TONIGHT
E-mail a friendTony Campolo
original airdate March 10, 2008
Tony Campolo is professor emeritus at Pennsylvania's Eastern University and founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, an organization that develops schools and social programs in various third world countries and North American cities. He's also the author of 35 books, including Red Letter Christians. Campolo previously spent 10 years on the University of Pennsylvania faculty and, as an ordained minister, has served American Baptist Churches in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Tony Campolo
Tavis: Tony Campolo is a noted Evangelical Christian and ordained minister who served at a spiritual advisor to President Bill Clinton. He's also a popular lecturer and bestselling author whose latest book is called "Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith and Politics." He joins us tonight from Philadelphia. Tony Campolo, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Tony Campolo: It's a privilege. It's a privilege to be with you.
Tavis: Let me start by asking what is a "Red Letter Christian?"
Campolo: Well, he or she is somebody whose beliefs are very traditional in a sense. It's a person that believes in the Apostles' Creed, who believes salvation comes from Jesus, who believes that the bible was inspired by God, but whose politics are not aligned with the religious right.
There's a whole group of Christians, particularly young Evangelical Christians, who don't want to be called Evangelicals anymore and that's why the name Red Letter Christians has emerged. Primarily because the minute you say you're an Evangelical they assume you're anti-gay, anti-women, anti-environment, pro-war, pro-gun, and these people are saying, "Wait a minute, that's not who we are." They want to make a statement that their politics are more progressive than that and they are now calling themselves Red Letter Christians.
Tavis: How do we see them growing or being heard as a voice in this political election season, if at all, since we know historically the power and clout of the Christian, the Evangelical right, politically?
Campolo: Well, the Evangelical right has held the microphone. They have had radio and television under their control. You can go to the radio and flip the dial and you're going to hear a religious program and in all probability it's going to be religious right in its political orientation.
But today, things are different. The internet has allowed a whole generation of young people to circumvent television and radio as a medium for communication. Secondly, they get their news, as the Pew study indicated, from shows like "Daily Show," Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert on "The Colbert Report."
As strange as that may sound, the studies indicate that's where they're getting their news. And people like Jim Wallace and people like myself have had multiple times to be on those shows, and young people are listening and young people are saying, "This is where we want to go. We don't want to be part of the religious right. We are Evangelican in our theology but we are not right wing in our politics."
And they're finding that they have a voice, and they are beginning to express themselves. I think the Obama phenomenon is drawing a great number of young people to the causes for that reason alone.
Tavis: Tell me on some specific issues, for example, how Red Letter Christians form their opinions. Let's take for example the issue of the environment and make the distinction for me between what a Red Letter Christian thinks about the environment versus someone who's an Evangelical on the right, politically.
Campolo: Well people on the religious right even question whether there is such a thing as global warming. Red Letter Christians are saying, "Wait a minute, the overwhelming evidence points in this direction, and even if there is a question, isn't it better to play it safe?"
In short, the old-style Evangelical of the religious right says we don't even want to deal with this issue, and with young people, the environment is a key issue, an important issue, second perhaps only to the poverty issue. Poverty is on the list. They are pro-life, they are people who believe in civil unions, but they're not likely to call these relationships marriages.
So they're conservative in so many ways, but on the environment issue they are really hot to see something happen in policy that will affect the environment in the years to come.
Tavis: What about the war?
Campolo: They tend to be opposed to the war. Here's a war that's costing $250,000 a minute, and what's more is they are really raising some very serious questions as to whether or not democracy has come to play. The president talks about the war having created democracy.
What he means by that is that there was a free election, but a free election does not create a democracy. A democracy is when it's safe to be in the minority, and young people know that Christians in Iraq are being persecuted right now. There was about 1.5 million Christians in Iraq prior to the war, but over a million have fled.
We're now down to about somewhere around 500,000 Christians left in the country, and they're saying, "Wait a minute - is this why American soldiers are dying? Is this why we're spending all this money? Is this why America is paying such a high price in order to sustain a war that is denying Christians the freedoms that they had, strangely enough, under Saddam Hussein?"
You have Shiite law over there now, you have an Islamic state that limits the freedom of Christians in ways that they never before knew, and they're saying, "For this, we're paying a price?" So they're opposed to the war in many respects, and above all they really raise questions about the morality of the war.
I saw one of our supporters, one of the Red Letter Christians had a bumper sticker on that said, "When Jesus said 'love your enemies,' he probably meant we shouldn't kill them." It's that kind of attitude that pervades the Red Letter Christian movement.
Tavis: What does it say about - when you say the Red Letter Christian movement, what does it say about the Christian movement or put another way, Tony, about the state of Christianity in America when you have people dividing themselves by what kind of Christian they are?
Campolo: Well, I think that Christianity has always been in a situation where there have been some Christians who believe one way and other Christians believing another way. The idea that somehow from the earliest days of Christianity it was one unified movement is a serious mistake in history.
We've always had different groups vying with each other in Christianity and the truth is that we have people vying in America and there are many fine Christian people who are republicans, there are very fine Christian people who are Democrats.
Red Letter Christians say, "We are going to try to transcend partisan politics. We believe that Jesus is neither a Democrat nor a Republican." And if anybody asks "Are you a Democrat or a Republican," the response is please name the issue, because on some issues Red Letter Christians will identify with the Republican Party. On others, like poverty, like the environment, like capital punishment, like the war, they will probably identify with the Democratic Party.
So it's back and forth and we're saying that there is no single political ideology alive in the world today that Christians should say, "We're married to that." And what we're upset about is that the Evangelical community has been so married to the Republican Party that it hasn't asked serious questions about the morality of some of the decisions that have been made over the last several years by the Republicans.
Tavis: We've got about a minute to go right quick. Let me ask you, since you sit tonight in Philadelphia, we are all of course watching Pennsylvania in the coming weeks as to what will happen in the presidential primary. There, certainly, where Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are concerned, Pennsylvania, of course, had one of the most conservative Christian members of the Senate, a guy named Rick Santorum, who got defeated.
I'm curious now to get your sense of how Red Letter Christians are going to involve, how the issues that are important to them will play in this democratic primary, because Pennsylvania may be the end-all, be-all for one of these campaigns.
Campolo: The abortion issue is a big one, but this should be noted: both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both committed themselves to reducing abortions in America. Let's look at the facts: that most abortions in this country are economically driven. That is if you have an 18-year-old woman who's pregnant who's working for minimum wage, isn't married, doesn't have hospitalization, there's no daycare, she finds that economic pressures drive her in the direction of having abortions.
Now we are pro-life people, but we are saying it's not enough simply to pass a law. We have to change the economic circumstances that are driving people to abortions, and that's going to be a big issue. Certainly Hillary Clinton has said, "We know we can reduce abortions by as much as 50% simply by changing the economic landscape."
That's where she wants to take the country, and I think it's a good idea. The point is that while the law may be a good thing, it won't solve the problem. It will only drive people underground unless we deal with the economic forces that are at work driving people to abortions and if we don't have a church that has the moral authority to call people to accountability. These are the two things that we need to pay attention to.
Tavis: His name is Tony Campolo, his book is "Red Letter Christians: A Citizen's Guide to Faith in Politics." Tony, nice to have you on the program.
Campolo: Good to be on the program, and thanks for plugging the book, I appreciate it.
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