Red Diaper Christians
I make no pretense about thinking very little of Campolo and his post-modern, left-wing, metro-sexual comrades in the Emergent Movement. Beware the leaven of the neo-Christian left. This anti-American Dhimmi spirit is quickly spreading throughout the Church and its ultimate damage will only be seen in the years to come.
FPM: Left-wing evangelist Tony Campolo, one of Bill Clinton’s post-Monica counselors, has declared that America’s ostensibly aggressive war policies against Muslims are inhibiting the spread of the Gospel. And he rather uncharitably lambasted American evangelicals who do not share his leftist perspective as “jingoistic” and motivated by oil “lust.”
“U.S. Foreign Policy versus the Great Commission” is the provocative headline of Campolo’s polemic on Jim Wallis’ Sojourners blog. It espouses a new but constant theme for the Evangelical Left: an assertive U.S. foreign policy inhibits evangelism in other cultures because America supposedly represents crusading Christianity to supposedly victimized Muslim peoples.
According to Campolo, America is provoking “religious wars” around the world that have especially soiled the image of Christians among presumably otherwise friendly Muslims. Describing himself as a “Red Letter Christian,” the title of his recent book, Campolo and other cohorts on the Religious Left claim they are guided exclusively by the often red lettered words of Jesus found in many Bibles.
“It doesn’t take much for Red Letter Christians to recognize that the hostilities between Muslims and Christians have increased greatly as of late because of certain geopolitical events—particularly as we consider what has been happening in the Holy Land and the consequences of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq,” Campolo calmly explained to the Sojourners audience. “It is not surprising that the Islamic world is growing more hostile toward the gospel than ever before. Around the world, Muslims are viewing the American army in Iraq as a Christian army reviving the likes of the medieval Crusades, which were marked by a massive slaughter of Muslims and the occupation of holy Islamic lands by so-called “Christian” conquerors.”
As Campolo’s recollected, the Cold War was sustained by conflicts between Marxist revolution and CIA-instigated coups. With a similar moral detachment, perhaps the evangelist would also describe World War II as a feud between German and British imperialism. Campolo explained that “political-economic ideologies” characterized the American-Soviet competition, but “religious war” fuels the current strife. Citing Samuel Huntington, who probably would not recognize Campolo’s interpretation of his views about the “clash of civilizations,” the evangelist listed current “hot spots” such as the Kashmir, Sudan, and the Phlippines. In each place, “religious militants” are clamoring for power through violence in the name of “their gods.” Campolo declined to mention that these conflicts, like so many others, are spearheaded by radical Islamists. Such an admission might undermine his preferred theme, that the U.S. has unnecessarily provoked Muslims into their reasonable antipathy towards America.
The Evangelical Left is desperately trying to win American evangelicals away from their conservative voting habits by arguing that conservative domestic and foreign policies in the U.S. somehow undermine Christian evangelism. Oddly and inaccurately, Campolo described the “10/40 window,” an evangelical term for the region of people “unreached” by the Gospel from the Atlantic to the Pacific, between 10 and 40 degrees above the Equator. Campolo reinvented this term to refer to 40 degrees BELOW the Equator and claimed the peoples in this window are “overwhelmingly Muslim.” Actually, by either definition, this window is mostly non-Muslim, including most of the 2 billion people of India and China, plus the millions in traditionally Buddhist Southeast Asia. But again, the evangelist is inextricably focused on his theme of American oppression of Muslims.
“The American toleration of the oppression of Arab peoples in Palestine, which our government could work to stop, has exacerbated a jihad that will settle for nothing less than having the Jewish people pushed off the land and into the sea, and an unbridled hatred of Christian Zionists,” Campolo explained. “The ramifications of our nation’s ‘big-stick’ foreign policies in the Middle East have been severe for missionary work.” The evangelist described the torment of and imploding population of Christians in Iraq. He also cited the implosion of Christian missionary efforts in Pakistan. Why are Christians, both indigenous and missionary, suffering in these mostly Muslim lands? Campolo fingered only America, without any reference to the actual tormentors, who are Islamists.
