Talk:Charles Colson

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Contents

[edit] POV

I think this article has several NPOV violations. I like the description of Colson's role in the Nixon adminstration and his prison time.

However, when it says "Colson also speaks for a five minute radio broadcast he began called Breakpoint which discusses contemporary issues from a Christian worldview.", I think that's an NPOV violation and instead it should say "from an evangelical Christian worldview" (or maybe "evangelical Protestant"), because without the qualifier it seems to support the evangelical view that only evangelicals are true Christians.

I disagree. Looking at other similar articles, I did not find one that use the term "evangelical Protestant." Colson was one of the four co-signers of Richard D. Land's Land letter sent to President George W. Bush on October 3, 2002. The articles for Richard and James Kennedy use the term evangelical Christian. Articles for others like James Dobson, Dave Ramsey and others similarly use the terms evangelical, Christian, or both, but not "evangelical Protestant." frankywong2000 04:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Change made as discussed above. frankywong2000 02:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, there's no justification provided for the claim about the faith-based prison that "One of these was begun recently in Texas with favorable results." What is meant by favorable? What is the name of this prison?

The name of the prison facility is Jester II, which was later renamed in honor of Carol Vance. frankywong2000 23:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Dr. Byron Johson of the University of Pennsylvania was the principal researcher who conduced a study on the effectiveness of the faith-based initiative InnerChange at the Texas Jester II prison facility (later renamed in honor of Carol Vance). He was a member of a small group led by Colson, who was invited by President George W. Bush to the White House on June 18, 2003, to present the study's findings. In the presentation, Dr. Johnson explained that 171 participants in the InnerChange program were compared to a matched group of 1,754 inmates from the prison's general population. The study found that only 8 percent of InnerChange graduates, as opposed to 20.3 percent of inmates in the matched comparison group, became offenders again in a two-year period. In other words, the recidivism rate was cut by almost two-thirds for those who complete the faith-based program. Those who are dismissed for disciplinary reasons or who drop out voluntarily, or those who are paroled before completion, have a comparable rate of rearrest and incarceration. frankywong2000 23:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
The favorable results of one of the faith-based programs at the Texas prison facility was documented in "Jesus Saves," Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2003, W15. frankywong2000 23:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Would someone like to try to resolve these issues?

Also, looking back in the history I noticed the Revision as of 14:51, 16 Oct 2004. It has some clear bias, but there's also some possibly important information added there which was removed by the next edit, titled "revert vandalism". Specifically:

- "He was tasked by Nixon with undermining the credibility that the young anti-war and veteran's righs activist John Kerry." Is this true? If so, it's probably worth a rewritten mention.

You guys are quite ignorant of recent history. Perhaps you should do some WORK before attacking your fellow Wikipedian. -- Pinktulip 07:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Nixon Aide Colson: Kerry a 'Complete Opportunist'
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/3/16/103907.shtml
Since the original sentence "He was tasked by..." no longer appears in the article, I would like to remove the above references from the Kerry references section. frankywong2000 04:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Change made as discussed above. frankywong2000 02:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

- "There are no social scientific findings to confirm that religiously based prison rehabilitation efforts are generally successful." If the article mentions a faith-based prison then it should characterize the debate about such prisons.

On the contrary, there are social scientific findings which confirm that faith-based prison rehabilitation efforts have favorable results. One of such studies was conducted by Dr. Byron Johson of the University of Pennsylvania on the faith-based initiative InnerChange at the Texas Jester II prison facility (later renamed in honor of Carol Vance). The study was presented to President George W. Bush on June 18, 2003. It found that only 8 percent of InnerChange graduates, as opposed to 20.3 percent of inmates in the matched comparison group, became offenders again in a two-year period. In other words, the recidivism rate was cut by almost two-thirds for those who complete the faith-based program. frankywong2000 23:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

- "Colson is closely associated with Summit Ministries, which attemtpts to ideologically innoculate high school stuidents and college freshmen against ideas they may encounter in their liberal arts educations." I think some discussion of this would also be relevant.

  • It was all alterations done by user:Amorrow to prove a point. The added links and text changes did not reinforce the changes to the article or really improve it in any way, he just added them to prove a point and link it to his Elizabeth_Morgan article. See Talk:Elizabeth_Morgan for his thoughts on this subject. Xaa 02:10, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Amorrow added the links so that others could continue to develop the article. It is information: books, ISBN's, web links. Relevant. Organized. I feel that Amorrow performed an NPOV service. -- Pinktulip 07:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The photo has to go...

