I read Watergate henchman Chuck Colson’s redemption memoir Born Again in the mid-1970s at a particularly troubling time in my life, and I must admit I found it extremely moving — especially Colson’s own “conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus” moment.

In Born Again, Colson recounts how one dark and rainy night, facing imminent arrest for felonies he committed on the behest of his boss, U.S. President Richard Nixon, he became so distraught he had to pull his car off the road and park on the shoulder. Where he sobbed uncontrollably.

It was at that exact moment, he wrote, that Jesus Christ abruptly entered his heart and transformed his life. And — truly — he was a completely different, far more compassionate man after that, for the rest of his life. It’s well-documented. While incarcerated for his crimes, he founded what became a respected national Christian ministry aiding prisoners that continues following his death in 2012.

The Acts of the Apostles, the Bible’s fifth book, discusses the Apostle Paul’s (aka “Saul”) conversion experience from a Jewish persecutor of Christians in his day to a devout follower of the prophet. His powerful conversion is recounted in Acts 9, while Paul was traveling from Jerusalem to Damascus with a high priest mandate to arrest followers of Jesus and return with them for questioning and possible execution. Suddenly, Paul sees a “blinding light” and hears a “divine voice.”

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Paul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. — Acts 9:3–9, NIV

So, I have no doubt Charles Colson authentically believed to the bottom of his soul that he had been “saved” by Jesus — i.e., forgiven his sins and forever redeemed in the eyes of God — at that fateful moment on a Washington, D.C., turpike.

But his belief, like all fervent, unquestioning belief in supernatural beings and realms, does not verify the actuality of what is believed. In fact, such ideas are permanently unverifiable because verification requires they be materially manifest in some way in the real world. Otherwise, such things are forever beyond human sensory capacity to even access, much less prove, except as imaginings (which only prove that the human mind is ever-inventive, not that what minds imagine is ever true).

Nonetheless, I remember reading that passage in Colson’s book and finding it hugely compelling. Sudden deliverance from all existential doubt and its attendant psychological torment and physical misery, and its replacement with righteous purpose, was a seductively powerful notion. I had more than a bit of torment and misery myself at the time and would have loved to be rid of it.

Yet, even way back then, I found the idea of a divinity, much less a divine human, so utterly irrational that I believed it must certainly be untrue. So, I finished the book, appreciating the power of its fictional storyline while simultaneously dismissing its veracity before closing its covers (this was before Kindle).

So, what I’m saying is, I fully understand where Christians are coming from. Which doesn’t make them right.

But the conversions in extremis keep coming, as routine as sin.

The latest “Paul” is Roger Stone, President Donald Trump’s decades-long pal and conscience-free dirty trickster who became embroiled in all the felonious shenanigans that chronically crowd around the president. Like Colson before him, Stone was arrested, convicted of felonies and is now facing more than three years in prison (he’s called for a new trial). It would be stressful for anyone.

Howver, the heretofore utterly un-Christian, hard-hearted Stone is suddenly, according to him, a changed man now. In a March 1 interview with the news site Axios on HBO, he proclaimed that he is now unafraid of the future because he “has Jesus in his life,” according to a post in Hemant Mehta’s The Friendly Atheist blog.

“I feel pretty good because I’ve taken Jesus Christ as my personal savior,” Stone told Axios in his first on-camera interview since his sentencing. “And it’s given me enormous strength and solace, because he knows what’s in my heart. … Christians believe deeply in redemption. So it’s not whether you’ve sinned. … It’s what’s in your heart today — where you stand with God today.”

Colson had a similar change of heart those many decades ago, and through that apparent delusion broke the hold of his private demons and went on to live an honorable, purposeful life, from all accounts. Who could deny him that?

But, still, there is zero irrefutable evidence that the divine man who he believes made it all happen actually exists in any realm, natural or supernatural. As there is none for Roger Stone’s liberating conversion.

Perhaps we might all be more willing to give Mr. Stone a pass if it weren’t for the coda he added to his own “road to Damascus” experience. He now tells us that Donald Trump has seen the light, too.

“It’s not whether you’ve sinned– we’ve all sinned. It’s not mistakes you made 15 years ago or 20 years ago or last year,” he told Axios. “It’s what’s in your heart today. I think Trump has been forgiven anything he did wrong. I think we all have and I think he’s a different person.”

I find that almost harder to believe than invisible beings.

While I wish Stone contentment in the rest of his life, I also insist on him taking accountability. As Jesus — if such a binary divinity ever existed — would certainly also insist on before granting immortality.

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