Instead, Campolo preferred to invent excuses for Muslim hatred towards America and, by extension, towards Christians in general. Citing the “unity” and “solidarity” among Muslim peoples, the evangelist explained that “spiritual oneness creates a milieu in which injustice to any of their people can be deemed an attack on the entire Islamic people.” Indeed, we need “little imagination to recognize that America’s militaristic ventures in the Middle East, and the CIA’s toppling of legitimate Muslim governments (check the 20th-century histories of Iraq and Iran) are setting up barriers to the missionary enterprise in the 10/40 window.”
In Campolo’s fervid “imagination,” Christians are disliked in the Middle East because Anglo-American intelligence sided with the mobs who supported the Shah against the mobs who supported the Iranian premier who had attempted to topple the Shah, and all this over half a century ago. The toppling of governments in the history of the Middle East is so very unusual, that the Shah’s restoration in 1953 after a few days exile is uniquely notorious among Muslims, Campolo insisted, accurately representing the mythology of the Western Left.
“It baffles me as to how the same evangelical Christians who are committed to spreading the gospel in the 10/40 window support with enthusiasm support military actions and diplomatic policies that make evangelizing those who live in that part of the world nearly impossible,” Campolo mourned. “Perhaps in the long run they put nationalistic jingoism and our lust for oil above the call of Christ to go into all the world and preach the gospel.”
How generous of the evangelist to ascribe “jingoism” and oil “lust” to fellow Christians who do not share the Religious Left version of America as chief pariah in modern world history. Sanctimoniously, Campolo concluded: “We Red Letter Christians…must act quickly to not only stop an immoral war and end the oppression of Arab peoples, but to help our missionary-minded evangelical brothers and sisters understand that America’s militarism is curtailing our capacity to spread the gospel.”
By “oppression” of Arab peoples, Campolo naturally was not referencing the monarchies, dictatorships and theocracies that corruptly govern almost all Arab countries. Apparently he is uniquely referring to the elected government of Iraq and also to democratic Israel, which the evangelist presumably sees as simply an arm of American imperialism against the Palestinians.
The Religious Left in America, like the international secular Left, tragically believes many of the hateful fables that radical Muslims perpetuate about America. They can never admit that radical Islam itself is innately violent and spiteful, and would remain so, even if the United States were to curl up and die a quiet death. Campolo, of course, wants to blame the current U.S. administration for Islamic hatred of America. But why not blame the Carter Administration, whose refuge for the Shah provoked the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis? Or blame the Nixon administration for rescuing Israel during the 1973 war? Or blame the Truman Administration for supporting the creation of Israel? For that matter, why not blame the Jefferson Administration, for warring against Islamic pirates who governed North Africa 200 years ago?
Fewer than 10 percent of the world’s Christians live in the United States, and American policies cannot not be rationally conflated with Christianity. Islamist regimes were persecuting Christians and other religious minorities many centuries before July 4, 1776. That Religious Left icons like Campolo prefer to condemn their own country than radical Islam speaks far more about them than about America.
June 9th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I’ll never forget my first Sunday in a former Church where I attended Sunday school and witnessed this apostate deceiving senior citizens via video cassette by teaching that lying was ok. We need a book entitled “Tony Compolo is a Liar.” I probably couldn’t get by with that title though.
June 9th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
These types get the dhimmi award!
June 9th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Joel,
Why do you continue to use this magazine as a source? This magazine is focused on promoting the conservative viewpoint no matter what the cost is, even if it involves tearing down Christians. Yet, you continue to use it as a “source.”
Also, why do you feel the need to tear down fellow Christians? Nothing screams “church unity” better than calling fellow Christians “left wing, post modern, metrosexuals” whom you think little of.
June 9th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Front Page Mag is awesome.