That photo is prejudicial. A link to http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ or something like that is fine, but mug shots are not fair when so many other bio pages have posed studio photos. -- Pinktulip 07:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Now that there is both a publicity photo and the mug/profile shot, I think that the balance is acceptable. -- Pinktulip 03:39, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

If Chuck Colson were a Leftist, you folks would be going nuts about that photo. Its gone. --68.45.161.241 00:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If Chuck Colson were a Leftist, you wouldn't be objecting and the world would be a better place. 67.161.168.205 03:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Is there a Wikipedia-approved, more recent picture of Charles Colson that we can use? The old picture is no longer available. Chip Unicorn 22:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
As the original uploader of the mugshot, I definitely think it belongs here. But while it illustrates a major aspect of Colson's career, that certainly isn't the only important thing about him. May I suggest using in addition to the mugshot the cover of his book, Born Again, which has his picture; or maybe the arguably fair use promo shot that can be found at [1]? -- LegalBeagle 18:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, after some effort on my part, there's now a slick book cover image of the post-Watergate Colson in the section dealing with that part of his career; and I have repositioned the mugshot to the section dealing with Colson's role in the Nixon Administration. LegalBeagle 00:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
That's a superb job, and a great way to give his whole history. Thank you! Chip Unicorn 05:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
You're welcome, but there might be a catch. There's a school of thought on Wikipedia that a "fair use" image shouldn't be used when a "free use" image is also available. I take the position that if the images demonstrate different aspects of a subject, then it ought to be all right to use them together. But don't be surprised if an administrator with a narrower view of things comes along and edits out the new image. LegalBeagle 18:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I propose adding a recent studio photo of Colson, such as the one at About Chuck Colson, BreakPoint Commentary website, to the beginning of the article. This will balance the photos at other sections of this article. In addition, this is consistent with other bio pages (e.g. George W Bush) that have a studio photo at the beginning of the article followed by one to two photos in each sections. frankywong2000 00:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MLK

Eliminated section on MLK, it is just a link to a liberal-left website that disputes one of Colson's commentaries where he argued Martin Luther King Jr. would have held some conservative views, note others such as Rush Limbaugh argue this view more than Colson and I fail to see why it should be a separate heading here66.72.215.225jme

I've removed this again. Note my prior reasons, if someone has a good reason that Colson's one commentary where he argues MLK was to the right of modern liberals is such a unique statement that is deserves an encylopedia entry, please explain! jme


[edit] What does this sentence mean?

"Colson's voice, archives from April 1969, was heard in the movie Going Upriver deprecating the anti-war efforts of John Kerry."

How does the clause "archives from April 1969" fit into the rest of this sentence. Is it a reference? Stroika 07:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I will move the Nixon targeted Kerry for anti-war views references out of the Kerry references section and into the end of the above sentences to make it clearer. frankywong2000 04:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Location of paragraphs referencing Kerry

The two paragraphs referencing Kerry, located in the Career after prison section, happened in Colson's Nixon years.

Colson's voice, archives from April 1969, was heard in the movie Going Upriver deprecating the anti-war efforts of John Kerry. Colson's orders were to "Destroy the young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader."

"Pretty impressive performance", Colson told Martin Nolan after Kerry testified before a Senate committee. But to his boss, President Richard Nixon, as revealed on tape years later, Colson said, "This fellow Kerry that they had on last week. ... He turns out to be really quite a phony." Colson was recently referred to by Nolan as Karl Rove's "spiritual ancestor". Colson himself admitted to playing a role similar to Rove in his book, The Good Life.

I would do some further research about them. frankywong2000 14:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

If so, I would like to propose moving the two paragraphs (except the last two sentences) to the Nixon Administration section. frankywong2000 14:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The last two sentences of the second quoted paragraph above referred to a recent comment by Nolan and Colson himself. Therefore, I would like to find out the necessary citations to, and re-arrange, these two in the Career after prison section according to their chronological sequence. frankywong2000 14:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. CWC 19:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expand White House section

Colson was a pretty active figure in the Nixon White House, I think that section should be expanded. --Awiseman 18:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I am in the process of adding to the [[Charles Colson#Nixon Administration|Nixon Administration] section of the article. I noticed the paragraphs referencing Kerry, located in the Career after prison section, happened in Colson's Nixon years. I would do some research about them, and if so, move them to the Nixon Administration. frankywong2000 14:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conspirators Have Removed Charles Colson As A Proponent Of Intelligent Design

Please provide who has removed the link to intelligent design on this page. There are administrators on the intelligent design page that I am afraid have conspired to remove this link to prevent any revisions of said the ID article. The initial paragraph read as follows before I made the claim that Charles Colson was a proponent of ID:

His later life has been spent working with his nonprofit organization devoted to prison ministry called Prison Fellowship. Colson is also a public speaker and author. He is the chairman of the Wilberforce Forum, a conservative Christian political and social think tank and action group active in the promotion of intelligent design in education and in biotechnology and bioethics issues, such as human cloning and stem cell research.

