Meet Evangelist Tony Campolo
Mason, John Oliver
Meet Evangelist Tony Campolo By John Oliver Mason Illustration by Brian Stauffer An ordained Baptist minister, Tony Campolo overcame a heresy trial to preach social justice in the United States....
...Jesus is actually present in each other person," he wrote in the book...
...We are wasting so much money in catering to our pleasure, while we allow the basic needs of others to go unmet...
...It's about time we realized that Christianity is a call not to conservatism but to change," he says...
...John Oliver Mason is a freelance journalist based in Philadelphia...
...Campolo opposes abortion and gay marriage, but believes that "social justice is the primary purpose of government...
...We are losing our moral high-ground," he says...
...In 1985, he was invited to speak in Washington, D.C., at a large youth event sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ and Youth for Christ...
...If you were to listen to the religious right today, they would make you believe that Martin Luther King was one of their flock...
...Stop to think about that...
...First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition...
...What we are discarding in this consumeristic society, because the dictates of custom have decided are out of date, is appalling...
...And he makes hundreds of speeches a year around the country and abroad...
...Like many sincerely religious people, Campolo has little regard for America's consumer culture...
...America believes in capital punishment, and Jesus says, 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy' America says, 'Blessed are the rich.' Jesus said, 'Woe unto you who are rich, blessed are the poor.' America says, 'Blessed are the powerful.' Jesus said, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'" Campolo also objects strongly to churches becoming too patriotic...
...policy in Central America in the 1980s, and in 1995 he joined Wallis's Call to Renewal, which fights poverty and racism and strives for peace...
...And yet, I find that when Christians talked about values in this last election that was not on the agenda, that was not a concern...
...Campolo's father was a union organizer, and some of that tenacity has rubbed off on him...
...There are 2,000 verses of Scripture that call upon us to respond to the needs of the poor...
...I want to see elderly people cared for, as they should be...
...Conservatives are people who worship at the graves of dead radicals...
...Imeet up with Campolo one snowy February day at his office on the campus of Eastern University...
...Campolo is used to creating controversy...
...Jesus refers to the poor over and over again...
...And this, he believes, is a treacherous path to take...
...Along with Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Ron Sider, the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, Campolo is trying to counter the forces of the religious right from within a church-based tradition...
...When government and church begin to mix, you got a problem," he says...
...I try to get people to give themselves over to Jesus so that Jesus can take them and put them into law, business, the arts, and to government, to be agents of change...
...It's horrible," he says...
...Campolo has produced a prodigious body of work, including twenty-eight books, most recently Revolution and Renewal: How Churches Are Saving Our Cities, Let Me Tell You a Story: Life Lessons from Unexpected Places and Unlikely People, and Speaking My Mind...
...I want to go to work around the world to do something about the infant mortality rate, the fact that 30,000 kids die of hunger every day...
...That school is part of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, which Campolo founded...
...He says it's time to "take the gloves off" and compete against the religious right...
...This balding man is known for his entertaining, enthralling speaking style, and for using humor and occasionally vulgarity to shock his audience...
...When his students ask him to "spell that out," Campolo says he refers to Scriptures...
...Second, most of you don't give a shit...
...And he faults the Democrats for doing a poor job of framing the issues in 2004...
...It serves inner city schools as well as AIDS hospices and Christian service programs in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Africa, and Canada...
...First of all, children do not die in infancy...
...What they should have been saying is, 'This is what is right, and we're going to do it, because it's right.' When we begin to frame the issues, as liberals, in moral terms, talking about what is right and what is wrong, rather than what is pragmatically efficient, I think the American people, who are looking for moral leadership, will flock to the side of those who can give it...
...It says that old people shall live out their lives in perfect health...
...The people who started this country, George Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, these were not conservatives...
...In reality, they hated him and did everything they could to destroy him...
...Though Campolo believes the Bible is the literal word of God, the pastors charged him with "spiritual adultery...
...For him, the Kingdom of God is a place of justice...
...He cites the positive influence of evangelicals in the Abolitionist Movement right on through the civil rights movement...
...People are spending huge amounts of money on cars that are basically status symbols, and it's contrary to the teachings of Jesus...
...He blends revival with social justice...
...What scares me is that Christianity in America today sees nothing wrong with being allied with political conservatism," he says...
...We're torturing people, and that's not the America I knew, that's not the America I grew up in...
...That war should not be considered a "just war," according to the criteria set by John Calvin and Saint Augustine, Campolo says...
...Jesus came to the world not to conserve the system as it was, but to change the world into what it ought to be...
...I want to see people get a job...