I can’t believe someone would object to it.. unless they’re an intolerant Leftist (redundent)
June 9th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Andrew,
As the saying goes, when you throw a rock over the fence, its the hit dog that yelps. What offended you the most? Was it the metro-sexual moniker? May I suggest something to you? How about a baby bottle? You have no credibility with me. You attacked the last article from FPM simply because of the fact that it was “ultra-right wing” and yet you failed to provide any substantive or intelligent reasons for your rejection of the actual article that you attacked. As I said before, this only showed to me your true colors as a closed minded partisan leftist demagogue. And now I see that you are also a whiner as well. In this case, I will call spade a spade. Jesus referred to his fellow Jews, the Pharisees as sons of the devil, wolves, blind guides and sons of wrath. Paul told some within the Church to go to hell. From my perspective, Tony Campolo is not a follower of Christ. Rather he is one who self-righteously uses Christ to promote his left wing political agenda and divide the body of Christ. He is anti-Semitic, pro-homosexuality and anti-American. The list goes on. I have no problem calling him or any other pseudo-Christian such. Jesus warned us of false prophets misleading the sheep and Campolo is one of them.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
“…what can I say to an Islamic brother who has fed the hungry, and clothed the naked? You say, “But he hasn’t a personal relationship with Christ.” I would argue with that. And I would say from a Christian perspective, in as much as you did it to the least of these you did it unto Christ. You did have a personal relationship with Christ, you just didn’t know it.”
-Tony Campolo
EVANGELICALS AND INTERFAITH COOPERATION, An Interview by Shane Claiborne
“On the other hand, we are hard-pressed to find any biblical basis for condemning deep love commitments between homosexual Christians, as long as those commitments are not expressed in sexual intercourse.”
-Tony Campolo
“20 Hot Potatoes Christians Are Afraid To Touch”, page 117
“One of the meanest arguments against public schools comes from alarmists who contend that public school students can be forced to study under homosexuals and might even be subjected to homosexual seduction. This contention makes me furious - not because I believe there are no homosexuals in the public school system, but because of the implication that homosexuals are some kind of special threat to children.”
-Tony Campolo
“20 Hot Potatoes Christians Are Afraid To Touch”, page 84
“I’m not convinced that Jesus only lives in Christians.”
-Tony Campolo
Charlie Rose show on January 24, 1997
“We cannot allow our theologies to separate us” (speaking on the relations between Muslims and Christians)
-Tony Campolo
EVANGELICALS AND INTERFAITH COOPERATION, An Interview by Shane Claiborne
“What can we learn about that kind of spirituality that can help us find common ground? No theological statements were made, no compromising beliefs, no attempts to come to a common denominator. And yet, a kind of spiritual oneness.
That’s the place where we come together, in common need and common suffering, as we reach out to one another in love, leaving judgment in the hands of God, sharing out of our own faith. I mean the last thing we are asking in those times is—is your theology the same as mine?—and vice-versa. All of the sudden in the hour of suffering there is a commonality. And that’s where we meet. It’s in mystical spirituality and in communal mutuality that’s where we come together.”
-Tony Campolo
EVANGELICALS AND INTERFAITH COOPERATION, An Interview by Shane Claiborne
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“It seems to me that when we listen to the Muslim mystics as they talk about Jesus and their love for Jesus, I must say, it’s a lot closer to New Testament Christianity than a lot of the Christians that I hear. In other words if we are looking for common ground, can we find it in mystical spirituality, even if we cannot theologically agree, Can we pray together in such a way that we connect with a God that transcends our theological differences?”
-Tony Campolo
EVANGELICALS AND INTERFAITH COOPERATION, An Interview by Shane Claiborne
June 9th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I have Camplolo’s book “Fresh Wind Fresh Fire” I am going to toss it! I knew there was something fishy with this guy!
I am all for the Great Commission as are most conservative evangelicals which send the grand majority of Missionaries. If leftist believers were really concerned about evangelism wouldn’t they send more missionaries instead of attnedning ant-american political rallies and writing left wing propaganda pieces? The reality is that the church is not responsible for the behavior of the American government! Period! He should focus on his ministry and stop meddling in American politics. To boot this guy is a heretic!
June 9th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Joel,
Maybe you should stop throwing rocks. It’s not Christian behavior. Also, you threw the rock at Campolo, not me. I’m yelping, so to speak, because I see a fellow Christian being hit by that rock.
Nothing offended me. I questioned your source, and questioned you tearing down a fellow Christian. Obviously, by your lengthy tirade, you are the one offended.