Now the new article has been omitted and just reads: His later life has been spent working with his nonprofit organization devoted to prison ministry called Prison Fellowship. Colson is also a public speaker and author.

This administration is corrupt and does not desire an objective viewpoint be displayed. Please report this to the appropriate personel. This is in violation of NPOV. Coolasclyde 00:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


Administrators: Please restrict WAS 4.250 from editing this article. He keeps removing the intelligent design link and relevant text from Charles Colson's page. Thank you! Coolasclyde 02:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you talk to him? We have talk pages and other things. Admins become involved as admins only very much as last resort. I suggest you talk to WAS and discuss the matter with him. JoshuaZ 03:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh please. FeloniousMonk 03:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

I've just deleted 4 external links: 2 clearly violate WP:BLP and WP:EL, 1 is dead (family.org) and 1 is out of date. I've also changed the descriptions of a few other links.

I think we should replace that last one, http://www.mediatransparency.com/story.php?storyID=91. Written in Nov 2005, it discusses a court case against the InnerChange Freedom Initiative from the anti-IFI POV. Last June, a federal district court judge ruled that IFI is unconstitutional. PF and IFI say they "will appeal the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary". See http://www.pfm.org/generic.asp?ID=2416. Does anyone have a good link for this? Perhaps something about this should go into the article body, not just the External links? And we definitely should update the Faith-based article accordingly.

Also:

  1. The "Focus on the Family: Chuck Colson Speaks" link is dead. I did some searching but couldn't find a new link to Colson's writing at that site. If anyone else has such a link, we should consider adding it.
  2. I couldn't check http://www.religionandsocialpolicy.org/news/article_print.cfm?id=2740 ("Texas town's faith-based prison plan questioned") because their web server isn't working. Bah.
  3. I don't see that http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcolson.htm ("Colson bio at Spartacus") adds anything useful to our current article.
  4. The link to Colson's bio at pfm.org was broken (in more than one way); I've fixed it.
  5. Is http://www.cccu.org/news/newsID.83,parentNav.Archives/news_detail.asp ("CCCU: Charles Colson receives prestigious leadership award Feb. 15, 2001") worth keeping? The Mark O. Hatfield Leadership Award is small beer next to a Templeton Prize. Also, the linked press release doesn't even mention Colson's close friendship with Senator Hatfield in the 1970s!
  6. That student paper from FSU is very good. It examines an important aspect of Colson's post-prison work.

Cheers, CWC(talk) 13:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Months later: I've deleted the cccu.org and spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk links; the latter violates WP:EL. The www.religionandsocialpolicy.org link is arguably irrelevant, but I left it there pending further discussion. I tried to find a better link for Colson's Christian Post columns but failed, so I've used the same ugly hack for his 2007 columns there. Cheers, CWC(talk) 16:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I've just added an external link to the Billy Graham Center, Archives, Papers of Charles Wendell Colson - Collection 275 (revised on December 8, 2004). It is the information I used to update most of the Charles Colson#Early life section. frankywong2000 00:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Recently the link to http://www.chuckcolsonstory.com was removed by an editor as an inappropriate external link. I have reviewed the external links guideline and spam guideline and do not feel we are in violation of the sprit of these guidelines. Though I did add this link as a representative of the Lifestory Foundation (link to a website with which I am affiliated), our goal is not to promote a product or our Foundation through this link. The link was added because we feel the audio & transcript portion of the website give a true first hand account of the life story of the person.

The website is hosted in a "blog" format to facilitate discussion around the person's life story, much like any current news article. If the existence of the donation button on the website is viewed as inappropriate, we would open to removing it.