...It's like mixing ice cream with horse manure: You will not ruin the horse manure, but it will ruin the ice cream...
...When you deal with these issues that are plaguing this country," he asks, "do you frame them as moral issues, or as economic issues...
...That's where I am, and that's where I want to be...
...He blames religious broadcasting...
...The major factor influencing the evangelical vote was Christian radio and television," he says...
...Christianity is countercultural," he says...
...Campolo was then disinvited after some Illinois pastors objected...
...But they did not do what their charters tell them to do, namely preach the Gospel...
...On that campus, there is the Campolo School of Social Change, which consists of graduate programs "aimed at developing Christian professionals who will use their skills to transform urban communities around the world...
...A trial conducted by the Christian Legal Society cleared Campolo of heresy, though it did say his views were "methodologically na?ve and verbally incautious...
...What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night...
...All the issues were framed in economic terms: How many jobs are we going to create, how much money is it going to cost to do this, that, and the other thing...
...This spring, he had dozens of speaking engagements all across the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, as well...
...After he greets me, he begins our interview with a prayer, and then he explains his approach...
...Tony Campolo is my favorite evangelist," says Wallis...
...According to a profile in Christianity Today entitled "The Positive Prophet," Campolo would often begin a speech this way: "I have three things I'd like to say today...
...Campolo is a believer in faith-based activism for social justice...
...Jesus says, 'Why do you spend your money on that which satisfies you not?'" Campolo's critique of U.S...
...And he is as fervent about his message as ever...
...But he is no fan of the Bush Administration's faith-based social programs...
...Our goal is to help build the Kingdom of God by combining evangelism and social justice in the name of Jesus," the association says...
...If you were to get the voter guide of the Christian Coalition, that does not rate...
...To be a Christian in today's world is to be opposed to America," he says...
...He has clashed openly with Jerry Fal-well, Gary Bauer, and Rush Limbaugh, and he served as a spiritual adviser to Bill Clinton during the impeachment scandal...
...Campolo is aghast at the way the right captured the term "moral values" during the 2004 campaign...
...The last verse of the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah says, 'Neither shall they hurt the earth anymore.' Environmentalism is in there," he says...
...When I call people to commit their lives to Christ," he says, "it is primarily in order that God might use them in this life to do the work that needs to be done...
...He's also an emeritus professor of sociology at Eastern University in St...
...In fact, conservatives always look back on people who they despised and make them into heroes...
...His altar calls urge all of us to overcome poverty, end war, and stand up for human rights for everybody...
...I've been on the international board of Habitat for Humanity for years, for that reason...
...It says that everybody has a job, to work in the vineyard out there, and earn a living...
...We have reached a stage of idolatry when, in any given church in America, you're going to run into more trouble if you remove the American flag than if you remove the cross," he told church leaders, according to Christianity Today...
...I go to the Bible, and the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah is the passage I often refer to, starting with the seventeenth verse, in which the Kingdom of God has certain characteristics," he says...
...I think to mix the church and state is to, in fact, put the church in a compromising position...
...Campolo says he is "very upset that the evangelical community is not raising the kind of questions about this war in Iraq that should be raised...
...Campolo is currently the associate pastor of the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia...
...Why...
...They talk more about tax cuts for people who are wealthy than they do about helping poor people who are in desperate straits...
...Though he had a stroke three years ago, Campolo is still going strong...
...That's one thing he's not afraid to do...
...these were the radicals of the time...
...Here's a society that has us buying new cars all the time, and has got us caught up with fashion models, and every year, women and men are getting rid of their clothing because somebody in never-never land has decided that these clothes are out of style...
...Campolo was an outspoken foe of U.S...
...policies and culture leads him to some stark positions...
...They took issue with something Campolo had written in A Reasonable Faith: his view that Christ lives in every human being, whether Christian or not...
...It goes on to say that everyone should have decent housing to live in...
...He finds the sales pitch of Madison Avenue especially hollow...
...In that way, he's like one of the nineteenth century evangelists who fought for the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage and social reform...
...If one embraces Jesus, one has to raise some serious questions about the American way of life, especially its consumerism...
...Advertising promises us that products will "meet our deepest spiritual and psychological needs and create well being, a sense of joy, give us friends, and make us young and happy," notes Campolo...
...Campolo has appeared on Crossfire, Politically Incorrect, Charlie Rose, and CNN News...
...The Democratic Party made a very serious mistake...
...What they were doing was becoming surrogates for the Republican Party...
...He also finds respect for the Earth in the Bible...
...Davids, Pennsylvania...
Vol. 69 • August 2005 • No. 8