If Jesus calls a spade and spade, and Paul tells some to go to hell, Joel must be able to say Campolo is not a Christian. Obviously, you consider yourself on par with them. I thought only Jesus knew the hearts of men, but maybe in parentheses it says “and Joel.”
I don’t even support Campolo, because honestly, I barely know who he is. I’m just surprised that you would engage in name calling and divisive behavior towards another Christian.
Ironically, our Sunday sermon delved into Timothy, and touched on the subject of “fruitful discussions.” Ironically, the pastor warned us about unfruitful discussions, and what you have just posted reminds me exactly of an example he used.
With that, I’m leaving this discussion and this blog. I completely agree with your view on how end times will play out, but I simply don’t agree with your other views and how you conduct yourself with me.
“close minded partisan leftist demagogue.” I love you too, Joel.
My prayer is that you place Christ first, and his love for all.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Liberals are so banal. Ho hum…
June 9th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Andrew, haven’t you said enough here for people to know what kind of person you are (i.e., left wing wacko)?
June 9th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Andrew,
I hope that you enjoy that marshmellow world that you live in! Maybe we should all turn our rocks in for marshmellows, so that we don’t hurt any one’s feelings when we are pointing out real TRUTH! And why do you ignore the fact that Campolo is tearing down fellow Christians as well? Is it only those with whom you disagree that you see throwing stones?
Fellow Christians who are misguided and speaking incorrect and unbiblical teachings need to be rebuked. Just like Jimmy Carter.
These types are foolish for thinking that U.S foreign policy inhibits evangilism into muslim cultures. They are uneducated about the roots of islam. Muslim dictatorships and sharia law in general do more to inhibit Christian evangelism than our goverment could ever do.
When will the left ever wake up???
SS
June 10th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Wow, I have no clue who this Campolo guy is… but he seems like a total nut. Still, I think you guys/gals were a little harsh on Andrew there.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:39 am
Ingrid Schleuter wrote quite a few articles on this Tony Campolo . This man is not a Christian but a wolf in sheep clothing . http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/?s=tony+campolo Thanks Joel for the article .
June 10th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Henry,
There’s a history there. I try to be gracious to all as much as my temperament allows. While I get tired of certain types of comments (ie., hateful towards Muslims), Andrew was a repeat offender of committing the cardinal sin of elitism by belittling everyone else on the blog. He also is a good practitioner of the old Arab proverb; “He hits me and then he goes ahead and cries.” When someone can dish it out, its interesting to see how they respond when it gets dished back. But please be assured that I am not randomly beating someone up without reason.
Bless You, Joel
June 10th, 2008 at 6:49 am
I’ve never heard of Campolo before, but I have heard of the “Emergent Church.” I knew they were left-wing, but I never knew just how much.
Joel, thank you for posting those quotes. These so-called Christians who say things like that amaze me. Didn’t they read the part of the Bible when Jesus said that no man comes to the Father but through Him and that He is THE way, truth, and life.
Do they think that Jesus was kidding when he said that? How can they call themselves Christians when they reject one of the main tenants of our faith, that Jesus is the only way?
June 10th, 2008 at 8:11 am
“On the other hand, we are hard-pressed to find any biblical basis for condemning deep love commitments between homosexual Christians, as long as those commitments are not expressed in sexual intercourse.”
Can a man love a man or a woman love a woman? Why certainly we can for we have been commanded to love one another. It’s unfortunate however some today have equated intercourse as love. A particular physical act that God has said is an abomination is a sin and not love but has now entered into the realm of the lust of the flesh and disobeidence towards God
Who should we love with all our hearts? Jesus right? When some asks you if you love the Lord how do you prove it? Didn’t Jesus say if you love me do my commandments? Acts of disobedience only prove your love for yourself is greater than your love for the Lord. Granted it is simpler said then done for we wrestle with the old man everyday. But we have an advocate in Heaven we have forgivness when we fail. But a lifestyle which disregards the things of God that flies in the face of Gods will is not love it is lust.