Regards, Amblerake (talk) 06:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

It is not appropriate to link to your own site as you did here and in several other articles. It is acceptable, as you have done above, to make a case for your links on the talk page of an article, and allow other neutral, experienced editors to decide if the link will benefit the article. Typically articles need more encyclopedic text, not links. ✤ JonHarder talk 02:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Colson vs Darwinism

User Olegt1 (talk · contribs) recently added http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=2951 as a cite for our claim that "Colson has ... argued that Darwinism is used to attack Christianity". Unfortunately, in that Breakpoint talk Colson argues only that Charles Darwin himself, not contemporary Darwinism, "wanted to get rid of the Creator." I did some Googling, but couldn't find a better citation. Apparently, chapter 2 of How Now Shall We Live? discusses this topic. Can anyone supply a better source? CWC(talk) 08:13, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colson vs Grandmother

I've added some detail about the famous "run over my own grandmother" line. Here's the full story, in quotes from chapter 5 of Born Again.

  • The Wall Street Journal printed an article about Colson on 15 October 1971.
Buried in the Journal account was a seemingly tongue-in-cheek quip attributed to an unnamed former staff member of Senator Saltonstall [for whom Colson once worked]: "Colson would walk over his own grandmother if necessary".
  • In Summer 1972,
the Watergate break-in sent reporters digging into the newspaper morgues for old clippings about Mr. Nixon's hatchet man. Most stories contained a rehash of all the old dirty-tricks charges and that I had once boasted I would run over my own grandmother if necessary to elect Nixon. I tried to steer a few reporters back to the original Wall Street Journal article. "I never said it," I protested, but it made such colorful copy no one heard me.
  • In August 1972, Colson wrote an angry memo which ended with a failed attempt to poke fun at himself using an obvious falsehood:
last week's UPI story that I was once reported to have said that 'I would walk over my own grandmother if necessary' is absolutely accurate.

So Colson did use the line, but he was quoting a false news report! It's like a recursive urban legend ...
Cheers, CWC(talk) 14:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

last week's UPI story that I was once reported to have said that 'I would walk over my own grandmother if necessary' is absolutely accurate. - There you have it, in his own words, that it's true. Your claims that it is "tongue in cheek" are original research and do not belong in this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Raul654 (talk • contribs) 17:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC).
Please read what I wrote, without assuming bad faith. The only research I did was to read and report what Colson wrote in Born Again. He says he did write those words in that angry memo, but he intended his readers (his staff) to recognise that the report was false and he was being deliberately "outrageous" to make a point. Why on earth did you jump to the false conclusion that my claim was original research? CWC(talk) 19:21, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Colson said it was true that he was reported to have said it; he didn't say it was true that he actually said it. There's a huge difference. --205.206.207.127 (talk) 03:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unreliable sources

In addition to changes discussed above, I've just made two other changes to the article that should be documented here.

I deleted the paragraph

He also told Time magazine, "I don't say this to my people. They'd think I'm nuts. I think the CIA killed Dorothy Hunt."

because it's not true. What is true is that a private investigator, Richard Lee Bast, told Time that Colson had said that to him. (The same PI claimed that Colson said that "[Alexander] Haig and White House Lawyer J. Fred Buzhardt worked incognito for the CIA and that maybe Kissinger did too"!) Time were not gullible enough to print the PIs claims unadorned: all the juicy stuff is prefixed by a "According to Bast's notes" disclaimer.

I removed part of the quote from Slate:

According to Watergate historian Stanley Kutler, Colson sought to hire Teamsters thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators, and he plotted to raid or firebomb the Brookings Institution."

because it's not true. What Kutler actually wrote was that

Haldeman told the President that Charles Colson would use his connections with the Teamster's Union and hire some "thugs" to attack the protesters.

(My emphasis.) See page 107 of Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon (ISBN 0-393-30827-8). There is nothing about physical attacks on the Brookings Institution in that book. Maybe using a polemical left-wing magazine as a source was not such a good idea?

