Some highlights from an interview with Tony Campolo on beliefnet, after the publication of his book Speaking My Mind
Christians need to be considering other issues beside abortion and homosexuality.
These are important issues, but isn’t poverty an issue? When you pass a bill of tax reform that not only gives the upper five percent most of the benefits, leaving very little behind for the rest of us, you have to ask some very serious questions. When that results in 300,000 slots for children’s afterschool tutoring in poor neighborhoods being cut from the budget. When one and a half billion dollars is cut from the “No Child Left Behind” program. In short, I think that evangelicals are so concerned with the unborn—as we should be—that we have failed to pay enough attention to the born—to those children who do live and who are being left behind by a system that has gone in favor of corporate interests and big money.
To Kerry, I think my major issue would be “Do you understand us? Do you understand evangelicals and why we’re so upset about the pro-life issue? Do you understand why we believe all life is sacred?” I’d encourage him to do justice and to do righteousness.
To George Bush, I’d say “The God of scripture is a God who calls us to protect the environment. I don’t think your administration has done that very well. The God of scripture calls us to be peacemakers. We follow a Jesus who said those who live by the sword will die by the sword, who called us to be agents of reconciliation.”
I would point out to George Bush that the Christ that he follows says “blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”-which doesn’t go along with capital punishment.
I read that interview too– good stuff.
And we would also point out that the evangelical community has become so pro-Israel that it is forgotten that God loves Palestinians every bit as much
Where is the Biblical basis for this statement? Jesus’ sacrifice does demonstrate God’s love for the whole world, but Israel will always retain its special place as God’s chosen people. Their place is in no way meritted. They are frequently compared to an adulturous wife who is worthy of divorce.
At some point, if God is to fufill his Abrahamic covenant, all of the Palestinians will be pushed out of their homes and Israel will posess it all. I don’t believe America needs to be the agent of change, but this change will happen at some point.
I believe our current stance should be more like what Jonah was commanded. We should spread the gospel of repentance, even to our enemies. Instead of seeking God’s vengence on our timetable, we should share His patience and mercy.
Just a comment about the homosexual section of the interview: There are many social scientists that would say a monogomous relationship is unnatural. That mankind is naturally adulturous, and that adultury should be accepted. Christians need to accept the Bible as their final authority and not what is currently advocated by unregenerated philosophers. A Christian who happens to have a vulnerability toward a particular sin should seek the escape that God has provided instead of excusing their own shortcomings.
I don’t know of any other way of salvation…
This is good, and he should have stopped here. It is unwise and unbiblical to suppose that there are other ways of salvation. Jesus himself says that he is the only way, and that it is a narrow way and that just a few find it.
I think it is pretty clear from Hebrews that the Jews were justified in the same way modern Gentiles are—through faith. They needed to accept who God was and what he had revealed to them about how they should act and how he would provide a Messiah for them.
I thought Mr. Campolo’s comments regarding a Christianity that infuses every aspect of a believer’s life were very good. A compartmentalizing Christian has severely compromised his dedication to God’s service.
Campolo’s comments regarding Clinton were good too. We should always strive for and assist the restoration of other believers. I have no personal contact with Clinton to have any knowledge regarding his spiritual state, but from my vantage point of just seeing his philandering presidential years, he did not show many of the fruit of the Spirit. I hope that things have changed, and that he is back into a right relationship with God.
Chris,
you wrote:
At some point, if God is to fufill his Abrahamic covenant, all of the Palestinians will be pushed out of their homes and Israel will posess it all. I don’t believe America needs to be the agent of change, but this change will happen at some point.
I don’t interpret those Promised Land passages or subscribe to the “dispensational” views that posit a future return to the Holy Land. I believe Bible “prophecies” that speak of a future “Jerusalem” to be using the Jerusalem motif (ie. God’s people, living under God’s reign, etc. It is a strong, Biblical , archetype that is associated with “home” feelings of a deeply spiritual nature. But part of that “home” is the “living under God’s rule” idea, which repudiates the kind of violence upon violence going on there now, and Putin, as an Israelite, is , if anything, MORE accountable for his failure to observe “Shalom” (if you see a “higher responsibility” for the State of Israel, which I’m not so sure hasn’t been superceded by a wider, larger sense of the Kingdom of God).
Dale