Do not think Christians who hold the truth are not allowed to judge. Biblical judgement is the discrenment between good and evil, truth and deception, right and wrong, sin and rightousness. (thanks Jim)
June 10th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Hey everyone - I am a long-time reader, first-time poster.
Honestly, I think Andrew has a point - and Campolo, too (by the way pastor_chris - before you throw away your copy of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire - Jim Cymbala wrote that, not Tony Campolo).
I don’t think it is ever helpful to simply label someone ‘leftist’ or ‘conservative’ or ‘wacko’ just because they hold a certain viewpoint. I have never found any of those labels helpful - unless you just want to box someone into a certain category and disregard all that they say. Just because Campolo has made certain statements that are unbiblical does not mean he can’t be right sometimes - just because it came out of the mouth of an ass does not mean it can’t be true. As for Andrew - just because he thinks Campolo should not be attacked by other Christians for his views, does not make him ‘a left-wing nut.’ And even if he is, would the way to encourage him to a more balanced view of the world be to berate him and label him? I don’t know about you all, but in my experience, it usually makes it harder for people to see the light in what you are saying if you are throwing rocks at him. It shows you care more about proving that you are right then helping someone else to understand - which is harder to do, because it takes time and patience. Paul told Timothy to correct his opponents with gentleness and patience, while giving them a heavy dose of the truth! Just speaking truth is not enough - we must be wise as to how to speak it.
And as far as Campolo’s statements - I live overseas and preach the gospel among Muslims. The wars in the Middle East do not help in spreading the gospel, from a human perspective, at least. Its just a fact. I am not trying to make a statement over whether those wars are just, but if your first desire is to see the gospel preached among Muslims, you want peace. Sometimes American foreign policy can get in the way of that, even if that foreign policy is the right choice, from a governmental standpoint. But whether in the midst of war or peace, God is sovereign and the light of his gospel will spread - and for that we can be thankful.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Thanks for your post Jude.
I stand by my comments and approach toward Andrew, but I appreciate your thoughts. At times I use patience and kindness, other times the opposite. For me, both are loving.
Interestingly, I am in agreement that America’s Wars are making it difficult for Christian Missionaries in the ME, but then again, more Muslims are coming to faith in Christ right now than at any other time in history. Interesting paradox.
Bush and the US military have a God given mandate (Romans 13) to defend its people. I am called to support that mandate. If it makes Muslims mad, then so be it. We are called to preach the gospel, not to make Muslims like us. But I certainly sympathize with any missionary who must endlessly defend the USA as if it is their job to do so. No fun at all, I am sure. Thank you very much for serving in this way.
Bless ya! Joel
June 10th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
People such as Andrew go to church and call themselves Christians. I’m not saying he doesn’t have a faith in Christ, but he has a big contradiction on his hands. This is due to his blind support for a political group and that political group’s set of beliefs: pro-abortion, infanticide, pro-homosexuality, pro-Marxists, etc.
Andrew once said that leftist societies were best for Christianity because they were more accepting of all religions….
So how about our neighbors to the north telling a Pastor he has to renounce his faith in Christ because he preached against homosexuality?
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=66704
Andrew and others like him just prove the prophecy Paul gave us about these times:
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 2 Timothy 4
June 10th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Once again, we see people like Andrew telling us to effectively chew the meat and spit out the bones when it comes to people like Campolo. This is really tiring. Exactly what was the Lord’s reaction when faced with the mixture of warm and cold with regard to the Laodicean church? It’s about time we learned what the Lord was saying and stop allowing people like Campolo and his ilk to hijack Christianity.
