Tony Campolo: "young people are forcing us to shift to the red letters of the Bible -- to the words of Jesus highlighted in red"
In this article, Campolo gives the impression that these Red Letter Christians are more concerned about “the here and now” of the kingdom of God rather than what happens after we die. I agree with C.S. Lewis who said,
“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”
Campolo suggests there is a disconnect between evangelism and the Kingdom. There is no disconnect, they should inform one another. Real saving faith will result in the practical outworking of that faith in real life. He seems to believe that the Kingdom must be inaugurated with good works by the church. If this is the case, at least he’s being consistent with his theology!
His view of the Sermon on the Mount is odd. Again, if he is not a dispensationalist this is understandable. His comment on love = no killing is very strange. Perhaps Joshua didn’t understand his orders correctly at Jericho and Ai? They were issued by the same God, weren’t they?
Christians must be concerned with the “here and now” because Christ told us to be; it directly impacts the “hereafter.” The basic error is to assume the two are not related. They couldn’t be more related.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
There are two sets of problems here: (1) how to read the Bible and define the mission of the church, (2) how to truly help the poor and oppressed.
Even if Campolo were right to assume a disjunction between Jesus’ words and the rest of the Bible and elevate the words of Jesus, he’d still be left with the question: what really helps relieve war, poverty, crime, injustice?
He’s wrong on both counts because the lessons of history reveal that redistribution is not a long term solution to poverty, nor is pacifism a solution to war.
But it’s not a coincidence that he’s off on both the hermeneutic and the social philosophy. If you read Jesus in the context of the whole counsel of God, you find that there’s no disjunction… and Jesus is not teaching what He seems to be teaching viewed superficially through the lens of contemporary assumptions. As Jesus put it, you have to have “ears to hear.”
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Somewhere I missed where Jesus said for the government to force you (at gunpoint) to give money for the poor where they will waste over half of it and end up making the poor worse off.
As far as I can see, this “message” is “same song, second verse, a little bit louder and a little bit worse.”
MS -------------------------------- Luke 17:10
… and surely it should be obvious that voluntary giving to a need is morally superior to paying a tax.
But in fairness to Campolo et. al., last I knew they were not limiting things to government coercion, though I’ve seen several from that neck of the woods speak out in favor of redistributionist tax policies.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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