[The text of Colson’s 1993 speech is posted in the Christian Research Institute’s archives; Colson maintains a close association with CRI’s Hank Hanegraaff and is a frequent Bible Answer Man guest as is Norman Geisler.]
Colson’s speech was distributed by the Wilberforce Forum, which is an extension of Prison Fellowship. The following are a few introductory statements by the Wilberforce Forum as an introduction to the text of the speech and not part of the speech itself.
In March 1993 Charles W. Colson was named the recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Established in 1972 by financier Sir John Marks Templeton, this prestigious award is given annually to a person who has shown "extraordinary originality in advancing humankind’s understanding of God."
Convinced that progress in religion should be valued more highly than any other area, Sir John structured the prize so that its monetary value exceeds every other established award, including
the Nobel prizes. The 1993 award was valued at more than $1 million.
Receiving the award, Colson acknowledged that it "is not for me, but for the work that has been carried on faithfully by all who are part of Prison Fellowship -- particularly that vast army of
volunteers who make this ministry possible." Colson declined the monetary award asking that it be given directly to Prison Fellowship as endowment funds to ensure future ministry
development…
On September 2, 1993, in a ceremony connected with the Templeton Prize, Colson delivered an address at the University of Chicago [Chicago School of Divinity, Rockefeller Chapel]. Included in the audience were many delegates of the Parliament of the World's Religions…
[Text of Colson’s speech to the World Parliament of Religions follows]
It appears that this occasion was the beginning of a future financial association between Colson and the Templeton Foundation, as we shall see…
In the recent and very short Prison Fellowship article [April 9, 2002] by Chuck Colson ‘Was Joe Lieberman Right?: Polls show that 58 percent of Americans agree: religion should play a greater role in public life’ Colson makes mention of his associate David Larson: “Psychiatrist David Larson has spent 20 years researching faith's effect on health. He discovered Christians have less stress, fewer heart attacks, and are less prone to commit suicide than those without faith…”
David Larson, now deceased [March 2002], was on the John Templeton Foundation advisory board in 2000. Before his death he appeared at the State of the World Forum/SWF, whose leading co-chair [one of several] is Mikhail Gorbachev. Larson was a SWF presenter in seminars sponsored by the Templeton Foundation:
At the State of the World Forum
Convened by: The John Templeton Foundation…
Friday, September, 8
3:00 - Introduction Dr .William Grassie
3:10 - "Demographics of Health"…
3:30 - "Demographics of Happiness"…
3:50 - Panel Discussion
Moderator: Dr. Martin Marty, George B. Caldwell Senior Scholar in Residence, Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, & Ethics; Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity at the Divinity School, University of Chicago [The Martin E. Marty Center is located here. See Martin E. Marty below.]
Primary Discussants:
~ edited for purposes of this report
? Dr. William Grassie, Founder and Executive Director of the Philadelphia Center for Religion and Science (PCRS) [on the John Templeton Foundation advisory board]
? C. Everett Koop, M.D., Senior Scholar, C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth; Former U.S. Surgeon General (1981(1989)
? Dr. David Larson, President, National Institute for Healthcare Research; Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center and Northwestern University Medical School [on the John Templeton Foundation advisory board, 2000]
? Dr. Martin Marty, George B. Caldwell Senior Scholar in Residence, Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, & Ethics; Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity, Divinity School, University of Chicago [on the John Templeton Foundation advisory board]
5:00 - Keynote Address: Dr. C. Everett Koop
… This workshop will examine the future of human health and happiness with leading doctors, psychiatrists, gerontologists, demographers, and religious thinkers. The session is moderated by Dr. Martin Marty from the University of Chicago and includes a keynote talk by Dr. C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the United States and leading public health expert.
************************************************
Future of Human Health and Happiness presenter…
Martin E. Marty and Rockefeller Funding
12:00 noon Wednesday Lunch/Talk
"Swift Hall Provincials Go Global: A Report on a Rockefeller Foundation Project" by Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity in the Divinity School…
************************************************
Koop is chair of Wheaton College’s Center for Applied Christian Ethics/CACE
with Nigel Cameron––chair of the CBHD/Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity and dean of the Wilberforce Forum [Chuck Colson]. CBHD’s president John Kilner was previously at Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith, & Ethics with Martin E. Marty, who is on the John Templeton Foundation advisory board.
In 1999 CACE hosted a forum ‘The Use of the Human Genome: at What Point Do We Violate Humanity?’
featuring:
Francis Collins––John Templeton Foundation advisory board, 2000; director at the Human Genome Research Project, NIH
Ted Peters–– John Templeton Foundation advisory board; Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences/CTNS, where he directs the CTNS-Templeton University Lectures and the CTNS-Templeton Science and Religion Course Program. Dr. Peters was Principal investigator for the theological questions raised by the human genome initiative study sponsored by the Human Genome Initiative.]