June 10th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Rather than simply speak of Andrew, I’ll directly address him:
Andrew,
You said that you fully agree with my eschatology. (Ie, Islam is the primary vehicle of the Antichrist). Now, I take a lot of heat on this blog because I often stand with the catholic Church on particular issues. I am often told that the eventually some Pope will try to merge Islam with Christianity. Yet here we have a clear example of a very highly influential so-called evangelical leader trying to do just that: merge Islam and Christianity. Campolo says that the method of doing this is through mystical experiences and a devotion to the Islamic Jesus. Beyond this, Campolo has repeatedly had very harsh words for anyone who is critical of his approach or theology and for the conservative wing of the Church. So he is allowed to be critical yet anyone who returns the favor is a pharisee and divisive. And I am castigated by you for not treating him like a beloved brother. When exactly is it okay in your book to come out name someone as a false prophet? I think my point is fairly made here, but unfortunately rather than seeing this, you were too upset and indignant because I cited… gasp… a conservative news source! I am a conservative. Get over yourself. I will continue to cite from a variety of sources. And beyond all this, if after having observed in Scripture Jesus loving lepers, I also attempted to do so, would you accuse me of thinking I am Jesus? If I tried to turn the other cheek after the example of Christ, would you accuse me of placing myself on par with Jesus? Why then am I thinking myself to be God because I am trying to emulate Jesus in my bold denouncement of your self-superior elitist comments to others? Think about it…
Now despite my strong comments toward you, I would like you to stick around. Running off will do little good.
Blessings, Joel
June 10th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Andrew,
If you barely know who Tony Campolo is, how do you know him to be a Christian? Come on, now. You’re willing to stand up for a person you don’t even know, assume without ANY evidence that he’s a true Christian, yet blast Joel for discerning what Jesus and Paul stated.
You make it very apparent that you hold a non-Biblical worldview. So does Tony Campolo.
If you’re still searching for the truth, here are a few Scripture verses that may help you understand why Bible believing Christians reject the hazy ‘love and accept everyone’ theology of Tony Campolo.
Matthew 5:13
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
NIV
Truth hurts, Andrew. Especially with the unconverted because they have dark hearts. Jesus is telling us to speak truth, which will cause friction. He isn’t telling us to go along to get along. What good will that do? What use are you to God if you accept all men and all doctrine?
Matthew 10:34-39
34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword . 35 For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
37 “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
NIV
Jesus doesn’t sound like Tony Campolo, does he? No. He doesn’t sound like you either, Andrew. He’s dividing the world into two groups of people–His and Satan’s.
It’s that simple.
Christianity isn’t a mushy, pacifist, hold-hands-with-the-devil social club. It’s a new birth. Are you God’s child or Satan’s?
John 14:15 (Jesus speaking here)
15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
KJV
If you’re searching Andrew, read God’s word and ask for wisdom.
June 11th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Tony Campolo doesn’t care about the true Gospel. Where is his discussion of sin, repentance and grace? If he REALLY loved homosexuals, Muslims, or any other group, he would follow the example of Jesus—unless you repent, you will perish. ~Mark 1
It isn’t loving to watch someone drowning in a lake and sit nearby doing nothing. Such a person would be very hard hearted. Yet, if he is truly saved, Campolo does just this. He sees Muslims drowning spiritually, ready to face the terrible judgement of God Almighty, yet he sits by and yells encouragements to them instead of bringing them the message of Truth. This is not loving. For it is appointed for a man to die once, and after this, the judgement. Sinners are storing up wrath for themselves, yet Campolo can’t be bothered by that impending event.
He is either very hard hearted, or he doesn’t believe that God will pour out His wrath on sinners and that only through the true Jesus of the Bible will men be saved. Either way, a believer should ignore him.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:41 am
If you notice Andrew follows a typical leftist tactic. That is to speak up in outrage about an individual who has been put under the microscope, but when he is challenged on his outrage he says, well, I don’t support him…..SURE YOU DON’T….
This is the second time I’ve seen him do that on this blog.
June 11th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Ahhh…an interesting dialogue…Joel, you will never win against idealogues on the Left!!! They have somehow misunderstood that Jesus was not a proponent of either the Right or the Left. They try to demonize those who disagree with them, and ultimately, they attempt to use fascist theological arguments to support their view of the world. Shane Claiborne, Tony Campolo, and their ilk are completely out of touch with mainstream people of faith in this nation, although they’d like to make us all conform to their intolerant theological spin!!!
June 11th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Joel, you quoted Campolo as having said:
“It seems to me that when we listen to the Muslim mystics as they talk about Jesus and their love for Jesus, I must say, it’s a lot closer to New Testament Christianity than a lot of the Christians that I hear.
