So many friends have asked for the text of my speech at the National Prayer Breakfast that Thomas Nelson decided to publish it — along with photos, my copious annotations of the speech itself (who is Ruth Buzzi?), and a 10,000-word essay in which I tell the full (and wacky) behind-the-scenes story of how I was invited, how I came to write the speech, and what it felt like to be there with the President and First Lady and Vice-President (and how my Nancy Pelosi joke backfired). It’s all here and I hope the amazing price is a sufficient enticement to you! Please click here to pre-order your copy! FYI: this will be published in hardcover soon, but for right now only this e-book version is available…
I have just learned that my friend and hero, Chuck Colson, has died. He was surrounded by his family as he went home to be with Jesus at 3:12 p.m. this afternoon. For the World magazine obituary, click here. And for a link to the speech he was giving just three weeks ago yesterday click here. It was his last public appearance. It was during this speech that Chuck fell ill and was soon thereafter taken to the hospital. Rest in peace, dear friend.
Click here for my interview on Minnesota Public Radio!
My time in the Twin Cities was simply extraordinary. 2,000 people came out to hear me last night at the Faith & Life series run by my new friend, Pastor Tim Westermeyer in Plymouth. Bonhoeffer’s life is touching so many. One woman (helmet in hand) told me she rode her motorcycle nine (sic) hours from Winnipeg to hear about him! Soli Deo Gloria!
This past weekend I had the privilege of emceeing my friend Chuck Colson’s annual Wilberforce Weekend in Lansdowne, Virginia. After I introduced him last Friday, Chuck spoke, but within a few minutes he became seriously ill. An ambulance took him to a nearby hospital and on Saturday morning, doctors operated to remove a pool of clotted blood on the surface of his brain. The doctors are now “cautiously optimistic,” but Chuck is in critical condition and he desperately needs our prayers.
As Chuck recuperates, I have the honor of guest-hosting Breakpoint, the daily cultural commentary that Chuck has been doing for nearly two decades. Chuck has been a hero and mentor to me for many years. I love and respect him more than I can say, and I ask your prayers that I might do Breakpoint justice until he returns to the mike. May it be as soon as possible.
For a Christianity Today update on this story, click here. To visit the Colson Center website and for updates on Chuck’s condition, click here. To visit Breakpoint, click here. And for a superb column (”A Nixonite Redeemed: Colson’s Rise and Fall”) written by my friend, National Review editor Rich Lowry, click here.
Here’s a link to a recent interview I did with the Alliance Defense Fund on some of the parallels between Bonhoeffer’s day and our own… To go directly to the video of the interview, click here.
In case you thought I was kidding about the Vice-President using my iPhone to snap a picture of the Prez and me, here is hard evidence. The First Lady is in the background.
At the New Canaan Society retreat a week ago I chatted with NYC Redeemer pastor Tim Keller for an hour in front of 500 close friends. We talked about his life, about Adam and Eve and evolution, and about Hell. He’s quite the cut-up!
Last night at an NYU Veritas Forum I had the privilege of interviewing Ruby Bridges, who as a six-year-old first-grader was chosen to integrate the public schools of New Orleans. Her mother told her to pray for the people who were jeering and taunting her every morning, which she did. (Click here for NYU News article.)
At one point some people brought a small coffin with a black doll inside to these daily protests, which eventually gave Ruby nightmares. Her parents assented to her meeting with the Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles, who helped her and who continued to meet with her for three years and who wrote about it in Finding God at Harvard. The iconic Norman Rockwell painting that depicts Ruby being escorted to school by Federal Marshalls today hangs in the White House, just outside the Oval Office.
My talk begins 35 mins in and ends with me leading the 3,500 assembled in singing “Amazing Grace”. No kidding.
Guess who snapped this photo below? None other than VP Joseph P. Biden, who of his own accord very graciously offered to take it for me! Amazing. I wonder how many photos there are of U.S. President’s taken by U. S. Vice Presidents?
Recently I was in Basel, Switzerland where I visited the Karl Barth home and had the privilege of reading and touching the letters Bonhoeffer wrote to Barth. I spoke at a church in Riehen and at the chapel at St. Chrischona.
I then traveled to Wiesbaden, where I met the sons of two heroes of the German resistance: the son of Fabian von Schlabrendorf, who planted the bomb on Hitler’s plane; and the son of Paul von Hase, Bonhoeffer’s uncle, who was the military Commandant over Berlin. Both figure prominently in my book. I next traveled to Stuttgart, where I met Bill Hybels, who interviewed me in front of 8,000 German-speaking Christians at a Willow Creek conference, and who said the book was “one of the ten most important books” he had ever read. The photo shows me in front of my publisher, SCM Haenssler’s booth there, still stunned by Hybel’s statement, and also by being on a poster with Gordon MacDonald and Andy Stanley! I also met the great-great grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm, who is a Lutheran pastor in Germany! Later I met the German translator of my book, Friedemann Lux, and Prof. Rainer Mayer, the Bonhoeffer scholar who oversaw the book’s publication in Germany. Das war aber eine Reise!
So many friends have asked for the text of my speech at the National Prayer Breakfast that Thomas Nelson decided to publish it — along with photos, my copious annotations of the speech itself (who is Ruth Buzzi?), and a 10,000-word essay in which I tell the full (and wacky) behind-the-scenes story of how I was invited, how I came to write the speech, and what it felt like to be there with the President and First Lady and Vice-President (and how my Nancy Pelosi joke backfired). It’s all here and I hope the amazing price is a sufficient enticement to you! Please click here to pre-order your copy! FYI: this will be published in hardcover soon, but for right now only this e-book version is available…
I have just learned that my friend and hero, Chuck Colson, has died. He was surrounded by his family as he went home to be with Jesus at 3:12 p.m. this afternoon. For the World magazine obituary, 
This past weekend I had the privilege of emceeing my friend Chuck Colson’s annual Wilberforce Weekend in Lansdowne, Virginia. After I introduced him last Friday, Chuck spoke, but within a few minutes he became seriously ill. An ambulance took him to a nearby hospital and on Saturday morning, doctors operated to remove a pool of clotted blood on the surface of his brain. The doctors are now “cautiously optimistic,” but Chuck is in critical condition and he desperately needs our prayers.
In case you thought I was kidding about the Vice-President using my iPhone to snap a picture of the Prez and me, here is hard evidence. The First Lady is in the background.
At the New Canaan Society retreat a week ago I chatted with NYC Redeemer pastor Tim Keller for an hour in front of 500 close friends. We talked about his life, about Adam and Eve and evolution, and about Hell. He’s quite the cut-up!
Last night at an NYU Veritas Forum I had the privilege of interviewing Ruby Bridges, who as a six-year-old first-grader was chosen to integrate the public schools of New Orleans. Her mother told her to pray for the people who were jeering and taunting her every morning, which she did. (
Recently I was in Basel, Switzerland where I visited the Karl Barth home and had the privilege of reading and touching the letters Bonhoeffer wrote to Barth. I spoke at a church in Riehen and at the chapel at St. Chrischona.