Cheers, CWC(talk) 16:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how "According to Watergate historian Stanley Kutler, Colson sought to hire Teamsters thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators, and he plotted to raid or firebomb the Brookings Institution." does not accurately summarize what is in the article ("Haldeman told the President that Charles Colson would use his connections with the Teamster's Union and hire some "thugs" to attack the protesters."). Are you claiming that Haldeman was lying to Nixon?
As to the firebombing of the Brookings Institute, the fact that it is not mentioned in one particular book doesn't mean it did not happen. As a matter of fact, John Dean has repeated this anecdote in a number of reputable sources, including the LA times. (the Brookings Institute article has 4 different sources.)
As such, I'll be restoring both of these to the article. Raul654 17:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
But Kutler did not say that! It may well be that Colson did try to hire thugs, but Kutler does not say that.
Kutler reports a bull session between Haldeman and Nixon in which Haldeman tells Nixon, with great enthusiasm, the Colson will hire thugs to beat up protesters. Kutler does not report that Colson did so. (If anyone finds a good source saying Colson did that, please put it in the article.) So Plotz's account of what Kutler wrote is wrong, even if he is right about what Colson did.
I hope you're not so naive as to believe that everything said during a bull session is 100% true, or that Haldeman was incapable of letting his enthusiasm get the better of him. Colson himself reports that macho talk was endemic (as in a disease) in the Nixon White House.
So I've edited the article to ascribe the claim about thugs to Plotz.
Thanks for those 3 good links about the Brookings Institution. I've dropped the non-RS one, combined the two for the LAT article and "ref/cite"d them. I know that Colson has accused Dean of lying, so I ascribed the claim to Dean instead of making it a flat statement.
Cheers, CWC(talk) 20:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I see what you are getting at. The article currently says "Plotz reports that Colson sought to hire Teamsters thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators" - I can live with this. Raul654 21:07, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I have tagged the following sentences, under the Nixon Administration section, with two citation requests: "Colson was recently referred to by Nolan as Karl Rove's 'spiritual ancestor'. Colson himself admitted to playing a role similar to Rove in his book, The Good Life." I have read The Good Life, listened to the unabridged audio book, and am re-reading it the second time. I find no mention of anything like it. Unless I find it in my second reading, or someone cites the source (e.g. page number in The Good Life), I plan to delete the sentences. frankywong2000 03:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I have tagged this sentence, also under the Nixon Administration section, with a citation request: "He expressed regret for attempting to cover up this incident in his 2005 book, The Good Life." The context and previous sentences that lead to it are: "Colson hoped that revelations about Ellsberg could be used to discredit the anti-Vietnam War left. Colson admitted to leaking information from Ellsberg's confidential FBI file to the press, but denied organizing Hunt's burglary of Ellsberg's office." I have read The Good Life, listened to the unabridged audio book, and am re-reading it the second time. I find no mention of "cover up." He did express regret in showing Ellsberg's FBI file to a reporter, to which he pleaded guilty. However, no "cover up" of that (showing the FBI file to a reporter) nor Hunt's burglary were mentioned in the book. Unless I find it in my second reading, or someone cites the source (e.g. page number in The Good Life), I plan to delete the sentences. frankywong2000 03:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

(The Good Life pp. 17 to 19) Referring to Ellsberg, Nixon said to Colson: "I want the truth about him known... We're going to let the country know what kind of 'hero' Mr. Ellsberg is." Colson showed Ellsberg's confidential FBI file, which contained very derogatory personal material, to a reporter from Detroit News. Ironically, the Detroit News never printed thet material Colson provided. The Copley Press did, however, when someone within the FBI delivered thep same information. Colson's intention was to discredit Ellsberg, not the "anti-Vietnam War left." frankywong2000 03:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I have tagged this sentence with a citation request: "Several U. S. newspapers, as well as Newsweek and Time, ridiculed the conversion, claiming that it was a ploy to reduce his sentence." frankywong2000 03:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Searching for Sourcing

If memory serves, Colson's notoriety in the early 1970s over the alleged grandmother quote was exacerbated by reports that he'd decorated his White House office with a US Army Special Forces slogan from their counterinsurgency activities in Vietnam: "When you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds are sure to follow." Memory, though, isn't the same as a published contemporaneous source. Walter Dufresne (talk) 12:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More quotes from Born Again

In reading Colson's 1976 book, Born Again, I found some interesting snippets which might be useful in the article.

About Nixon, from chapter 6:

Richard Nixon is a man of many parts, at times brutally cold, calculating, a manipulator of power as so many great leaders in history have been. But he is other things, too — at times an intensely compassionate human being who all his sixty-plus years held up his own mother as a saint and could never bring himself to point out to a secretary her misspellings. I once saw him re-dictate a letter to avoid a troublesome word, rather than embarrass the secretary.

About the Nixon White House culture, from chapter 5:

In our small White House circle, machismo and toughness were equated with trust and loyalty; these were keys to the cherished kingdom guaranteeing continued closeness to the throne.
Hubris became the mark of the Nixon man because hubris was the quality Nixon admired most. Small wonder that ambitious men like Magruder and Haldeman's other eager, unquestioning young lieutenants sought through tough talk and derring-do to prove their political virility to Nixon and those of us around him.
Maybe it was bald stupidity to expect to get away with breaking into one of the most heavily guarded office buildings in Washington, but it sure was hubris.

About the profanity revealed on the tapes, from chapter 16:

The tough talk was our way of showing Nixon we were good enough to stand up against the world, lieutenants worthy of front-line service.