How can this man profess Christ and yet appear in the slightest to value the Christology of a Muslim mystic who likely only knows the hate filled murderous heart and nature of the Islamic version of Jesus? What Campolo is saying to me in this paragraph is that he prefers New Testament Islam to the total nature of the genuine resurrected Yeshua.
Campolo has manufactured a New Testament Jesus that he’s created in the cold damp depths of his own head. For Campolo to even appear to prefer or romanticize a Muslim’s “love” for Jesus suggests very plainly and strongly to me that he has no idea what the love of Yeshua Christ is. My opinion is that Campolo is the very kind of false prophet that our Lord warned the world about. How else can we explain his on going love affair with the attempt to merge the faith of Christianity and the evil of Islam. What Campolo really needs is to be locked in a room with 10 strong former Muslims who’ve come to know the real Savior and Lord.
June 12th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Jeremiah,
I think it shows Campolo’s desperate desire to “make” ecumenism work. I once spoke with Pete Grieg, he’s a high level prayer leader from England. He expressed to me that many Muslims that he knows are closer to Jesus than many Christians he knows. Comments like this display the growing post-modern sentiment. It displays a gross ignorance of Islam to say the least. I’ve read Tariq Khalidi’s “Muslim Jesus” which has gathered together numerous Islamic traditions (many Sufi) regarding Jesus. They are interesting to say the least, but the problem is that they are not speaking about the real Jesus. That’s the problem. When Paul said that if someone preached “another Jesus” that they should be damned. What Campolo means is that when he sees the passion that these Sufi leaning Muslims show for “Jesus” and perhaps even the kind lives that they lead, he believes them to be closer to the real Jesus than some Christians, that are filled with anger and hatred. Ie., by their fruit ye shall know them. Too a very small degree I understand his point. However, as I said, it shows a horrific lack of understanding and ignorance regarding who is it that these Muslims are actually devoted to, and it betrays an arrogance and condescension toward Campolo’s fellow Christians. Familiarity brings contempt and in Campolo’s case, he feels free to bash his fellow believers, rather than throw himself in there with those who struggling Jesus followers who sometimes do not show the measure of the fruit of the spirit that they would like to. But then in the name of “bridge-building” he gives credence to some one who is devoted to a false version of Jesus. A Jesus who is not incarnate, who did not die on the cross, who is not sinless, who is merely a slave of Allah, who will return to slaughter Jews and abolish Christianity, etc. Again, Campolo is not concerned with what they actually believe, he is focused on surfacy externals which in the end mean very little. He is leading ignorant Christian into Islamic mysticism far more than he is leading the Muslims to the real Christ. I have no problem calling him a false prophet.
June 12th, 2008 at 9:29 am
“What Campolo means is that when he sees the passion that these Sufi leaning Muslims show for “Jesus” and perhaps even the kind lives that they lead, he believes them to be closer to the real Jesus than some Christians, that are filled with anger and hatred. Ie., by their fruit ye shall know them. ”
Joel, this is a very good point. It is true of most of the mystics practicing in Christianity today such as Foster, Willard, McLaren, etc. One error in this kind of thinking is that they are judging men’s hearts by the outward appearance. Jesus repeately warned against judging by men’s outward appearances. He used two examples when speaking to the scribes and Pharisees. One example was of a cup, clean on the outside, yet dirty inside . He also used the example of the white washed tombs that look so beautiful and white outside, yet inside are full of dead, rotting bones.
Many of us would consider Lot to be a wicked man because he chose to live in Sodom, raised his children there, and didn’t leave even though evil surrounded him there. On the outside he appears to be a wicked man. However, the Bible tells us that Lot was considered by God to be a righteous man.
The rich young rule appears to be a righteous man, but we can clearly see that he is lost because he loves his possessions more than Jesus.
Christian mystics dispise the Cross. They do not preach repentance, which God commands and desires for all men (Acts 17:30). Righteousness only comes through faith in the Jesus of the Bible. Our righteousness is like filthy rags, and we are as unclean lepers to God. As Tony Campolo and the other “Christian” mystics continue to yearn for a jesus offered by other religions, they reject God’s grace in favor of the leprosy of sin and death.