Campolo a biblical “conservative,” but his views still controversial
By Laurie Lattimore
News-editor, Alabama Baptist

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) — Tony Campolo admits he’s abrasive. He even regrets not articulating some of his strong opinions in a more diplomatic manner. But Eastern College’s acclaimed sociology professor is not ashamed of criticism, and he’s particularly not afraid to confront his attackers — especially when it comes to matters of faith.

Campolo, labeled an evangelical liberal by his critics, would argue he is as theologically conservative as any Southern Baptist. “I could be a president of one of your seminaries, I’m so conservative,” Campolo stated recently to a group of Southern Baptists in Alabama. “You can’t get me doctrinally. I’m in.”

But while he takes the Bible literally, the American Baptist theologian is also one step ahead of most religious leaders. And with such vision comes criticism.

“People pick on the minor things I say to keep from hearing the major thing, and that bothers me,” Campolo said, equating it to the woman at the well who did not want to acknowledge her sin. “They try to shift the subject to a theological fine point.”

Campolo has been called a homosexual activist, a heretic, a feminist. And that is just the beginning. But those labels come from people who do not listen to Campolo’s message, he claims.

He doesn’t believe homosexuality is right, but he does not tolerate those who say “hate the sin, love the sinner” and show absolutely no compassion toward homosexuals. Campolo said he cannot understand why Southern Baptists are so opposed to women standing behind American pulpits but will place them in ministry positions halfway around the world. And he has little patience for those who try to put God in the Republican party.

“What I see happening is a culture war,” Campolo said of religion in America. “Everybody is polarized, and there is a tendency for each side to make sure you are one of them. And if you are not, they get really mad at you.”

Campolo acknowledged that his friendship with President Bill Clinton is a barrier for many conservative Christians. He added that he has disagreed with Clinton’s policies numerous times — including his veto of the partial birth abortion ban — but those disagreements do not interfere with the friendship.

In fact, Campolo was arrested in March 1995 on the White House grounds for protesting Clinton’s policies. The next day he had lunch with Clinton.

Campolo says evangelical Christianity in America is steering away from being about a belief in the Bible, conviction about inerrancy of Scripture and a call to win people to Christ. If that were the case, Campolo insists, evangelical Christians would not oppose him “because I have those same convictions.”

“But when evangelical Christianity becomes an invitation to enter the culture wars and to demonize people who are not part of a particular group, I cannot go along with that,” Campolo said. Although Southern Baptists are not the only evangelical Christian group at fault in this “culture war,” he maintains, few are as influential.

“The problem with Southern Baptists is that you are so successful, so big, so effective and so theologically sound that you lose the ability to undergo self criticism,” Campolo said. In theory, Southern Baptist theology is on target, he said. It is in the practice where the denomination falls down. “When all these things are true, it is easy to be convinced that [the denomination] is everything God wants it to be.”

Although the theology and evangelism of the Southern Baptist Convention is “wonderful,” Campolo said he is uneasy with the growing impression Southern Baptists give that membership also must include buying into a particular brand of politics.

“I’m not sure where the Southern Baptist ideology ends and the Republican Party begins,” Campolo said, noting he is not trashing the GOP but believes the gospel should transcend politics. “So many Southern Baptists think that if conservative political ideology is realized, the Kingdom of God will be reached.” Campolo said this trend is detrimental and even counterproductive to spreading the gospel.

“This wedding of the Christ with the Religious Right seems incredibly dangerous to me,” Campolo said. “If we recreate Jesus so he becomes an example of political ideology, then we are guilty of idolatry because we have made Jesus in our own image.”

Campolo said he opposes evangelicals in general and Southern Baptists in particular who aim for achieving a “Christian nation” through political means rather than helping people develop a personal relationship with Christ.

“I want to see a Christian elected to office, but I don’t want Christian candidates who mobilize the church, making it a block vote for the purpose of getting elected,” Campolo said.

Campolo applauded the effort of the Christian Coalition for involving Christians in government, but said he believes the Coalition has strayed from its intended mission.

“Ralph Reed is a good man, and he is trying to transfer faith into political action, but the movement has now wedded Christ with conservative politics. Anyone not in it is suspected of not being a Christian,” Campolo said. “The conservative political agenda is a legitimate option, but it is not the only option. Seeing something good in the Clinton administration does not make you evil any more than seeing something good in the Republican agenda makes you evil.”

Campolo said he admires the Southern Baptist Convention for its ability to organize Christians into an effective evangelistic ministry and influence the American political agenda, but he is concerned about the narrow-mindedness Southern Baptists nurture.

The Southern Baptist Convention resolution to boycott Walt Disney Inc. was a good moral stand, Campolo said, but it was too narrow. He agreed Southern Baptists were right to take a moral stand against Disney’s practices, but Campolo would like to see the SBC also speak out against Disney’s exploitation of the poor in Disney factories in Haiti.

“Southern Baptists needed to stand up for sexual purity, but why not for economic exploitation as well?”

Campolo said he is afraid that tunnel vision in the Southern Baptist Convention will keep the denomination from realizing that the future of evangelism is in Pentecostalism rather than fundamentalism. “The United States is the last bastion against Pentecostalism,” Campolo said, noting that Southern Baptist preachers in Latin America and many other continents have embraced it.

“The future of the Southern Baptist movement is highly contingent upon whether it can come to grips with the fact that the Holy Spirit is doing something that they better get a hold of. Organizational genius will carry you only so far.”

June 1997