Returning to Chuck Colson…
Psychiatrist David Larson has worked in collaboration with Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship on at least one project which studied the connection of recidivism and spirituality in prisoners. In fact, one of these studies was funded by the Templeton Foundation:
Prison Fellowship Prisoner/Ex-prisoner Studies - Program Evaluations and Surveys
(…)
Recidivism: PF Bible Studies in NY State “Religious Programs, Institutional Adjustment, and Recidivism among Former Inmates in Prison Fellowship Programs," Justice Quarterly, March 1997 Research Team: National Institute of Healthcare Research [See David Larson’s NIHR below. IMPORTANT]: Byron Johnson, David Larson, and Timothy Pitts.
This study examined the impact of participation in PF programs on institutional adjustment and recidivism rates for inmates from four adult male prisons in NY state.
The full project report is posted on Campus Crusade’s Leadership U web site:
Religious Programs, Institutional Adjustment, and Recidivism among Former Inmates in Prison Fellowship Programs
BYRON R. JOHNSON
Lamar University
National Institute for Healthcare Research
TIMOTHY C. PITTS
Morehead State University
JUSTICE QUARTERLY, Vol. 14 No. 1, March 1997
© 1997 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
This study examines the impact of religious programs on institutional adjustment and recidivism rates in two matched groups of inmates from four adult male prisons in New York State. One group had participated in programs sponsored by Prison Fellowship (PF); the other had no involvement with PF. PF and non-PF inmates are similar on measures of institutional adjustment, as measured by both general and serious prison infractions, and recidivism, as measured by arrests during a one-year follow-up period. However, after controlling for level of involvement in PF-sponsored programs, inmates who were most active in Bible studies were significantly less likely to be rearrested during the follow-up period…
The scarcity of research about prisoners and the influence of religious variables on inmates' adjustment and recidivism can be attributed to potential problematic biases held by both religious workers and scientific researchers (Larson et al. 1986; Larson et al. 1995; Larson, Sherrill, and Lyons 1994; Post 1995). Many chaplains, ministers, and religious volunteers who work in religious programs have been reluctant or have lacked the skills to undertake publishable research. This reluctance had been fueled by a broader historical skepticism about the relevance of religion held by many in higher education, and at best by university researchers' ambivalence in studying spirituality or religion (Jones 1994, Larson et al. 1994)…
Cross-referencing the Prison Fellowship study with the identical study which is also reported on at Vanderbuilt University’s Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies/VIPPS Center for Crime and Justice Policy we find that the John Templeton Foundation was the source of the study’s funding:
RECIDIVISM AND THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT FOR INMATES IN PRISON FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMS
Funding Period: 2/1/95 to 8/31/97
Amount Funded: $128,800
Project Director – Byron Johnson
Funding Source: The John Templeton Foundation, Radnor, Pennsylvania.
REPORTS, MONOGRAPHS, AND RELATED PUBLICATIONS:
"Linking Religion to the Mental and Physical Health of Inmates: A Literature Review and Research Note," American Jails, Byron R. Johnson and David B. Larson, 11(4):28-36, (September/October 1997). abstract
"Religious Programming, Institutional Adjustment and Recidivism Among Former Inmates in Prison Fellowship Programs," Justice Quarterly, Byron R. Johnson, David B. Larson and Timothy G. Pitts, 14(1):145-166, 1997. Reprinted in Jerome McKean and Bryan Byers (eds.) Data Analysis for Criminal Justice and Criminology. Allyn and Bacon (1999). abstract
Larson was, until his recent death, the director and primary founder of the National Institute of Healthcare Research/NIHR. [NIHR is mentioned in the Prison Fellowship’s Prisoner/Ex-prisoner Studies - Program Evaluations, above] located at Duke University. We are told on the center’s recommended Links page [included in APPENDIX #1 below] that the Templeton Foundation is one of the four organizations which has funded NIHR:
ICIHS wishes to thank the following organizations for their generous financial support:
John Templeton Foundation…
National Institute of Healthcare Research becomes
International Center for the Integration of Health and Spirituality/ICIHS
NIHR has become the International Center for the Integration of Health and Spirituality (ICIHS). With the new name, there is a creative new effort to provide direction and leadership to this emerging and growing field of study. Our goal is to create efficiencies by forming alliances and networks of researchers, educators, clinicians, and others whose collaborative efforts will produce research and research-based clinical training to deepen and broaden the body of knowledge about this patient-oriented phenomenon.
