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Jack Eckerd's first exposure to the work and ministry of Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship came when Colson appeared on William F. Buckley's television program. Colson was advocating restitution to victims as a feature of the national criminal justice picture, a proposal about which he was and is passionate.
Several days later, he received a call from Jack Eckerd asking him to visit Florida and address what Eckerd considered to be a criminal justice crisis in that state. Together with the Florida attorney general and the president of the state senate, they began to visit cities throughout Florida, advocating reform in the criminal justice statutes and travelling on Jack Eckerd's business jet.
As they went from place to place, Eckerd would introduce Chuck Colson to the crowds by saying, “This is Chuck Colson, my friend; I met him on Bill Buckley's television program. He's born again; I'm not. I wish I were.” Colson would speak of his concerns about the criminal justice system, and they would move to another location. When the group would return to the plane for their next trip, he would spend the entire trip talking to Jack Eckerd about the Lord Jesus. Then they would land, Eckerd would do his introduction again, and the process would be repeated. When Colson left, he gave Eckerd several books by Christian authors, including C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, a book that had been instrumental in his own conversion.
When Colson arrived at home, he then sent Eckerd several of his own books. They corresponded for a year or so, and Eckerd kept reading. Eventually, some of the things Colson had written in Loving God broke through, and Jack Eckerd decided that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead.
He received Christ as his Savior. Shortly after his conversion, Eckerd was walking through one of his drug stores and noticed copies of Playboy and Penthouse for sale. He had seen them before, but they had never bothered him; now they did. When he returned to his office, he called in the chief operating officer of his drugstores and said, “Take those magazines out of my stores.”
The CEO responded, “You can't mean that, Mr. Eckerd. We make three million dollars a year on those books.” Eckerd stuck by his decision: “Take them out of my stores.” When the magazines had been removed, Chuck Colson called Jack Eckerd and asked, “Did you do that because of your commitment to Christ?”
Eckerd answered, “Why else would I give away three million dollars? The Lord wouldn't let me off the hook.” The drugstore retailer didn't stop there. He wrote the heads of other drugstore chains and challenged them to do likewise. At first, they ignored him. Then, as Eckerd's began to see significant sales increases coming from people who appreciated their stand, they began to follow suit.
Eventually, eleven thousand retail outlets across America removed the objectionable magazines from their store shelves, and it all started when one Christian could not be comfortable with professing a love for God while ignoring moral principles. To use his own words, his love for God wouldn't let him off the hook.
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