He also has some interesting stuff about how Nixon and co saw themselves as little people fighting the awesome and oppressive power of the East-coast establishment (really!), but I haven't found any good quotes for that yet. It's quite an interesting book. Cheers, CWC(talk) 15:07, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV challenge

The article seems mostly just a collection of reports of Colson's controversial (politically incorrect?) stances, rather than an encyclopedic article on the man and his life. It seems written from a leftist perspective (i.e., by one who condemns Mr. Colson's points of view on various subjects). The article should at least be expanded to include much more non-slanted information about his life. At most, the leftist-leaning condemnation of what is written should be reported without such slanting (and slamming), or better, the perspective of those who approve of Mr. Colson's work and positions should be included alongside the distasteful way these are currently reported. Thanks. Pastorwayne 13:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

There is NPOV violation in how this sentence was phrased and implying: "As Colson was facing arrest, his close friend Tom Phillips gave him a copy of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, which led Colson to become an evangelical Christian." The sentence was written with a personally invested tone. It reads more like a story than an encyclopedia entry. It should be rewritten to state the date and facts of Colson's conversion with proper citation. frankywong2000 04:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

How is that a personal tone? It seems factual to me. --AW 14:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Antisemitism?

Seems to be some disagreement from Chris Chittleborough about Colson's categorization under Antisemitism. The very same transcripts I'm citing as evidence are widely taken as evidence of Richard Nixon's antisemitism (though I note that Nixon himself is not categorized as such...perhaps an edit is in order there, too). The Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Categories states that "Category tags regarding religious beliefs...should not be used unless...the subject's beliefs...are relevant to the subject's notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources." (Note: since it is not clear from that page whether the two criteria are conjunctive or disjunctive, I'm going with disjunctive). The Nixon tapes are certainly reliable and published, and Colson's statements on them as an aide to a sitting US president are certainly relevant to his public life. Also, categorizing Colson under Antisemitism certainly doesn't meet the requirements of invasion of privacy detailed at Invasion_of_privacy#False_light. In sum, I can't find a requirement, proposed or otherwise, that the application of a category to a person, even a living one, also be definitely established as an accurate adjective describing that person. The mere (easily) provable fact that a great number of people think Richard Nixon's Whitehouse tapes are evidence of his Antisemitism should be enough to justify the application of the category to Colson, a prominent "guest" on those tapes. Put another way, if I was doing a report on Antisemitism in the Nixon presidency, in the US goverment, or the US in general, I would want Colson's article to come up on a Wikipedia search. I would want to see his words myself and make up my own mind about whether he was "antisemitic" or not. If that isn't the ultimate goal of categories, I'm not sure what is. Put yet another way, despite the lack of a great amount of serious scholarship on the topic of Abraham Lincoln's alleged racist attitudes towards blacks, I would support the category Racism_in_the_United_States being attached to his article. The point of an encyclopedia is dissemination of facts, not organization of facts into politically slanted constellations.--JubaBear 00:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I've just removed the following paragraph from the article:
On a recording of a conversation with Nixon from July 1971, Colson endorsed Nixon's belief that [[Jew|Jewish]] employees at the [[Bureau of Labor Statistics]] were systematically undermining his presidency, stating "You know goddamn well they're out to kill us" in response to Nixon's question, "Are they all Jews over there?"<ref name=miller_center_transcription_slate>{{cite web |url=http://www.slate.com/id/2174788 |author=Timothy Noah |publisher=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |date=[[26 September]] [[2007]] |title=Nixon's Jew Count: the whole story! }}</ref><ref name=miller_center_transcription>{{cite web |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/oct99/nixon6.htm |author=George Lardner Jr. and Michael Dobbs |publisher=[[Washington Post]] |date=[[6 October]] [1999]] |title=New Tapes Reveal Depth of Nixon's Anti-Semitism }}</ref>
Wikipedia rules forbid us to say this kind of thing about living people without proper sourcing. These articles are primarily about Nixon, and say nothing about Colson and anti-semitism. They are primary sources for the quoted statement, but Wikipedia needs Reliable secondary Sources for topics like this.
Furthermore, as JubaBear suggests, there's no point having an article in Category:Antisemitism unless it says something about antisemitism, so I've removed it from that category.
Can anyone find a good RS about Colson and anti-semitism? If so, we can and could use it in the article. But that quote I removed is pretty much a classic case of WP:SYNTH, so please don't reinstate it without gaining some consensus here first. Cheers, CWC 17:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
How is the National Archives) not a proper source? I don't see anything on the Reliable Sources page about "secondary sources" being required for anything, either. Also, it doesn't make any difference if this source is "primarily" about Nixon. It is an audio recording on which Colson's statements are clearly audible, period. The statement that they "say nothing about Colson and anti-semitism" is simply not true. Sorry to be so confrontational, but I just have no idea how you came up with that.
I'm also not understanding how you consider this to be WP:SYNTH. It definitely isn't original research as you state in your edit comment on the page. There is only one source here, and there's no "synthesis". These are direct quotes from an audio tape. Admittedly, I did not provide a link directly to the transcript on the National Archives website (because it isn't there, otherwise I would), but the quotes in Slate come directly from it. I highly highly doubt that a well-known journal like Slate would just "make this up" and then attribute it to the National Archives. If you want to nit-pick on the issue of Slate's reliability with respect to quoting information released by the National Archives, we're going to have to agree to disagree. If you're primarily concerned with my lead-in characterization ("Colson endorsed Nixon's belief...."), we can talk about a more neutral way of saying it (although "endorsing" is pretty mild on the emotional connotation scale...), but I think it's pretty clear that Colson is agreeing with Nixon on the tape.
Incidentally, a secondary source is by definition a synthesis of multiple sources, i.e. WP:SYNTH, so I'm not sure how you can be arguing for secondary sources but against WP:SYNTH. At any rate, the Slate article as a whole would definitely count as a secondary source, and a fairly reliable one at that.
Finally, I'm not sure how you could interpret my comments as suggesting that categories should only be attached to articles that say something about that category. I didn't even address that, and if anything, I'm saying precisely the opposite: specifically, there is no requirement on WP to establish that a person is antisemitic in order to include the category of antisemitism on his page. Colson should have the Antisemitism category attached to him due to his responses to Nixon's explicit derogatory references to Jews. I would be well within the bounds of reason to argue that Colson himself actually is antisemitic, but I'm not doing that. I'm simply saying he is strongly linked to the very type of comments that have spawned widespread accusations of antisemitism against Nixon. As I said above, if I was doing a report on antisemitism in the US government, especially in the Nixon administration, I would want to know about this guy.JubaBear 02:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
At present, all we have is primary sources showing that Colson once said "You know goddamn well they're out to kill us" to Nixon. (Notice, BTW, that he said nothing about Jewishness.) We don't have secondary sources drawing conclusions from what he said. Putting the primary source in an encyclopedia article invites readers to draw conclusions, and that's frowned on.
Yes, Wikiepedia does use synthesis in the form of secondary sources. That's one of the big non-secrets about Wikipedia: we don't try to report The Truth™, we try to report what Reliable Sources have said. (I call it a "non-secret" because it's spelled out in lots of places, but many people take a long time to realise it.) The idea is to rely on synthesis and analysis by authoritative sources, as opposed to using our own analysis or getting readers to make inferences.
I quite agree that biographical articles can be put in Category:antisemitism even if the subject is not shown to be antisemitic. However, the general rule is that an article should not be in a category unless there is text in that article concerning that category. So if we find a good secondary source about Colson and antisemitism and mention it in the article, we should then put the article back in that category ... but not until then.
I hope this helps. The way Wikipedia's rules work is not always obvious, but they do work to produce good articles, which is the whole point of the project. Cheers, CWC 04:25, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