David Larson was an achiever in his short life. The following Larson bios are included here to show the scope of his work and so the reader can observe the copious Templetonesque verbiage. Note that Larson’s association with the John Templeton Foundation is not highlighted in either entry, although his many pursuits say it all:
was the president and primary founder of the International Center for the Integration of Health & Spirituality (ICIHS).
Dr. Larson helped to pioneer the study of spirituality and health. [the Templeton theme!!] His systematic reviews of the literature in the mid-1980s first brought recognition of the neglect of spirituality in research and clinical health care to the forefront of professional discourse.
Since that time, Dr. Larson had been actively engaged in research activities, amassing more than 270 professional publications. [Templeton quite possibly paid for them all.] He has also stimulated critical new research that examined the impact of spirituality on a variety of physical and mental health outcomes including mortality, chronic and serious illness, depression and aging. He directed seven groundbreaking conferences which drew together the nation's leading researchers and educators, and became a recognized expert on the relationship of spirituality to physical, mental, and social health.
Dr. Larson was a Duke University-trained psychiatrist and geriatrician, as well as an epidemiologist. He formerly served as a senior researcher in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and the Mental Health Services Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
In addition to presiding at ICIHS, Dr. Larson held academic positions as an adjunct professor of psychiatry and the behavioral sciences at both Duke University Medical Center and Northwestern University Medical School, and also served as an adjunct professor of preventive medicine and biometrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. He was a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and the Southern Psychiatric Association.
Dr. Larson was a frequent resource for the national media on issues surrounding health and spirituality. He was featured on programs including ABC's "Good Morning America" and "World News Tonight," and in news magazines and the national press that include Time, U.S. News and World Report, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe and USA Today.
ICIHS: Legacy of David B. Larson, M.D., M.S.P.H.
March 13th, 2002 would have been Dr. David Larson's 55th birthday…
Dave began his work in the area of health and spirituality in the early 1990s, when the research landscape was vastly more treacherous than it currently is. The term "spirituality" was not yet in use and even the accepted term "religion" back then was looked at somewhat skeptically as a potential health factor.
Dave's initial research efforts revealed the inadequate treatment given religious and spiritual variables in clinical research through the use of his innovative systematic review methodology…
In collaboration with his research colleagues, Dave published numerous studies in leading journals and worked to reverse the longstanding bias against religion and spirituality held by many in the research community. He took a thoughtful, strategic approach to the research, and gradually this approach paid off. His study on the negative bias toward religion found in portions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Version 3, Revised (DSM-III-R) contributed to the elimination of insensitive representations of religious or spiritual experiences in the DSM-IV.
Thanks to the efforts of Dave and his colleagues, we have witnessed large-scale changes in the way that the medical community now responds to clinical issues surrounding spirituality. Published research on health and spirituality more than doubled over the past decade. Studies and reviews containing this long overlooked variable have been included in prominent scientific journals including the Journal of the American Medical Association, the American Journal of Psychiatry, the American Journal of Public Health, Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Journal of Family Practice.
In addition, major books such as the 2001 Oxford University text the Handbook of Religion and Health have focused solely on this previously overlooked area. And the curricular awards that Dave created have resulted in the establishment of courses on spirituality and medicine in more than 60 percent of all U.S. medical schools…
Somehow, Dave managed to amass nearly 300 professional publications, criss-cross the nation on speaking engagements, and mentor countless young researchers without suffering the loss of his personal life…
copyright@2001|privacy policy
APPENDIX #1
Int’l. Center for the Integration of Health & Spirituality’s recommended LINKS:
include:
ICIHS wishes to thank the following organizations for their generous financial support:
Monarch Pharmaceuticals (A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of King Pharmaceuticals, Inc.)
Fetzer Institute
The Nathan Cummings Foundation
OTHER LINKS
George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health
The George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health (GWish) is a non-profit education and research institute that seeks to encourage the integration of spirituality into clinical practice, medical education, and training.
Spirituality and Health - The Soul-Body Connection
Reports on the people, the practices, and the ideas of the current spiritual renaissance.
Science & Spirit Magazine, published six times each year, explores the relationship between science and religion in the context of our everyday lives.
Mind/Body Medical Institute
The Mind/Body Medical Institute is a non-profit scientific and education organization dedicated to the study of mind/body interactions, including the relaxation response.
Dr. Herbert Benson ––John Templeton Foundation advisory board; founding President of the Mind/Body Medical Institute and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has studied the efficacy of belief, spirituality and religion upon physical health and healing
Society for the Scientific Study of Religion [address given links to Brigham Young University < http://fhss.byu.edu/soc/sssr/ <<<<<BYU, but this is an old listing.]
