Burden of Truth: Defending the Truth in an Age of Unbelief

Prison Fellowship founder Colson is best known--apart from his role in the Watergate scandal, for which he was imprisoned--as an insightful evangelical speaker and writer (Born Again). A modern-day Augustine with a deep faith in reason and a conviction that people's beliefs matter, Colson habitually raises probing moral questions about Western civilization at a time of vast social change. But in this book, he sounds more like a sound-bite Savonarola. That's because this book is a compilation of his BreakPoint radio commentaries, which air on more than 300 Christian radio stations. These mini-essays explore the moral tensions underlying contemporary debates over education, public policy and popular culture, but they often sacrifice profundity for punch. Colson supports religious freedom, traditional family values, voluntarism and welfare reform; he denounces abortion, human embryo research, big government, absentee dads and more. Usually interesting when he calls for a return to an earlier moral tradition based on absolute truth, Colson's not at his best here. (July)