As my able colleague tells us, over 40 Loudoun projects are being funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – and he names a few of them here. One Loudoun recipient that he discovered but did not name is this one, awarded the amount of $1,800 for the purpose of “reviewing applications”: Patrick J. Nolan, resident of Leesburg and Vice President of…wait for it…Prison Fellowship Ministries.  Prison Fellowship is of course the creation of one Chuck Colson, the “hatchet man” of Watergate turned “conservative Christian” bully, and it happens to be headquartered – tax-free – in Loudoun County. (For background on my concerns about Prison Fellowship activities, see Prisoner reentry initiative: Beware of manipulated data and Your tax dollars at work: Funding religious discrimination.)

It was embarrassingly easy to find pages of material produced by Prison Fellowship and its associated “Colson Center for Christian Worldview” deriding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as “statism” and promoting the view that government “intrusion” in such matters as an imploding economy is “unbiblical.”

Here, Mr. Colson himself says that “the so-called stimulus package was nothing more than a pork-barrel potpourri of political favors,” and here he refers to it as “a buffet of $800 billion in what I can only call one of the biggest grab-bag boondoggles in American history” (there appears to be a food theme). I think this is my favorite, though. In this piece, Colson complains about the stimulus package (and government assistance in general) because it might lead to lower religiosity. You see, if people in need are receiving help from their fellow citizens in the form of government assistance, they are less likely to seek help from churches and have their (voting, one suspects) behavior directed by the religious authorities favored by Mr. Colson.  

Other Prison Fellowship writers refer to leaders “who fritter away trillions-sapping our economic vitality and options-on second-tier issues such as “economic stimulus,” “disagree with the stimulus package as a matter of economic principle,” rename it the “Generational Theft Act,” and call it a “covert strategy” to “overthrow capitalism.”

It just goes on and on.

As we also know, Congressman Frank Wolf (who is in turn heavily promoted on all the Prison Fellowship media outlets) voted against the Act. I expect that Congressman Wolf will contact Mr. Nolan immediately about his breach of principle.

Put it back in the “grab-bag,” Mr. Nolan. You should be ashamed of yourself. Give it back.