“Walter Hooper once said of C.S. Lewis that he was the most truly converted person he had ever met,” says Baptist theologian Timothy George. “The same thing can be justly said of Charles W. Colson, who came to faith in Christ through reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity.”

In an article for the National Catholic Register,George examines the legacy of his friend, a man who helped forge Evangelicals and Catholics Together and the ‘Manhattan Declaration.’:

Sentenced to prison for his Watergate crimes, Colson left prison in 1975 only to return again and again with a message of hope and life in Christ. For many years, Colson spent every Easter Sunday behind bars preaching to inmates about the risen Christ.

Prison Fellowship, a transcultural movement for justice and reform, is today chartered in 120 countries around the world.

Over the years, Colson came to see the close connection between despair within the prisons and the “culture of death” in society on the outside. Colson was drawn to the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity, and he knew that genuine reform had to embrace the family and munity as well as the state.