in the account of the martyrs of the early Koreans, with very few exceptions their testimonies are generically Christian and not specifically Roman Catholic. They were killed for their allegiance to Christ and not for specific Roman Catholic observances, and as a Protestant, I don't have a problem with respecting their sacrifices and willingness to die rather than renounce Christ.
Interestingly, the author of this book — writing in the mid-1840s during the rise of liberalism — points out that during the days when Europeans were rejecting the church and harassing Roman Catholics in Italy itself, people in far-away lands were suffering martyrdom under tortures quite comparable to those inflicted by the Roman Empire a more than a millennium and a half earlier. It seems pretty clear that things have not improved since the 1840s; Europe is becoming increasingly hostile to the gospel while much of the rest of the world is far more fertile soil for the truth.
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