Red Letter Christians

This morning I had the privilege of hearing one of my heroes speak at Belmont University. Tony Campolo, professor emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, is the founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education (EAPE) and the author of 34 books, including Is Jesus a Republican or a Democrat? (answer: neither) and the recently released Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith & Politics. I first heard Campolo speak in 1994 when my family was on vacation out West and we decided to drop in on a session of the Woman's Missionary Union's annual meeting in Salt Lake City to hear his keynote address. Since then I have heard him speak four other occasions - three times at Belmont and at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta earlier this year. Each time Campolo has inspired me and challenged me to consider whether I am following the words of the prophet Micah: acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with my God. Today was no different.

Campolo began his speech - one of the many events sponsored by Belmont leading up to the October 7th presidential debate - by quoting George Bernard Shaw: "God created us in His own image and we decided to return the favor." Campolo then asserted that we are practicing idolatry when we take the God Who Is and turn Him into a god who embraces our own ideology. God transcends culture, Campolo maintained, and we must resist the temptation to attempt to incarnate God with our own traits and values.

Campolo describes himself as orthodox and evangelical and currently serves as associate pastor of Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church in West Philadelphia, an African-American congregation that is affiliated with both the National Baptist Convention and the American Baptist Convention. Campolo is rallying believers to identify themselves as Red Letter Christians - people who focus on the "red letters" of Jesus' words in the New Testament, rise above partisan politics, and view issues through a moral and biblical lens. He admitted that this is a challenge, since, as Mark Twain observed, "It's not the things I don't understand in the Bible that bother me - it's the things I do understand." Campolo's belief that you can't win people to Christ if you don't love them and you can't separate love from justice prompted him to found EAPE 30 years ago with the mission of "inspiring and enabling followers of Jesus to live out God's love for the poor and oppressed, in inner-city America and around the world."

I believe that Campolo is one of God's modern day prophets, and hearing him speak today was a refreshing change from the harsh, divisive political rhetoric that has emanated from both sides of the political spectrum during the past two weeks. May God increase Campolo's tribe of Red Letter Christians - and count me in!