"They're" is a pronoun. The proper noun it refers to, in context, is obviously "Jews," as the immediately preceding statement from Nixon is "Are they all Jews over there?", followed by a statement from Colson: "Every one of them". I guess you could argue that Colson's use of "them" simply refers to "employees of the BLS", but if Nixon was president today, and that tape was played on the national news, even Rush Limbaugh would be saying that Colson told Nixon that "the Jews" are out to get him, not "the employees of the BLS" are out to get him. I don't regard the quote as a question of Colson's opinion of Jews; I regard it as a question of English grammar.

Assuming then that Colson's statement was grammatically equivalent to saying "The Jews are out to get us," the focus here is not the concept and connotation of "prejudice" (of which antisemitism is a notable subcomponent), but the literal meaning, and thus not a debate about "The Truth" as defined in that article you referred me to. Conceptually, I can see how that leap could be made, but at some point, everyone has to agree on the "The Truth" of the meanings of words. Otherwise language is useless, and we may as well stop talking. I am not saying one way or the other whether Colson is antisemitic. I am expressly avoiding applying the label of "antisemite" to Colson, and don't even use that word in the article. I simply contend that the statement "The Jews are out to get us" fits in the literal definition of "antisemitism." I supply a direct quote with a brief lead-in to establish its context. That lead-in ("Colson endorses...") is a factual characterization of what is happening in the conversation. As I said above, if you want to disagree that Colson is "endorsing" Nixon's statement, we can talk about a better word. But saying that I'm trying to express my (or anyone else's) opinion or version of "The Truth" that Colson is an antisemite is inaccurate.

