Tony Campolo: "Evangelical Christianity has been hijacked"

Saw this interview on BeliefNet. It's excellent. Tony Campolo is a man I respect a lot.

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/150/story_15052_1.html

I always enjoy listening to him on the radio.

I heard Al Franken interview him before the election.

post-Monica.

I doubt Jesus would agree with him. Sorry, but evangelicals are believing in a book that has little to do with our current reality. We should have learned something over the last 2000 years with those brains God gave us

Quit living in the past, Fundies.

but then--I really do not care much or enough to waste the energy listing them

It is his faith and the faith of those who follow that particular sect.

I would like to ask people, and this good minister, though, who are or seem to be on our side of the aisle on most issues, why do they think that they must see something happen to abortion rights because they are "pro-life'?

Is is not enough to preach it from the pulpit to the Baptists who sit in the pews and council them as to their own personal decisions? Why does this religious belief have to be something that needs to affect the entire country and all the women in it?

If they are doing the right preaching, then their followers will not have abortions and that should be satisfaction enough for them. I don't understand why it needs to be written anywhere as the policy of the government or that that is what he expects from government. He did not exactly say he expects that, but surely, his message comes off like that.

Thanks lancdem for posting it here... I have been struggling recently with some members of my husband's family about the results of the recent election. They are born-again Christians as well as right-wing Republicans (not much of a surprise here). However, I am also a Christian but a Democrat. They have been questioning my morals (!) and have specifically told me that I must not have any morals to have voted for Kerry. That didn't set too well with me! I am so sick and tired of the extremism that runs rampant throughout a large part of evangelical Christianity. I am a moderate by all estimations (including being pro-choice), yet am ridiculed for not being hard-lined enough. Can you spell 'Pharisee'?

I don't see how, with the methodology they are using and the message of exclusion they are preaching, anyone would want to be a part of what they are about. It makes me sad that they are this way. I don't think that is what Jesus stood for and what He died for.

Its always good to hear from Christians who are not part of the Right Wing.

I wonder who's behind it.

Could it be .... SATAN???? (AKA Karl Rove)



On edit: our entire electoral process has been hijacked.

And he makes some very telling points for folks who want to restore the liberal and progressive strains of popular Christianity. One of them that I agree with heartily is to cite scripture as a support to taking a position, because there are large numbers of Christians who won't do a thing without a scriptural citation. And there are plenty of scriptural citations that support progressive and liberal viewpoints -- we should use them.

Tony's wife is right on acceptance of gays. As far as I can tell from his lectures, he's hung up on one or two scriptures, and I've told him before an audience that his wife is right. We're working on him on that count, but he's right on so many other counts, and understands evangelicals and conservative Christians so well. It's a mistake to discount or discard what he has to say.

very humble and he has such a heart! Interestingly enough he doesn't call himself a Christian..instead he says he is a "follower of Jesus"
I love that!
Diane