SSSR aims to stimulate and communicate significant scientific research on religious institutions and religious experience.
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) - Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion
AAAS serves as an authoritative source for information on the latest developments in science and bridges gaps among scientists, policy-makers and the public to advance science and science education.
Providence Health System
Providence Health System is a not-for-profit organization which includes hospitals, health plans, clinics, physicians, long term care facilities, low-income housing, assisted living, home care and hospice, advanced medical research and education, and community outreach programs. Today we carry on the mission and good works begun in the West by the Sisters of Providence in the 1850's.
The Carter Center
The Carter Center, in partnership with Emory University, is guided by a fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering; it seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health.
Public/Private Ventures [receives Pew Charitable Trusts grants]
Public/Private Ventures is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the effectiveness of social policies, programs and community initiatives, especially as they affect youth and young adults.
The Brookings Institute
In its research, The Brookings Institution functions as an independent analyst and critic, committed to publishing its findings for the information of the public. In its conferences and activities, it serves as a bridge between scholarship and public policy, bringing new knowledge to the attention of decision-makers and affording scholars a better insight into public policy issues.
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
The Manhattan Institute is a think tank whose mission is to develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility.
Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology
Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology is a new monthly international newspaper that publishes the latest research findings, funding opportunities, and interesting discussions on the relationship between religion, science, and health.
APPENDIX #2
Campus Crusade’s Leadership U web page offers the Colson/Larson/Templeton report on recidivism. The following report bibliography identifies Larson’s contributions to the Prison Fellowship’s study:
Religious Programs, Institutional Adjustment, and Recidivism among Former Inmates in Prison Fellowship Programs
TIMOTHY C. PITTS…
JUSTICE QUARTERLY, Vol. 14 No. 1, March 1997 © 1997 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences
(…)
Bibliography
~ Larson entries
Larson, D.B., M. Greewold, D. Brown, and G. Wood. 1995. "Mental Health and Religion." Pp. 1704-11 in Encyclopedia of Bioethics, Vol. 3, edited by W.T. Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan.
Larson, D.B., E.M. Pattison, D.G. Blazer, A.R. Omran, and B.H. Kaplan. 1986. "Systematic Analysis of Research on Religious Variables in Four Major Psychiatric Journals, 1978-1982." American Journal of Psychiatry 143:329-34.
Larson, D.B., K.A. Sherill, and J.S. Lyons. 1994. "Neglect and Misuse of the 'R Word': Systematic Reviews of Religious Measures in Health, Mental Health and Aging Research." Pp. 178-196 in Religion in Aging and Health: Theoretical Foundations and Methodological Frontiers, edited by J.S. Levin. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Larson, D.B., K.A. Sherrill, and J.S. Lyons. 1992. "Dimensions and Valences of Measures of Religious Commitment Found in the American Journal of Psychiatry and the Archives of General Psychiatry, 1978-1982." American Journal of Psychiatry 149:557-59.
Another study, which although it was not done in conjunction with Colson’s Prison Fellowship, shows that David Larson was the recipient of Templeton funding yet again…
The Vanderbuilt U–VIPPS Center for Crime & Justice Policy report showing Larson’s numerous published papers with Templeton funding:
ESCAPING CRIME IN INNER-CITY POVERTY TRACTS: THE ROLE OF RELIGION
Funding Period: 1/1/96 to 7/31/98
Amount Funded: $152,700
Project Director: Byron Johnson
Principal Investigator: David B. Larson
Co-Principal Investigator: Spencer D. Li
Funding Source: The John Templeton Foundation, Radnor, Pennsylvania.
REPORTS, MONOGRAPHS, AND RELATED PUBLICATIONS:
"Escaping from the Crime of Inner-Cities: Churchgoing Among At-Risk Youth," under review at Justice Quarterly, Byron R. Johnson, David B. Larson, Spencer D. Li, and Sung Joon Jang abstract
"Does Adolescent Religious Commitment Matter?: A Reexamination of the Effects of Religiousness on Delinquency," under review at Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Byron R. Johnson, David B. Larson, Spencer D. Li, and Sung Joon Jang abstract
"The ‘Invisible Institution’ and Urban Delinquency: The African American Church as an Agency of Local Social Control," under review at Criminology, Byron R. Johnson, David B. Larson, Spencer D. Li, and Sung Joon Jang abstract
"A Systematic Review of the Religiosity and Delinquency Literature: A Research Note," under review at the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Byron R. Johnson, Spencer D. Li, David B. Larson, and Mike McCullough abstract