As a side note, there is a distinction between making antisemitic comments (which, as I stated above, is basically a question of English usage) and being an antisemite (which is a very subjective label). Indeed, Nixon apologists (even the Jewish ones) explain Nixon's apparent antisemitism as nothing more than a manifestation of his "tribal mentality" about politics, and that the "Jewish cabal," whether it was real or not, was simply another one of his "tribes".

I fully understand the need to have authoritative secondary sources, but the issue of secondary sources is moot here, as we're talking about a primary source. The only thing I'm adding to this article is a direct quote from that source, and not any sort of "truth" opinion from Slate. Again, if you want to debate the ability of Slate to accurately reproduce the National Archives transcripts, I think you're on shaky ground, but I'm open to discussing that point(as I really don't know much about Slate other than it's pretty well-known, has been around for a while, and publishes lots of well-known authors).

And so, with the questions of both "The Truth" and "secondary sources" out of the way, I don't see how the tape quotes are NOT relevant to the Antisemitism category. You claim that the "general rule is that an article should not be in a category unless there is text in that article concerning that category," but I can find nothing in any WP editing guidelines that says this. The first line of WP:Category states: "Categories help users find information, even if they don't know that it exists or what it's called." As I have repeatedly said, if I wanted to know about antisemitic comments made in the Nixon presidency, I would want to know the name "Charles Colson".

Now, if you want to argue that, per WP:Category guideline #2, restraint should generally be exercised with categories in order to keep the categories "effective", and that a small three-line section of a rather extensive article is not worth adding another category, I could buy that. But I don't think that's what you're saying. JubaBear 05:22, 3 November 2007 (UTC)


(Several weeks later) Here's the latest version of the relevant paragraph, moved here in case anyone ever finds proper sources for this incident.
On a recording of a conversation with Nixon from July 1971, Colson endorsed Nixon's belief that Jewish employees at the Bureau of Labor Statistics were systematically undermining his presidency, stating "You know goddamn well they're out to kill us" in response to Nixon's question, "Are they all Jews over there?"<ref name=miller_center_transcription_slate>{{cite web |url=http://www.slate.com/id/2174788 |author=Timothy Noah |publisher=Slate |date=26 September 2007 |title=Nixon's Jew Count: the whole story! }}</ref><ref name=miller_center_transcription>{{cite web |url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/oct99/nixon6.htm |author=George Lardner Jr. and Michael Dobbs |publisher=Washington Post |date=6 October 1999 |title=New Tapes Reveal Depth of Nixon's Anti-Semitism }}</ref>
Note that these are primary sources, and focus on Nixon, not Colson. Using them in this way in this article violates WP:SYNTH and WP:BLP. Do not do that!
Note also that Colson does not endorse Nixon's alleged belief in a Jewish consipiracy; instead he just says that the BLP employees are trying to hurt the Nixon administration politically.
If we ever find proper secondary sourcing for this, we can and should mention it in the article. Until then, it is against Wikipedia policy to include it in the article. Cheers, CWC 11:47, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I give up, dude. You're obviously not reading anything I've said, don't understand WP:SYNTH or WP:BLP, and/or are willfully ignorant of the facts. Congratulations. JubaBear (talk) 15:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Charles Colson Books

I thing that this article would be improved if a list of Charles Colson's books were added. Only one of his books "How Now Shall We Live?" is in the article Lmielke359 02:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

That sounded like an interesting little challenge to me, so I browsed on over to Amazon.com and tried to do it. Bad move — it turned out to be a tedious big challenge instead. He's written or co-written lots of books, many of which Amazon does not have details of. Here's the list I came up with:

Then I decided to try a tabular layout. I liked the result, so I've put it in the article. What do other people think of this layout? More importantly, I would like someone to check that I got the details right. Thanks in advance, CWC 16:09, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I like how it looks - if others want to add additional books in the future they can. I like to table format Lmielke359 17:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brian McLaren

As stated in the article, Colson is opposed to the "emerging church movement" (often referred to as the postmodern movement" and has had some sort of debates with Brian McLaren. It would be nice if we could spell Brian's name correctly.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.229.12.40 (talk • contribs)

Good point. I've fixed the article. Thanks for the tip. CWC 09:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)