Tony Campolo: "Speaking My Mind"
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Evangelical Christian Tony Campolo has a new book out. I heard him preach once at a conference in Washington, DC. and this afternoon picked up a copy of Speaking My Mind. Campolo was interviewed by Beliefnet.com recently about why he wrote this new book:
My purpose in writing the book was to communicate loud and clear that I felt that evangelical Christianity had been hijacked.When did it become anti-feminist? When did evangelical Christianity become anti-gay? When did it become supportive of capital punishment? Pro-war? When did it become so negative towards other religious groups?
There are a group of evangelicals who would say, "Wait a minute. We’re evangelicals but we want to respect Islam. We don’t want to call its prophet evil. We don’t want to call the religion evil. We believe that we have got to learn to live in the same world with our Islamic brothers and sisters and we want to be friends. We do not want to be in some kind of a holy war."We also raise some very serious questions about the support of policies that have been detrimental to the poor. When I read the voter guide of a group like the Christian Coalition, I find that they are allied with the National Rifle Association and are very anxious to protect the rights of people to buy even assault weapons. But they don’t seem to be very supportive of concerns for the poor, concerns for trade relations, for canceling Third World debts.
Campolo is one of those evangelical Christians who will be voting for John Kerry next month. He wants a president more concerned about the needs of the poor and the environment. So do I.